Anthony Ong is a Professor of Human Development at Cornell University and a Professor of Gerontology in Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College. He received his Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Southern California where he was an NIH Predoctoral Fellow in Neurobiology and Aging, and he completed his postdoctoral training at the University of Notre Dame. He is the author of over 80 scholarly articles and chapters and editor of two academic volumes. His research and teaching have been recognized by the American Psychological Association (APA) and the Gerontological Society of America, and he is the recipient of the APA Springer Early Career Achievement Award in Research on Adult Development and Aging, the Margret M. and Paul B. Baltes Early Career Award in Social and Behavioral Gerontology, and the Merrill Presidential Scholar Award for Teaching.

In the broadest sense, Ong’s research focuses on the dynamic processes that underlie expressions of vulnerability and adaptation across the lifespan. His work aims to advance understanding of human development and plasticity across multiple levels of analysis, including emotion-cognition interactions, sociocultural processes, and neurobiological systems. This work is guided by a process model of environmental action that encompasses variation in dual risk and resilience, vantage sensitivity, and differential susceptibility. His current research interests include the social determinants of health in later adulthood, particularly the role of social isolation and loneliness; the pathways linking positive emotions to quality living and health morbidities in both clinical and healthy populations; the neurobiology of cultural experience, specifically the psychobiological mechanisms through which everyday bias and unfair treatment get under the skin to affect disease susceptibility; and the nature of perceived responsiveness in close relationships, its biological grounding, and relevance for hedonic and evaluative well-being.