Academy Fellow

Mary Luszcz is a Matthew Flinders Distinguished Professor in the School of Psychology and Director, Flinders Centre for Ageing Studies, at Flinders University in Adelaide, South Australia. There she has held appointments since migrating to Australia from the USA in 1979. She holds degrees from the University of Dayton (BA, 1972), George Peabody College (now incorporated in Vanderbilt University; MA, 1974) and the University of Alabama (PhD, 1975).

She is also a Fellow of the Gerontological Society of America, the Australian Psychological Society and the Australian Association of Gerontology. She was former Secretary General and Vice-President of the International Association of Gerontology (1997-2001) and member of the Council of the Asia Oceania Region of the IAG. She has served on ARC Large Grants Committee and on the NH&MRC Grants Committee. In 1997 she was appointed as the inagural Editor of the Behavioural Science Section of GERONTOLOGY (Karger).

She has a long-standing interest in developmental psychology, and views ageing as a life-long developmental process. Alone and in collaboration with her students and colleagues, she has published widely and her research has been supported by grants from ARC, NH&MRC, and a variety of other sources. She is Scientific Director of the Australian Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ALSA).

2012 Matthew Flinders Distinguished Professor

2010 ACH Group, Sir Keith Wilson Oration, Australian Association of Gerontology

• Luszcz, M.A., Giles, L., Eckermann, S., Edwards, P., Browne-Yung, K., & Hayles, C. (2007). The Australian Longitudinal Study of Ageing: 15 Years of Ageing in South Australia. South Australian Department of Families and Communities (130 pages). ISBN 9781920093529. (Available at http://flinders.edu.au/sabs/fcas/alsa/alsa_home.cfm)
• Luszcz, M.A. (2011). Executive function and cognitive aging. In K.Warner Schaie & S.L. Willis (Eds.), Handbook of the Psychology of Aging (7th ed., pp. 59-72). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
• Chui, H., Hoppmann, C., Gerstorf, D., Walker, R.B., & Luszcz, M.A. (Accepted 4th June 2013). Social Partners and Momentary Affect in the Oldest-Old: Not Everyone Makes Us Happy. Developmental Psychology.
• Sargent-Cox, K.A., Anstey, K.J., & Luszcz, M.A. (2013). Longitudinal change of self-perceptions of aging and mortality. The Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, Advance online publication. doi: 10.1093/geronb/gbt005
• Wagner, J., Gerstorf, D., Hoppmann, C., & Luszcz, M.A. (2013). The nature and correlates of self-esteem trajectories in late life. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1037/a0032279
• Giles, L.C., Anstey, K.J., Walker, R.B., & Luszcz, M.A. (2012). Social networks and memory over 15 years of follow-up in a cohort of older Australians: Results from the Australian Longitudinal Study of Ageing. Journal of Aging Research, 2012, 7. doi: 10.1155/2012/856048
• Sargent-Cox. K.A., Anstey, K.J. & Luszcz, M.A. (2012). Change in health and self-perceptions of ageing over 16 years: The role of psychological resources. Health Psychology. 31, 423-432. doi: 10.1037/a0027464
• Sargent-Cox. K.A., Anstey, K.J. & Luszcz, M.A. (2012). The relationship between change in self-perceptions of ageing and physical functioning in older adults. Psychology and Aging, 27, 750-760. doi: 10.1037/a0027578
• Bielak, A.A.M., Gerstorf, D., Kiely, K.M., Anstey, K.J., & Luszcz, M.A. (2011). Depressive symptoms predict decline in perceptual speed in older adulthood. Psychology and Aging, 26(3), 576-583. doi: 10.1037/a0023313
• Graham, P. L., Ryan, L. M., & Luszcz, M. A. (2011). Joint modelling of survival and cognitive decline in the Australian Longitudinal Study of Ageing. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series C (Applied Statistics), 60, 221-238. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9876.2010.00737.x