Amy KELLEY

Biography

Amy S. Kelley, M.D., M.S.H.S., is the deputy director of the National Institute on Aging (NIA) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Dr. Kelley works closely with the NIA director, provides strategic leadership, supervises daily operations, and serves as an ambassador and spokesperson for the Institute. Additionally, she oversees diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility initiatives.

Prior to coming to NIH, Dr. Kelley was professor and vice chair for health policy and faculty development, Hermann Merkin Professor in Palliative Care in the Brookdale Department of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine, and senior associate dean for gender equity in research affairs, at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York. Her meritorious research — which bridged geriatrics and palliative medicine by focusing on the needs of seriously ill older adults and their families — was supported by NIA through multiple grants, including a Paul B. Beeson Emerging Leaders Career Development Award in Aging.

Dr. Kelley has extensive experience using the nationally representative, longitudinal Health and Retirement Study (HRS) and National Health and Aging Trends Study (NHATS), both linked with Medicare claims data, to examine factors associated with treatment intensity among older people living with Alzheimer’s disease or a related dementia, and other serious illnesses. Her work has examined the financial burdens faced by patients and families living with serious illness and demonstrated that only 11% of the highest-cost patients are in the last year of life, supporting the need to prospectively identify those older adults who are at greatest risk for high healthcare costs and may have unmet care needs. She also has been closely involved with the NIA IMPACT Collaboratory.

She has been recognized broadly for her exemplary work, including by the American Geriatrics Society with the 2022 Thomas and Catherine Yoshikawa Award for Outstanding Scientific Achievement in Clinical Investigation. She is also a two-time Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai “Palliative Care Clinician of the Year” honoree.

Dr. Kelley earned her M.D. from Weill Medical College of Cornell University and a Master of Science in Health Services from the UCLA School of Public Health.