Diane S. Lauderdale, Ph.D. is an epidemiologist, Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Studies, an Associate of the Population Research Center and Center on Aging, and Associate Director of the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program at the University of Chicago. Her research area is epidemiology of aging, in particular how life course trajectories influence health at older ages, and how the life course contributes to racial and ethnic differentials in health at older ages. In collaboration with Dr. Eve Van Cauter, Dr. Lauderdale is currently designing studies to improve diabetes outcomes with sleep interventions. The primary goal of her diabetes research is to test the hypothesis that middle-aged adults who sleep fewer hours are at increased risk of gaining weight and developing type 2 diabetes, compared to adults who habitually sleep more hours. Dr. Lauderdale’s studies of osteoporosis have focused on elucidating ethnic differentials for Asian and Hispanic population and identifying the relative importance of environmental factors at younger and older ages in determining risk. In work funded by NIA, she is determining death rates for the elderly in the six largest Asian American ethnic groups, evaluating the quality of age and race information on death certificates, and describing the cause-of-death profiles for each group. She has also examined how education and wealth influence cognitive function and memory decline for blacks and whites aged 70 and older.