Becca Levy, PhD

Dr. Levy's research explores psychosocial factors that influence older individuals’ cognitive and physical functioning, as well as their longevity. She is credited with creating a field of study that focuses on how positive and negative age stereotypes, which are assimilated from the culture, can have beneficial and adverse effects, respectively, on the health of older individuals.Her studies have been conducted by longitudinal, experimental, and cross-cultural methods.

She has received numerous awards for her research including a Brookdale National Fellowship for Leadership in Aging, the Baltes Distinguished Research Achievement Award from the American Psychological Association, the Richard Kalish Innovative Publication Award from the Gerontological Society of America and the Ewald W. Busse Research Award in the Social Behavioral Sciences from the International Association of Gerontology and Geriatrics that is given once every four years. She is an Associate Editor of the Handbook of Psychology of Aging, a consulting editor for Psychology and Aging, is on the founding editorial board of Stigma and Health, and serves on the editorial boards of GeroPsych and Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Science.

Dr. Levy has given invited testimony before the United States Senate on the effects of ageism and contributed to briefs submitted to the United States Supreme Court in age-discrimination cases.

She received her Ph.D. in psychology from Harvard University and held a National Institute on Aging postdoctoral fellowship at the Division of Aging and Department of Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Her research has been supported by the National Institute on Aging, the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, the National Science Foundation, and The Patrick and Catherine Weldon Donaghue Medical Research Foundation.