Meet the People of the Irsay

Biography

Zoey Lai received her Ph.D. in Sociology from Michigan State University. She is a social gerontologist whose research examines disparities in late-life cognitive health through the lens of social determinants of health. Her work integrates sociological theory with biological perspectives and utilizes longitudinal and population-based data to investigate: (1) how stress exposure, resilience, and social networks shape cognitive function and the onset of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD); (2) racial and ethnic differences in caregiving networks for persons living with ADRD and caregiving stress; and (3) the biopsychosocial mechanisms linking ADRD to accelerated biological aging. As an Irsay Postdoctoral Fellow and an Emerging Scholar supported by the Michigan Center on the Demography of Aging, Zoey leads a pilot project examining how psychosocial stress, stress appraisal, and resilience contribute to racial and ethnic disparities in epigenetic age acceleration.

Research Interests

Cognitive Aging; Epigenetic Aging; Racial/Ethnic Health Disparities; Stress and Resilience; Social Relationships; Gene–Environment Interaction; Caregiving Networks