Becca Levy


Becca R. Levy is a Professor of Epidemiology at Yale School of Public Health and Professor of Psychology at Yale University. She is a leading researcher in the fields of social gerontology and psychology of aging. She has conducted foundational research on how self-stereotypes operate and how older individuals are influenced by and can influence their societies.

Career

Levy was born in Atlanta, GA. She studied psychology and Near Eastern studies at the University of Michigan. She received her MA and PhD in Psychology from Harvard University. She trained as a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School in the Division on aging and Department of Social Medicine. Afterward, she started teaching as an assistant professor at Yale School of Public Health.
Levy's primary research interests lie in examining the psycho-social influences of aging on individual health and well-being. In particular, her work has focused on elucidating the mechanisms by which self perceptions of aging and age stereotypes impact both cognitive and physical health. In a series of studies, Levy established causal links between age stereotypes held by individuals and a number of outcomes previously unknown to be affected by such stereotypes, including memory, cardiac reactivity to stress, and longevity. Subsequently, this body of research has come to form the basis for her stereotype embodiment theory.
Levy has contributed over 90 articles and chapters to psychological, gerontological, and medical journals and books. Her research on health and ageing has been featured on the front page of The New York Times, and she was invited by the U.S. Senate to give testimony before the Special Committee on Aging regarding the harmful impact of ageism in popular media and marketing.

Awards