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. Lynn Panton is a Professor in the Department of Nutrition and Integrative Physiology. She is a fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine. Dr. Panton’s research interests are in strength training and the effects on the physiological measurements of strength, blood pressure, cholesterol, body composition, and functional outcomes of healthy elderly adults and chronically diseased populations. Her recent research has focused on the effects of strength training in women breast cancer survivors. She received her BS from Emory University, and MSESS and Ph.D. from University of Florida.