Ross Andel, Ph.D.

- Title: Professor and Director School of Aging Studies, Director of the PhD in Aging Studies Program
- Phone: (813) 974-9743
- Office: MHC 1348
- Send email
- Curriculum Vitae
Description of Research Interests
My primary research interest is the investigation of modifiable risk factors for cognitive impairment including Alzheimer’s disease and other types of dementia. I am particularly interested in the role of occupational environment in cognitive change and cognitive impairment, but I also study other factors in this context including leisure activities, education, personality, dietary factors, and blood profile.
Some of this research is done as part of my long standing collaboration with colleagues at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, and Jönköping University, Sweden. The work has been funded by The Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation.
More recently, I have been involved in the search for clinical tools capable of identifying early signs of cognitive impairment. This includes collaboration with colleagues from the Czech Brain Ageing Study where we target spatial navigation memory as a potential indicator of cognitive status. We recently followed this work by expanding the data collection to a fully developed epidemiological study named the Czech Brain Aging Study (www.cbas.cz).
I am a Principal Investigator of a subcontract for the Puerto Rican Elderly: Health Conditions (PREHCO) Study where we examine childhood, midlife, and late-life factors in relation to health care outcomes including cognition.
In 2017, I was awarded the Fulbright Distinguished Chair in Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences at The Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra, Australia, and I spent the first half of 2018 collaborating with my colleagues from the ANU Centre for Research on Ageing, Health, and Wellbeing, at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, and the University of Melbourne on the examination of work and retirement in relation cognitive aging outcomes. In addition, I had the opportunity to join Fulbright alumni at a TEDx event at Questacon in Canberra. My talk can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-9WYO_MQ20.
Publications
Classes Taught
Undergraduate Teaching (School of Aging Studies, University of South Florida )
- GEY 3601 Physical Change and Aging
- GEY 4612 Psychology of Aging
- GEY 4900 Directed Readings
- GEY 4900 Directed Research
Graduate Teaching (School of Aging Studies, University of South Florida)
- GEY 6613 Physical Change and Aging
- GEY 6934 Seminar in Aging and Cognition
- GEY 7911 Directed Research
- GEY 7604 Biomedical Aging
- GEY 7610 Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Aging