Dr. Denise Park

Dr. Denise C. Park, Distinguished University Chair in Behavioral and Brain Sciences, joined the UT Dallas faculty in 2008. Park is the founding director of the Center for Vital Longevity and became director of research at the center in 2014.

Dr. Park is a pioneer in understanding normal aging and how the mind changes with age. Park’s research is focused on how cognitively normal adults transition to cognitive frailty as they get older, and how to isolate a neural footprint during middle age that can predict who will age well cognitively and who will not.

Park directs the Dallas Lifespan Brain Study to address these issues. Her research has been continuously funded by the National Institute of Aging, part of the National institutes of Health, for her entire career. The study has tracked brain and behavior changes in adults of all ages for the past 12 years. Park also has developed novel adult learning environments to assess whether challenging new activities can enhance cognitive vitality and delay brain aging. Additionally, Park has conducted extensive research in cultural neuroscience to understand how different environments and social values affect brain and behavior in both old and young adults.

An active member of the American Psychological Association (APA), Park has received the Distinguished Research Contributions Award and the Distinguished Mentor Award in the Psychology of Aging and served in leadership roles in the APA and other nation and international associations. Prior to joining UT Dallas, Park held tenured appointments as professor of psychology at the University of Georgia, the University of Michigan, and the University of Illinois. As a mentor, Park has advised graduate students and post-doctoral fellows, many of whom now hold appointments at elite universities across the world.

Dr. Polykarp Kusch

Dr. Polykarp Kusch was Nobel laureate in physics in 1955 and came to The University of Texas at Dallas in 1972.

At UT Dallas, he was Regental Professor and served on the physics faculty. His distinguished science career was complemented by his superb teaching. He delighted students with his presentations of physics experiments in his “Phenomena of Nature” classes.

Before coming to UT Dallas, Dr. Kusch had served as professor, vice president, provost and dean of faculties at Columbia University.

When he retired in 1982, UT Dallas established a program of annual lectures with the theme “Concerns of the Lively Mind” to honor Dr. Kusch.

Kusch Lectures