GxE interactions between FOXO genotypes and drinking tea are significantly associated with prevention of cognitive decline in advanced age in China.

(1) Socioeconomic, behavior, environmental and genetic determinants of healthy aging and healthy longevity;
(2) Factors related to elderly disability and mental health;
(3) Methods of family households and elderly living arrangements forecasting/analysis and their applications in health services and socioeconomic planning, and market studies;
(4) Policy analysis in population aging, social welfare, retirement, and fertility transitions.

I received my Ph.D. in sociology and mathematics from the University of Texas at Austin in 1969. After a year of postdoctoral study in mathematical statistics at Columbia University in New York City, I taught there and was a member of the staff of the Russell Sage Foundation for three years. I then was successively a member of the faculties of the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign and the University of Texas at Austin before joining the Duke Sociology Department as Chairman in 1986. I served as Chair of Sociology from January 1986 to August 1997. My main research interests are contemporary social trends and quality-of-life measurement, social problems, demography, criminology, organizations, and mathematical and statistical models and methods for the study of social and demographic processes. I have done extensive research in each of these areas and have been elected a Fellow of the American Statistical Association (1978), the Sociological Research Association (1981), the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1992), the International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies (1997), and the American Society of Criminology (2004). I teach Contemporary Social Problems (SOCIOL 111), Advanced Methods of Demographic Analysis, and the Demography of Aging Proseminar (SOCIOL 750S). My other interests include tennis, jogging (10 kilometers), and music.

The incorporation of personalized medicine to all areas of human health represents a turning point for human genetics studies, a point at which the discoveries made have real implications for clinical medicine.  It is important for students to gain experience in how human genetics studies are conducted and how results of those studies may be used.  As a statistical geneticist and biostatistician my research interests are focused on developing and applying statistical methods to search for genes causing common human diseases.  My research programs combine development and application of statistical methods for genetic studies, with a particular emphasis on understanding the joint effects of genes and environment. 

These studies I work on cover diverse areas in biomedicine but are always collaborative, with the goal of bringing robust data science and statistical methods to the project.  Collaborative studies include genetic and ‘omics studies of cardiovascular disease, health effects of air pollution, genetic analysis of adherence to an exercise program, genetic analysis in evaluating colon cancer risk, genetic analysis of suicide, and systems biology analysis of Gulf War Illness.

Keywords: human genetics, genetic association, gene mapping, genetic epidemiology, statistical genetics, biostatistics, cardiovascular disease, computational biology, diabetes, aging, colon cancer, colon polyps, kidney disease, Gulf War Illness, exercise behavior, suicide