Dawn C. Carr is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Claude Pepper Center at Florida State University. Carr’s work seeks to enhance health and wellbeing as people move through middle and later life and the resources and interventions that allow people to remain active and engaged members of society for as long as possible. Her recent work examines how working and volunteering influences physical, psychological, and cognitive health in middle and later life, and the role of psychological resources in shaping recovery from stressful exposures such as spousal loss, financial precarity, falls, and the onset of chronic health conditions.

Amanda Sonnega, PhD, is a Research Scientist in the Survey Research Center of the Institute for Social Research (ISR) at the University of Michigan (UM), where she is responsible for integrating communication, outreach, and education efforts for the Health and Retirement Study. She received her doctorate through the Department of Health, Behavior, and Society at the Johns Hopkins University and completed a postdoctoral fellowship within the ISR program in Social Environment and Health. Dr. Sonnega has lectured in the UM School of Public Health on psychosocial factors in health-related behavior. Her research focuses on life course trajectories of physical and mental health; institutional and personal factors associated with vulnerability and resilience in aging individuals; and work transitions and their broad effects on health and well-being.