Neil Charness is the William G. Chase Professor of Psychology, FSU Distinguished Research Professor and Director of the Institute for Successful Longevity.
His research centers on understanding the aging process and its implications for technology use (particularly for health), work performance, and expert performance. He also conducts human factors research on older driver and pedestrian safety. These research projects are being funded by the National Institutes of Health/National Institute on Aging, and the US Department of Transportation and the Florida Department of Transportation.
Professor Charness is a member of the editorial boards for the Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences, Psychology and Aging, and Gerontechnology. He is a past editor of the Psychology section of the Canadian Journal on Aging/revue canadienne du viellisssement. He was on the editorial boards of Aging, Neuropsychology and Cognition; Psychological Bulletin; and Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied. He is a Fellow of the Canadian Psychological Association, the Gerontological Society of America, the American Psychological Association, and the Association for Psychological Science. He was made a Grandmaster of the International Society for Gerontechnology. He has been a visiting scholar at the VA Outpatient Clinic in Boston, the University of Victoria, Canada, and the Max Planck Institute for Human Development and Education, Berlin.
His most recent co-authored books are Boot, W., Charness, N., Czaja, S., Rogers, W., Designing for Older Adults: Case Studies, Methods, and Tools (2020), https://doi.org/10.1201/b22187; Czaja, S. J., Boot, W. R., Charness, N., & Rogers, W. A., Designing for older adults: Principles and creative human factors approaches, 3rd Edition (2019); Charness, Demiris & Krupinski ‘s Designing telehealth for an aging population: A human factors perspective (2011), and Fisk, Rogers, Charness, Czaja & Sharit’s Designing for older adults: Principles and creative human factors approaches, 2nd Edition (2009).
Professor Charness received his bachelor's degree from McGill University (1969) and M.Sc. and Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University (1971, 1974) in Psychology. He was an Assistant Professor at Wilfrid Laurier University in Ontario, Canada (1974-1977), then Assistant, Associate and Full Professor at University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada (1977-1994), before joining the Psychology Department at Florida State University in 1994.
Associate Director
Dr. Walter Boot is Professor of Psychology and Associate Director of the Institute for Successful Longevity. He conducts research on how humans perform and learn to master complex tasks (especially tasks with safety-critical consequences), how age influences perceptual and cognitive abilities vital to the performance of these tasks, and how technological interventions can improve the well-being and cognitive functioning of older adults.
Professor Boot earned his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2007.
THE INSTITUTE'S STAFF
Victoria Simon
Victoria Simon is the institute's administrative assistant.