Member Spotlight

Q&A with Ronald P. Abeles, PhD from Bethesda, MD.

Q: Why did you become a member and how did GSA assist you with your professional development?
A: I joined the GSA in 1981, shortly after taking up the position of Deputy Director of the Behavioral and Social Research Program at the National Institute on Aging (NIA). Having been trained in the interdisciplinary Department of Social Relations at Harvard University and having worked at the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) with interdisciplinary committees, I found the multidisciplinary nature of the GSA to be attractive and distinctive as well as essential for understanding and addressing questions and issues in aging. My undergraduate and graduate training had neither addressed child development nor aging. Consequently, participating in the GSA was invaluable “on-the-job training” that was essential for performing my scientific duties at the National Institute on Aging (1980-1998). Not only did GSA afford content learning, but also it provided “people” learning. Most of the grant applicants and grantees with whom I dealt on a daily basis were members of GSA; attending the GSA’s annual meetings put a “human face” on them as well as fostered the development of collegial relations over the years.

Q: How did you get interested in the field of aging?
A: My interest in aging, actually life-course development, came about quite fortuitously. After teaching social psychology for two years in a psychology department, I joined the SSRC primarily to provide staff support to a committee on the impact of mass media on national elections. In addition, I was assigned as staff to the Committee on Work and Personality in the Middle Years, which included Orville G. Brim, Jr. as chairperson and Matilda White Riley as one of many illustrious members. This committee morphed fairly rapidly into the Committee on Life-Course Perspectives in Middle and Old Age, with Matilda Riley as chairperson and with Paul Baltes as one of its key members. These committees and their members exposed me to new and exciting concepts, theories, methods, and scientific and policy issues. What a learning experience this was! It transformed my career from a would-be social psychologist of political behavior to a health science administrator of social and behavioral science research on issues of fundamental importance to the lives of people and the functioning of society.

Q: What were your key responsibilities at your job?
A: My two positions during my 30 years at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) had two categories of responsibilities: One looking outward to NIH’s constituents and the other looking inward to NIH’s components and staff. Looking outward involved developing initiatives to fund research projects and training programs as well as to fund the development of research methodologies and resources (e.g., data sets and banks). These objectives included discussions with the research community, often through NIH-organized workshops and conferences on order to (a) build agendas for research and training and to (b) design and implement NIH-organized training sessions (e.g. summer institute on randomized control trials involving behavioral interventions). At the same time, my position involved assisting grant applicants navigate the path to becoming a grantee. I always thought this was the most stimulating and rewarding part of the job. Sometimes it was even creative: I could freely offer advice, identify topics and issues, and suggest analyses. And I didn’t have to do any of the work or face the difficulties in implementing such advice! (Of course, I always told applicants that these were just my personal opinions and need not be followed.)

Looking inward towards NIH, my positions at the NIA and at the Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research, Office of the Director (OBSSR) involved the usual administrative duties of supervising staff, developing and monitoring budgets, and attending seemingly endless NIA and OBSSR staff meetings. With my move to OBSSR in 1998, it also emphasized identifying, developing, and coordinating trans-NIH funding opportunities (e.g., behavioral and social determinants of health disparities). While at NIA and at OBSSR I chaired a trans-NIH coordinating committee for the behavioral and social sciences and organized monthly guest-lectures on (hopefully exciting) behavioral and science research relevant to the mission of the NIH.

Q: What has been your most memorable experience in gerontology and aging research?
A: Surely this must be during my early years at NIA when Matilda White Riley was building the newly formed behavioral and social research program. Her broad vision and pioneer thinking influenced not only behavioral and social research at NIA but across all of NIH. It was a heady period with her engaging the leaders in the various fields of social, behavioral, and neuroscience science in order to bring them into aging research and to expand the breadth and strengthen the scientific base of gerontology. Conversely and rightly she perceived that the behavioral and social science disciplines were incomplete without including at their cores the dynamics of life-course development and of cohort successions.

Q: Why is it important for others to join GSA?
A: GSA offers numerous avenues for expanding professional and scientific horizons by providing access to scientific literatures and exchanges among researchers and practitioners across multiple disciplines and fields. If you take advantage of what is available, membership in the GSA offers a antidote to the trend in sciences and practice of more and more specialization and less and less exposure to people with different interests and expertise.

Q: Do you have any tips for emerging gerontologists?
A: Of course, I have the standard tips of networking and keeping current. In addition, I would advise being open-minded to alternative careers. Don’t dismiss out of hand a possible new job or research topic. Explore it, because it may be interesting and open up an entirely different career line for you. For example, when I was an assistant professor in a psychology department, I had applied for a job at another department, which I didn’t get. However, applying had the effect of alerting colleagues and mentors that I was “on the market.” Unexpectedly, I received a telephone call inviting me to consider a position at the SSRC in New York City. The caller asked, “Would you like to come for an interview?” My reply was “Sure. What’s the SSRC?” That question and the subsequent answer changed my entire life.

Q: Tell us about your most recent activities?
A: Having retired from the NIH in October 2010, I am only somewhat engaged in my former professional interests and activities. I attend lectures at the NIH, for example. But, when planning retirement, I doubted that this would be sufficient to keep me engaged intellectually and socially. Consequently, I accepted the invitation from GSA to serve as chair of the Information Technology Committee for three years, which I am now doing. This appointment is not without irony. I had been serving as a representative to the committee for the BSS Section, but had resigned. The reward for resigning was being appointed the chairperson!

Q: Have you had an important mentor in your career? If so, how did it make a difference?
A: I have been fortunate to stumble onto mentors at critical periods of my career. As an undergraduate at UCLA, David O. Sears in the psychology department played a key role in my education and subsequent decision about which graduate school to attend. Later he wrote letters of recommendation as well as spontaneously recommended me for positions, including that fateful one at SSRC. Without Dave’s advice I would never have experienced Harvard with its horizon-broadening Department of Social Relations and would never have been invited to interview at the SSRC.

During my time at SSRC and at NIH, Matilda White Riley and Paul Baltes provided multiple opportunities to learn about theories and research in life-course development, introduced me to the leaders in the field, and counseled me on my career. I can still hear Matilda saying, “Ron, you should take the job at NIH. It would be the perfect career for you.” She was right.