Lis Nielsen, PhD

Lis Nielsen, PhD

Chief, NIA's Individual Behavioral Processes Branch
Lis Nielsen, PhD

Dr. Lis Nielsen is Chief of the National Institute on Aging’s (NIA) Individual Behavioral Processes Branch, which supports behavioral, psychological and integrative biobehavioral research on the mechanistic pathways linking social and behavioral factors to health in mid-life and older age. Since coming to NIA in 2005, she has developed a research program in Neuroeconomics and the Social Neuroscience of Aging. Dr. Nielsen earned her master’s in psychology from Copenhagen University and her PhD in Cognitive Psychology and Cognitive Science from the University of Arizona. She held an NRSA post-doctoral fellowship in psychology at Stanford University. Her scientific interests and research extend to the study of emotional function in aging, including age differences and age-related changes in the conscious experience of emotion, its physiological and neural correlates, and its functional role in decision making. Dr. Nielsen is a member of the Society for Psychophysiological Research, the Association for Psychological Science, the Society for Neuroeconomics, and the American Psychological Association. She has been a member of the scientific advisory board of the Society for Neuroeconomics since 2007.