Center Directors

Debra Umberson is a Centennial Professor in Liberal Arts and Professor of Sociology at the University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Umberson is the Principal Investigator and Director of CAPS and served as Director of the Population Research Center from 2015-2020. Dr. Umberson’s trans-disciplinary research focuses on the impact of the social environment on mental and physical health across the life course, with attention to diversity associated with gender, race, ethnicity, and sexual minority status.

Karen Fingerman is the Wilson Regents Professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Sciences, and a Faculty Research Associate with the Population Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Fingerman is the Director of the Texas Aging and Longevity Center and Director of Research for the CAPS Program Development and Pilot Core.  She is a family demographer and lifespan psychologist whose research specializes in family relationships and social integration, with recent work focusing on social interactions and experiences in the daily lives of older adults. 

Mateo Farina is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Sciences and a Faculty Research Associate with the Population Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Farina is the Associate Director of the Center on Aging and Population Sciences and directs a research lab examining the life course origins of dementia risk and biological aging. His work focuses on health and health disparities across racial and ethnic groups, healthy life expectancies across demographic and geographic populations, and the ways life course pathways vary across contexts. His work aligns with the CAPS research themes of Biosocial Processes and Socioeconomic and Institutional Contexts.