Sara J. Czaja has a B.S. in Psychology and an M.S. and Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering form the State University of New York at Buffalo. She is currently a Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Industrial Engineering at the University of Miami. She is also the Director of the Center for Research and Education for Aging and Technology Enhancement (CREATE) and the Co-Director of the Center on Adult Development and Aging at the University of Miami School of Medicine. CREATE is funded by the National Institutes on Aging, which involves collaboration with Georgia Institute of Technology and Florida State University. Prior to joining the faculty at Miami in 1990 Dr. Czaja was a member of the Engineering faculty at the State University of New York at Buffalo.

She is also the Principal Investigator on a project concerned with the impact of Aricept on the functional performance of patients with Alzheimer’s disease and on a project concerned with evaluating the feasibility of applying engineering and operations research analytic strategies to psychosocial intervention research. She is also the Principal Investigator of the REACH program which is a multi-site project evaluating the efficacy of a multi-component psychosocial intervention in terms of enhancing the quality of life and reducing burden and stress for family caregivers of Alzheimer’s patients.

Dr. Czaja has extensive experience in aging research and a long commitment to developing strategies to improve the quality of life for older adultsa. Her research interests include: aging and cognition, caregiving, human-computer interaction, and functional assessment. She has received funding from the Administration on Aging, the National Institute on Aging, the Markel Foundation, and Pfizer Inc. for her research in these areas. She is currently the Principal Investigator on a project, funded by NIA, concerned with the ability of older adults to use technology for information retrieval.

She is very well published in the field of aging and has written numerous book chapters and scientific articles. She is also very active at the national level in promoting aging research. Dr. Czaja served as the Co-Chair of the Committee on Aging and Human Factors of the National Research Council/National Science Foundation. She also served as the Chair of the Technical Group on Aging of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society. She is the Co-Chair of the upcoming meeting of the International Meeting of Gerontechnology.

Dr. Czaja is a fellow of the American Psychological Association and the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society. She is a recognized leader within the University Community and the Country in aging research. In 1996 she was selected as the Researcher of the Year within the College of Engineering and in 1998 received the Provost’s award for Scholarly Activity.