John PHILLIPS

Research Interests/Portfolio

Dr. John W. R. Phillips serves as Chief of the Population and Social Processes Branch (PSP) of the NIA Division of Behavioral and Social Research (BSR). During a career spanning over 20 years, John has worked to produce research and data resources on aging related topics. Prior to joining BSR in 2018, John was Associate Commissioner for Research, Evaluation, and Statistics at the US Social Security Administration, one of the 13 principal federal statistical agencies charged with producing research and data to inform policy-makers and the public about the nation’s retirement and disability programs.  He previously served in other research roles in the federal government including Health Scientist Administrator for NIA, as well as Research Economist and Director of the Office of Policy Research at SSA. John received a PhD in Economics from Syracuse University. His research examined aging issues ranging from retirement security, intergenerational transfers, and distributional effects of retirement and disability programs.   Both his pre-doctoral research and his post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania were funded by NIA.  John’s current portfolio at NIA focuses on the economics of aging and the development of international comparators to the US Health and Retirement Study to support aging research.