Director of the Gerontology Institute
Jan Mutchler is the Director of the Gerontology Institute at the university’s John W. McCormack Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies.
Prior to founding CSDRA (located within the Institute) in 2012, Mutchler served as Graduate Program Director, Chair of the Gerontology Department, and Associate Director of the Institute. Her scholarship has focused on diversity, inequality, and disparities in aging, seeking to strengthen scholarship and its impact for our growing and diverse older population.
Mutchler produces the national Elder IndexTM, a one-of-a-kind, county-by-county measure of the income needed by older adults to maintain independence and meet their daily living costs while staying in their own homes. The Congressional Budget Office cites the Elder Index as the only retirement adequacy measure that is oriented specifically to older people and takes into account the unique demands of housing and medical care on older budgets.
Under her leadership, the CSDRA and colleagues across UMB also recently issued a report, “Aging Strong for All: Examining Aging Equity in the City of Boston,” documenting disparities across three dimensions that impact quality of life — economic security, health, and social engagement. The report aims to inform the City’s public agencies, businesses, cultural, educational, and religious institutions, and community groups as they seek to change policy and practices to enhance the quality of life for Boston’s older residents.
Mutchler received her B.A. degree from the University of Mississippi and her doctorate from the University of Texas Austin.