By Mac Daniel
Jan Mutchler will succeed Len Fishman as head of UMass Boston’s Gerontology Institute, a partner in the LTSS Center.
The Gerontology Institute at the University of Massachusetts Boston will undergo some administrative changes at the end of August, when Len Fishman retires as director of the institute and UMass Boston Professor Jan Mutchler succeeds him.
The Gerontology Institute, which is part of UMass Boston’s John W. McCormack Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies, is a partner with LeadingAge in the LeadingAge LTSS Center @UMass Boston.
Fishman, a nationally recognized leader in the field of aging policy, announced his retirement in July. He is a former president and CEO of LeadingAge, where he was instrumental in creating the Institute for the Future of Aging Services, an applied research center that became the LeadingAge LTSS Center @UMass Boston in 2017.
Mutchler, a UMass Boston faculty member for more than 20 years, will officially begin her new duties at the Gerontology Institute in September.
Mutchler’s scholarship focuses on the impact of diversity, inequality, and disparities on the older population. She is the founding director of the Gerontology Institute’s Center for Social and Demographic Research on Aging (CSDRA), which produces the national Elder Indexä. The index is a one-of-a-kind, county-by-county measure of the income older adults need to maintain independence and meet their daily living costs while staying in their own homes.
Prior to founding CSDRA in 2012, Mutchler served as UMass Boston’s graduate program director, chair of its Gerontology Department, and associate director of the Gerontology Institute.
Read the full announcement of Mutchler’s appointment on the UMass Boston Gerontology Institute Blog.