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IN MEMORIAM
James E. “Jim” Birren (1918 –2016)
A pioneer in aging research, James E. “Jim” Birren is
considered by many to be the father of modern gerontolog-
ical psychology. He died on January 15, 2016, at the age of
97. Born in Chicago on April 4, 1918, Jim attended public
schools and Wright Junior College before graduating from
Chicago Teachers College. He pursued graduate study in
psychology at Northwestern University, working with Rob-
ert Seashore on war-related research. Jim interrupted his
graduate work to serve as an Ensign at the Naval Medical
Research Institute. He returned to Northwestern to finish his
doctoral degree in 1946 –1947.
In 1947, Jim joined Nathan Shock as part of the first
gerontology research unit within the U.S. Public Health
Service. After 3 years, he transferred to the National Insti-
tute of Mental Health, where he started the Section on
Aging. In 1964, Jim moved to the National Institute of Child
Health and Human Development to organize both the intra-
mural and extramural research programs on aging. That
same year he was invited by the University of Southern
California (USC) to start a center for research and education
related to aging, which he began in 1965.
Jim edited the first Handbook on the Psychology of Aging
and the Individual (1959). For many years, this was the
major graduate text in the area until the Handbook of
Psychology of Aging series began in 1977, with five addi-
tional editions, with Birren and K. W. Schaie as editors. In
all, Jim produced more than 250 books and papers. His
research on neurological, sensory, perceptual, and cognitive
functions in aging represented some of the best experimen-
tal aging research. With various coauthors, he presented
numerous studies documenting age-related changes; this
work also acted as a catalyst and model for subsequent
research. Later, he turned his focus to wisdom, creativity,
and love in relation to changes over the life span.
Jim served as president of Division 20 (then called Ma-
turity and Old Age) of the American Psychological Asso-
ciation (APA) in 1956 –1957, and in 1978 received the
Division’s Distinguished Research Achievement Award. He
was a past president of the Gerontological Society of Amer-
ica and served as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Geron-
tology. He was a major national and international figure,
having made presentations in 40 states and 27 countries.
Jim was Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Gerontol-
ogy, Founding Dean of the Andrus Gerontology Center, and
the Leonard Davis School of Gerontology at USC. He also
created the Andrew Norman Institute for Advanced Study in
Gerontology and Geriatrics at USC. Later he would move to
University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) to organize
the Borun Center for Gerontological Research and serve as
Associate Director of the UCLA Center on Aging.
Jim contributed an autobiography to A History of Gero-
psychology in Autobiography (2000) published by APA,
and another in 2006 to The LLI Review. Who better to tell
his story than the person who wrote and talked about auto-
biography for over 30 years?
Harvey L. Sterns
The University of Akron
K. Warner Schaie
University of Washington
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