This year’s European Latsis Prize is awarded to Professor James W. Vaupel from the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock, Germany. This prize is awarded as a recognition of his contribution to research in the field of ageing and life expectancy and his significant impact in the area of demographic research.

James Vaupel was born on 2 May 1945 in New York and lives in Kerteminde, Denmark. He works in Rostock, Germany, and he is the founding director of the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research. He has been honoured for his innovative research on the biology of ageing, the statistics of ageing and the relationship between public health and longevity. His articles on mortality and life expectancy are a benchmark for hundreds of scientific publications. Moreover, he has been honoured by the Ipsen Foundation in France and twice by the Population Association of America. He is a Professor of Demography and Epidemiology at the Department of Public Health, University of Southern Denmark and a Research Professor at the Duke University Population Research Institute. He is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences and the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina.

The Prize, valued at 100,000 Swiss francs (80,000 euros), is funded by the Fondation Latsis, which is headquartered in Geneva. It has been awarded since 1999 by the European Science Foundation (ESF) to individual researchers or research teams that have made, in the opinion of the ESF, the greatest contribution to a specific research field.

Additional information can be found here.