Virginia Tech's first lady, Laura Sands becomes editor-in-chief of gerontology journal

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BLACKSBURG (WSLS 10) – Virginia Tech's first lady Laura Sands now takes on an additional role in her professional career. Sands was named editor-in-chief of Innovation in Aging, a new peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary journal.

In addition to being the wife of Virginia Tech President Timothy Sands, Laura, a PhD is also a faculty member of the Center for Gerontology and professor of human development at Virginia Tech.

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Sands joined Virginia Tech's Center for Gerontology in 2014 as a full-time professor in the Department of Human Development in the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences.

Innovation in Aging was launched by The Gerontological Society of America (GSA), the nation's largest interdisciplinary organization devoted to the field of aging.

"In creating this journal, GSA is looking to the future — both the future needs of the gerontology community and the future of research communication," said GSA Executive Director and CEO James Appleby, BSPharm, MPH. "The Society's mission to promote interdisciplinary research and disseminate knowledge is well supported by the open access format, which has been consistently shown to lead to increased readership for articles by a wider audience."

Sands says she is looking forward to the opportunity.

"I am excited to work with the editorial board members of Innovation in Aging, including the two deputy editors-in-chief, Steven M. Albert of the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health and J. Jill Suitor of the Purdue University Department of Sociology, to launch an open access journal that will rapidly disseminate transformative, interdisciplinary research that addresses 21st century issues in aging," Sands said. "I look forward to working with the other GSA editors to increase publication opportunities for high-quality, novel research that that expands the range of topics covered by the other GSA journals."


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