Healthy aging expert named American Association for the Advancement of Science fellow

Marcia G. Ory, PhD, a researcher with the Texas A&M University School of Public Health who focuses on making healthy aging the “new normal,” has been named a 2024 Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

She is one of five Texas A&M faculty members and 471 nationwide to receive the designation for scientifically and socially distinguished achievement from the world’s largest multidisciplinary scientific society.

Ory was recognized for her more than four decades of groundbreaking interdisciplinary research that has major public health impact. She is an international leader in the translation of research to practice through investigations of behavioral, social, environmental, policy, and/or technological solutions to enhance health and quality of life for all.

“I am grateful for the AAAS Fellow designation after directing large, multi-investigator grants, disseminating research through peer-reviewed publications and mentoring the next generation of scholars in public health and aging,” Ory said, adding that she reflected on these achievements in an essay for the American Society on Aging.

Her research covers aging and public health issues such as chronic disease management, dementia care, doctor-patient interactions, evidence-based prevention research, falls and injury prevention, health services and implementation. She is especially interested in quickly developing practical applications for research findings and is a founding member of the national RE-AIM-PRISM consortium, which focuses on this. Her recent efforts have focused on the use of technology such as customized smart phones and immersive virtual reality devices in helping older adults age in place.

Her collaborative work with Clairvoyant Networks on devices for detecting and predicting falls among persons living with dementia is a finalist for the Longitude Prize on Dementia, with the winner to be announced in 2026. In addition, she has conducted innovative and unprecedented research on the role, challenges and perspectives of caregivers of older adults with dementia, which has helped shape digital platforms and other tools used in this care.

Ory also has been heavily involved with responding to and mitigating emerging public health crises including the opioid crisis and COVID-19 pandemic. She co-chairs the Texas A&M Health Opioid Task Force created in 2018 in response to the opioid crisis, and during the pandemic, she was part of a six-member team that helped model the virus’s potential spread across Texas and its potential impacts on the state’s health care system, economy and other sectors.

Ory also is known as a mentor who created a 4C collaborative framework for bringing together expertise and engagement among communities, clinical, corporate and campus settings.

Her extensive administrative leadership experience includes serving or having previously served as associate vice president for strategic partnerships and initiatives with Texas A&M Health, founding director of the Texas A&M Center for Population Health and Aging (now Center for Community Health and Aging), associate dean for research with the Texas A&M School of Public Health, academic partner with the Community Research Center for Senior Health at Baylor Scott & White Health and co-director of Texas A&M Healthy South Texas.

Ory has been recognized as one of the world’s top scholars, including being listed among the top 2 percent of the world’s most-cited researchers for 2021-2024 by Stanford University. She has authored or co-authored more than 10 edited books, 50 book chapters, 30 special thematic issues in professional journals, 500 peer-reviewed articles and delivered more than 750 presentations. She has also received more than $75 million in funding for research and service projects.

Her awards and achievements include being named a Regents Professor by The Texas A&M University System and Distinguished Professor by Texas A&M University; receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Aging and Public Health Section of the American Public Health Association; being elected a member/fellow of the Academy for Behavioral Medicine Research, American Academy of Health Behavior, Gerontological Society of America, Society for Behavioral Medicine; and receiving the American Public Health Association Philip G. Weiler Leadership in Aging Award, the American Academy of Health Behavior Research Laureate Award and the Healthcare Leadership Council’s Redefining American Healthcare Award.

She earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Texas at Austin, master’s degrees from The Johns Hopkins University and Indiana University, and a PhD from Purdue University, where she was named a distinguished alumna. Prior to joining the Texas A&M faculty in 2001, she spent 20 years as chief of social science research on aging in the National Institute on Aging’s Behavioral and Social Research Program at the National Institutes of Health.