Aging is universal, but how—and where—we age can determine much about our health and quality of life. Across the South, older adults experience higher rates of chronic disease, shorter life expectancy and limited access to health care and support services. Addressing these challenges requires more than one discipline and more than one perspective.
This fall, the University of Maryland, College Park (UMD), the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) partnered to launch the Southern Population Aging Research Center (SPARC), funded by the National Institute on Aging (NIA). The center officially opened on September 1, 2025, with a six-year award designed to strengthen research capacity on aging in the South.
SPARC is co-directed by Katrina Walsemann, Roger C. Lipitz Distinguished Chair in Health Policy and professor in the UMD School of Public Policy, alongside Mieke Thomeer, professor of sociology at UAB and Christine Mair, associate professor of sociology and gerontology at UMBC. Together, they lead a multi-institutional, interdisciplinary effort that spans public policy, sociology, economics, public health, psychology, nursing, gerontology and more. Within UMD, SPARC engages faculty across the School of Public Policy, the School of Public Health, the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences and the Maryland Population Research Center.
When I first imagined SPARC, my vision was to bring our three universities together for what each does best.Katrina Walsemann
“When I first imagined SPARC, my vision was to bring our three universities together for what each does best,” said Walsemann, SPARC’s principal investigator. “UAB has incredible biomedical and clinical aging research, UMBC is strong in gerontology but smaller in scale, and UMD has deep expertise in population research. By combining those strengths, we’re creating something none of us could do alone—and filling a critical need for aging research infrastructure in the South.”
The center’s work will advance research on critical disparities in aging, focusing on geographic differences; social, economic and environmental determinants; health disparities; and life course pathways shaping aging outcomes with unique emphasis on the specific challenges facing aging populations in the southern U.S. The center is also committed to making its findings useful for policymakers, advocacy groups and communities.
In its first year, SPARC will fund two pilot projects by Collin Mueller, a UMD assistant professor of sociology, to study education, workplace experiences and dementia risk, and by Myles Moody, a UAB assistant professor of sociology, on how coping resources support well-being among older adults who vicariously experience differential treatment.
SPARC will offer a robust slate of programs for faculty and graduate students, including pilot grants for early-stage investigators, monthly speaker series seminars, grant proposal review sessions and skills-focused webinars on topics such as data management and communicating research for policymakers. Faculty will also have access to one-on-one grant advising and data support services. UMD, UAB and UMBC faculty and doctoral students can request affiliation by completing a simple online form.
From public policy and public health to economics and sociology, SPARC is designed to be a collaborative hub where ideas and methods converge. By supporting researchers and sharing findings with those who can use them, the center seeks to strengthen population aging research in the South, shape society’s response to this pressing challenge and reinforce the university’s role as a national interdisciplinary hub for innovation in aging.