Udry Lecture: Jennifer Manly: Social and Structural Drivers of Cognitive Aging and Dementia

The 2024 J. Richard Udry Distinguished Lecture will be presented by Jennifer Manly, a Professor of Neuropsychology in Neurology at the Gertrude H. Sergievsky Center and the Taub Institute for Research in Aging and Alzheimer’s disease at Columbia University.

Her research focuses on mechanisms of inequalities in cognitive aging and Alzheimer’s Disease. Her research team has partnered with the Black and Latinx communities in New York City and around the United States to design and carry out investigations of structural and social forces across the lifecourse, such as educational opportunities, discrimination, and socioeconomic inequality, and how these factors relate to cognition and brain health later in life. She is the MPI of the Columbia Interdisciplinary Research Center on Alzheimer’s Disparities which focuses on mentoring early career scientists from minoritized backgrounds.

Her research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Alzheimer’s Association, and she has authored over 220 peer-reviewed publications and 10 chapters. She was the 2014 recipient of the Tony Wong Diversity Award for Outstanding Mentorship, was the recipient of the Paul Satz-International Neuropsychological Society Career Mentoring Award in 2020, and was named the Irving Institute for Clinical and Translational Research Senior Mentor of the Year in 2022. Dr. Manly was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2021. She served on the HHS Advisory Council on Alzheimer’s Research, Care and Services from 2011 – 2015 and is a current member of the National Advisory Council on Aging.