Lives of Consequence
Mark Luborsky '74, P'16
Professor, Researcher, Medical Anthropologist
Mark R. Luborsky, Ph.D. is director of aging and health disparities research, professor of gerontology at the Institute of Gerontology (IOG), and professor of anthropology at Wayne State University. In recognition of his many international scientific achievements and long-standing research focused on life course reorganization, effective functioning and culture, Luborsky has recently been appointed foreign adjunct professor at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, the prestigious organization that grants the world's Nobel Prizes. Since 1992 roughly 44 appointments, primarily in medicine, have been awarded.
His research has been funded continuously since 1987 by the National Institutes on Health. From 1985 to 1997, Luborsky was senior scientist and assistant director of research at the Philadelphia Geriatric Center. Then from 1997 to 2000, he was the first director of research for the Occupational Therapy Program at Wayne State University. He was vice chair of the University Human Investigation Committee Board, and served as a regular member for more than 10 years.
With support from the U.S. Department of Defense, Luborsky and his collaborators currently are seeking to identify and evaluate the critical features shaping long-term outcomes and social integration of wounded active duty military service members with spinal cord injuries.
A recently completed project in Rwanda, "Prevention for Positives: Intervention-linked Research on HIV-Infected People" (FHI/USAID), researched and developed targeted interventions to prevent viral transmission by HIV positive persons, and to enhance Rwanda national research capacity in the social sciences in collaboration with the health ministries.
In the summer of 2013, Luborsky will conduct invited research training on environment and health at Yunnan University, China. Other projects focus on reducing the digital divide for minority cancer patients.
Results of Luborsky's publications on basic theory, critical qualitative methods, and interventions have led to new measures of health and quality of life in the CDC's National Health Interview Study, guidelines for assessing depression in the elderly, and for improving utilization of adaptive devices.
Luborsky is editor of the journal, Medical Anthropology Quarterly: International Journal for the Analysis of Health (2006-2013). He is a co-founder of the Institute for Information Technology and Culture. He also co-directed the IOG's NIH-funded Post-Doctoral Training Program. Currently he serves as a member of the multi-site surgery trial Data and Safety Monitoring Board NIH/NIAM, and is a member of the NIH/CIHB grant review panel (2010-2014).
Actively dedicated to training, he is co-director of "Global Bridges to Advance Health Care Research Careers for Junior Researchers," an initiative for junior researchers' international development at the Strategic Research Program in Health Care Sciences at Karolinska Institute. Since 2002 he has served on the Michigan Urban Center for African American Research, a University of Michigan and Wayne State University collaboration to empirically investigate and reduce health disparities among minority older adults, funded by the National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities, National Institutes of Health.
Luborsky earned his Ph.D. in social anthropology from the University of Rochester. He graduated from Hobart College with honors, with a B.A. in anthropology. His daughter Rebecca is a member of the William Smith Class of 2016.