Prof. Jeffrey M. Hausdorff

Prof. Hausdorff received undergraduate and graduate degrees from The Cooper Union, MIT, and Boston University in biomechanics and biomedical engineering. After completing postdoctoral training in gerontology at Harvard Medical School, he joined the faculty there, first as an instructor and later as an assistant professor.  For the past 24 years, he has been directing a research center that studies gait, cognition, and mobility at the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center. Since 2002, he has also been a professor in the Department of Physical Therapy in the Faculty of Medical & Health Sciences at Tel Aviv University.

Prof. Hausdorff has authored more than 400 peer-reviewed publications, has an H-index of > 130, and his work has been cited more than 95,000 times. His research has been funded by the NIH, the ISF, the European Commission, the Israel Ministry of Science, the Michael J Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Disease, and other private agencies and has been widely recognized.

Prof. Hausdorff and the research team that he leads aim to better understand, evaluate, treat, and prevent deficits in gait, balance, and cognitive function associated with aging and neurological disease. They study gait, motor control, and brain function, with a special focus on motor-cognitive interactions, gait variability, “fractal” physiology, falls in older adults, and freezing of gait. His research on the dependence of everyday walking on specific cognitive abilities led to important new insights about fall risk and paved the way for new therapeutic approaches such as VR-based interventions and the use of non-invasive brain stimulation to improve mobility and reduce fall risk. Innovative studies quantifying real-world mobility set the stage for a new way of evaluating gait and fall risk during daily living using digital outcomes, machine learning, and wearable sensors. In the long run, Prof. Hausdorff seeks to build on these research findings to improve the health-related quality of life of older adults and people with neurological disease.

Professional Experience and Academic Appointments (selected)

2014 –    Present                  Director, Center for the Study of Movement, Cognition, and Mobility,Tel Aviv Medical Center

2012 – present                     Full Professor, Sagol School of Neuroscience, Tel Aviv University

2011 – present                      Full Professor, Faculty of Medical & Health Sciences, Tel Aviv University

2006 – 2011                          Associate Professor, Department of Physical Therapy. Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences  

2002 – 2006                         Senior Lecturer, Department of Physical Therapy, Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences  

2002 – 2014                         Lecturer in Medicine, Harvard Medical School

2000 – 2014                         Director, Laboratory for Gait Analysis and Neurodynamics, Tel Aviv Medical Center

1999 – 2002                         Associate Director, Institute for Nonlinear Dynamics in Physiology and Medicine

1999 – 2002                         Assistant Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

1997 – 2002                         Research Affiliate, MIT

1996 – 1997                         NRSA Fellow, Harvard Medical School

1995 – 1998                         Instructor in Medicine, Harvard Medical School

1990 – 1995                         Biomedical Scientist, Harvard Medical School

1986 – 1988                         Research Associate, MIT Newman Biomechanics Laboratory

Selected Other Appointments

2024 – Present                     Board member, International Consortium on Freezing of Gait (ICFOG)

2021                                     Scientific Committee Chair, International Conference on Ambulatory Monitoring of Physical Activity and Movement (ICAMPAM)

2022                                     Scientific Committee Chair, International Conference on Ambulatory Monitoring of Physical Activity and Movement (ICAMPAM)

2021 – present                     Task Force Global Guidelines for Falls in Older Adults (and working group leader falls and technology)

2021 – present                     Scientific Advisory Board, Tel Aviv University Healthy Longevity Research Center

2016 – present                     Gait Advisory Committee for the Michael J. Fox Foundation

2015 – present                     Movement Disorders Society Task Force on Technology

2014 – present                     Board of Directors, International Society for the Measurement of Physical Behaviour

2012 – 2016                         Board of Directors, International Society of Postural and Gait Research

2012  – 2014                        Organizing Committee, Gerontological Society of America and NIA sponsored 3-year conference workshop series, "Aging, the CNS, and Mobility”

2009                                     International Organizing Committee, International Society of Posture & Gait Research

2006, 2008, 2010                 Organizing committee, International Conference on Gait and Mental Function

2003 – 2015                         American Federation of Aging Research's National Scientific Advisory Council

Current Editorial Positions

Associate Editor                                   Journal of Gerontology Medical Sciences

Associate Editor                                   Journal of Neural Engineering and Rehabilitation

Editorial board                                     Gait and Posture

Honors and Awards (selected)

2013                       Recipient of the Gerontology Society of America’s Excellence in Rehabilitation of Aging Persons Award

2014                       Nefesh B’Nefesh Bonei Zion Prize in Medicine and Science

2014                       Paper listed among the top 5 most cited papers in the history of rehabilitation

2016                       Named Fellow of the Gerontological Society of America

2019                       Listed among the top 0.01% of scientists based on impact of publications (from 1960-2017; see Ioannidis et al., 2019)

2020                       Listed among scientists for career-long citation impact up until the end of 2019 and for citation impact during the single calendar year 2019 (ranked 17^th and 6^th, respectively, among all scientists in Israel)  (see Ioannidis et al., 2020)

2021, 2022            Listed among the top 0.01% of scientists based on impact of publications  (see Ioannidis et al.)

2022                      Listed among the top 1,000 “Best Scientists in the World” https://research.com/scientists-rankings/best-scientists.

2023                      Aufzien Family Center for the Prevention and Treatment of Parkinson's Disease APPD Established Scientist Prize 2023

2024                      Igor Orenstein Chair for the Study of Geriatrics

Link to PubMed Publications

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=hausdorff+jm+%5Bau%5D&sort=date

Link to CV

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DYg6LNqSI5GfT4FYDoWTnmYI8bSMxF5t/view?usp=sharing