Biography
Waite directs NORC's Center on Demography and Economics of Aging, which provides support to more than 30 researchers working in the areas of social relationships, living arrangements, and family; the social context of aging; health care research; and biobehavioral pathways. The Center is supported by a grant from the National Institute on Aging.
Waite's work on biomarkers and pharmaceutical data on population-based aging research has yielded groundbreaking knowledge about the sexual behavior of older Americans as part of the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project (NSHAP), the project for which she received the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Method to Extend Research in Time (MERIT) award in 2008.
Waite is also the Lucy Flower Professor in Sociology and the College at the University of Chicago. She also serves as Co-Director of the University of Chicago's MD/PhD Program in Medicine, the Social Sciences, and Aging; and chairs the Committee on Demographic Training at the University of Chicago and NORC.