Member Spotlight

Q&A with George L. Maddox, PhD, DSc from Durham, North Carolina.

Q: How did you become involved with GSA? 
A: When I arrived at Duke in 1959 as a Russell Sage Foundation post-doc in medical sociology, Bud Busse, who was director of the all-university, multidisciplinary Center for Aging had just begun the Duke Longitudinal Studies of Normal Aging, invited me to join his team.  Busse, who was known for his interest in developing the careers of younger scholars, encouraged me to join GSA because, he said, that was where the action was.

About 1960, I attended my first annual meeting in Minneapolis where the total membership attending only filled a small room.  Busse introduced me to the movers and shakers and in weekly meetings with colleagues in the Duke Center over the years discussed research published in The Gerontologist.   Busse also sponsored my nomination for study section work at NIH.  GSA members and publications were essential components in the development of my career in gerontology over the next 50 years.  I also learned how to give back to GSA through active participation in its activities and was rewarded with positions of responsibility in GSA sections: the GSA presidency and as Secretary General of the International Association, including the 1985 International Congress of Aging in NYC.

Q: How does GSA assist you with your professional development?
A: Supportive colleagues and access to timely information about one's professional and academic interests are essential to one's career.  Timely availability of current research was provided by GSA in well edited and referenced publications.  Annual meetings were like the meeting of the pack and became my favorite professional society.

The interest of GSA in recent years in public policy issues has been a welcome addition.  Largely, GSA's multidisciplinary agenda correctly anticipates the future of science.

Q: How did you get interested in the field of aging?
A: Bud Busse at Duke and his colleagues in the Duke Aging Center encouraged me to join GSA as a quick way to be introduced to the field.  The importance of making key connections with leading scholars in the field made sense.  Since I was an accidental gerontologist, a medical sociologist with no previous interest in aging, GSA offered a fast track to test my interest.  I liked what I saw and got involved professionally.

Q: What are your key responsibilities at your job?
A: I retired at Duke first in 1995 and finally, totally retired after serving as a research consultant to Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in 2009.  Before that I was a member of the Duke University and Medical Center faculty as Professor of Medical Sociology.  I became Aging Center Director of Research, and then Center Director (1972-82).  In the 1980s and 90s I created a Public Policy  Program in the Center that focused on the development of community initiatives in adult education, community-based LTC, and programs supporting family care for AD patients.

My research over the years encouraged my commitment to translating multidisciplinary Gerontological research into effective community programs for older adults.  This was the theme of my Kleemeier Lecture, "Aging Differently" in 1985.  Along the way, I particularly enjoyed a long association with Linda George, an early teaching assistant at Duke, and Lisa Gwyther, who was selected to develop the pioneering Duke Family Support program for AD Care in North Carolina.  Both were destined to become Presidents of GSA.

Q: What has been your most memorable experience in gerontology and aging research?
A: The Duke Longitudinal Studies of Normal Aging anticipated the interest in multidisciplinary, longitudinal research that was to become a major focus in gerontology and geriatrics.  Also my interest in policy issues anticipated the interest of gerontologist in issues of translating basic science information into useful information for developing effective community-based programs.  As a Founding Member of Council of the National Institutes on Aging, NIH, I saw a national implementation of the multidisciplinary, translational perspective of GSA implemented.

Q: Do you have any tips for emerging gerontologists?
A: If you can, associate with people who are smarter than you are and who believe in the practical usefulness of multidisciplinary, longitudinal research.

Q: Tell us a little about your most recent activities/accomplishments?
A: I fully retired on my 84th birthday, July 2, 2009.  I put the historical papers of the Aging Center and my personal papers in the University Archive.  I wrote for my family a memoir of my involvement in civil rights in Mississippi in the 1950s that resulted in giving up my first academic appoint and my migration to North Carolina to become an accidental gerontologist.  A second memoir is based on a re-reading of a dozen books that I remember as having an impact on my thoughts and values as an undergraduate and the impact of these books on my subsequent thoughts and values. 

Q: Have you had an important mentor in your career? If so, how did it make a difference?
A: At Duke Bud Busse's vision of an all-university, multidisciplinary center for aging became my model of research on aging.  British colleagues at St. Thomas' Hospital, LSE, and LSH introduced me the multidisciplinary, applied objectives of epidemiology during my first post-doc in London in 1960, a perspective that meshed well with the intellectual perspective of gerontology.  A host of colleagues at Duke, far too many to mention, have been intellectual mentors over my entire career.  Together they taught me that good gerontology and geriatrics require both good research and a commitment to the translation of that research in community applications.