James W. Vaupel (May 2, 1945 – March 27, 2022) was an American scientist in the fields of aging research,

biodemography Biodemography is the science dealing with the integration of biological theory and demography. Overview Biodemography is a new branch of human (classical) demography concerned with understanding the complementary biological and demographic deter ...

, and formal

demography Demography () is the statistical study of populations, especially human beings. Demographic analysis examines and measures the dimensions and dynamics of populations; it can cover whole societies or groups defined by criteria such as edu ...

. He was instrumental in developing and advancing the idea of the plasticity of longevity, and pioneered research on the heterogeneity of mortality risks and on the deceleration of

death rates Mortality rate, or death rate, is a measure of the number of deaths (in general, or due to a specific cause) in a particular population, scaled to the size of that population, per unit of time. Mortality rate is typically expressed in units of de ...

at the highest ages.

Later positions

Vaupel was the founding director of the

Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research The Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR) is located in Rostock, Germany. It was founded in 1996 by James Vaupel and moved into new buildings in Rostock in 2002. It is one of approximately 80 institutes of the Max Planck Society. ...

Rostock Rostock (), officially the Hanseatic and University City of Rostock (german: link=no, Hanse- und Universitätsstadt Rostock), is the largest city in the German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and lies in the Mecklenburgian part of the state, ...

, Germany in 1996. He was also a research professor at Duke University and the director of its Population, Policy, Aging and Research Center. Vaupel was a member of the

German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina The German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina (german: Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina – Nationale Akademie der Wissenschaften), short Leopoldina, is the national academy of Germany, and is located in Halle (Saale). Founde ...

, a regular scientific member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and fellow of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...

. He has been involved in many endeavors and published over 20 books.

Contributions

Convinced that formal demography is the source of the discipline's strength, Vaupel has contributed to the methodological foundations of demography. In 2001 he was awarded by the Population Association of America the Irene B. Taeuber Award for his lifetime research achievements. In 2008 he received the Mindel C. Sheps Award for his work in mathematical demography. Vaupel has been a leading proponent of the idea of the plasticity of longevity. Many people believe there is a looming limit to human

life expectancy Life expectancy is a statistical measure of the average time an organism is expected to live, based on the year of its birth, current age, and other demographic factors like sex. The most commonly used measure is life expectancy at birth ...

. Vaupel's research shows that life expectancy is likely to increase well beyond the purported limit of 85 years. Furthermore, Vaupel and others (such as Bernard Jeune of

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) advanced a new proposition: that the human life span is not fixed, but is a function of

and

population size In population genetics and population ecology, population size (usually denoted ''N'') is the number of individual organisms in a population. Population size is directly associated with amount of genetic drift, and is the underlying cause of effect ...

. He and S. Jay Olshansky have had a disagreement about what this means in terms of future projections of the human life span. Vaupel's work also focuses on the nascent field of evolutionary demography. His research activities here strive to understand age-specific mortality in terms of the evolutionary processes that shape it. Because in his studies, particular attention is paid to mortality improvements at the end of the lifespan, Vaupel has been instrumental in the emerging field of research into

supercentenarians A supercentenarian (sometimes hyphenated as super-centenarian) is a person who has reached the age of 110 years. This age is achieved by about one in 1,000 centenarians. Supercentenarians typically live a life free of major age-related diseases u ...

as a population subset. The number of persons aged 110+ in a single European nation is rather small. Vaupel therefore began the push in 2000 by inviting experts from around the world to meet in international workshops and to found the International Database on Longevity, which provides information on individuals attaining extreme ages and permits demographic analysis of mortality at the highest ages.

References

External links

Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research

Homepage James Vaupel at Population, Policy and Aging Research Center

Max Planck Society

National Academy of Sciences

American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Population Association of America

{{DEFAULTSORT:Vaupel, James 1945 births 2022 deaths American demographers Scientists from New York City Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences University of Minnesota faculty Max Planck Society people Mathematicians from New York (state)