About Us The Pepper center @ UF
Move with Science, Age with Independence
What is the Pepper Center?
One of a kind in Florida, the Claude D. Pepper Older Americans Independence Center at the University of Florida is part of a premier scientific network created by the National Institute on Aging (NIA) of the National Institutes of Health. Pepper Centers are united to improve the quality of life of older people.
The Pepper Center at UF has had financial backing from the NIA since 2006. The people involved with our Pepper Center include accomplished senior scientists, early-career faculty, research staff, post-doctoral researchers, and students from a broad range of research-related entities. We are applying the power of academic research to issues of mobility for older citizens.
Spokesman for the Elderly
Who was Claude D. Pepper?
The late Claude D. Pepper (1900-1989) was a public servant from Florida who served in the U.S. Congress across five decades. He earned the title “Spokesman for the Elderly” for advocacy related to Social Security, age discrimination and health care.
The UF Pepper Center is focused on promoting mobility and independence by understanding the multi-complexities of mobility loss with aging. There are a variety of reasons for age-related mobility loss — e.g. multiple disease conditions, cognitive impairments, muscle loss, acute and chronic injuries, and symptoms of pain, fatigue, and depression. Each of these have their own complexities, but their interactions in late-life make effective treatment targets challenging to find. The UF Pepper Center is composed of an interdisciplinary group of scientists committed to understanding these complexities and finding effective solutions to help older adults remain mobile and independent.
Our Team
collaboration
To Improve Mobility
Co-directed by Todd Manini, PhD, and Karyn Esser, PhD, with Associate Director Stephen Anton, PhD, the Pepper Center boasts a nimble, multi-disciplinary core of faculty and staff who engage with many other partners to advance research and interventions improving the mobility of elder persons.
Administrative director
Todd Manini, PhD
Professor; Division Chief
Clinical And Population Health Integration
Health Outcomes and Biomedical Informatics
Co-Director
Karyn Esser, PhD
Professor and Chair,
Department of Physiology and Aging
Associate Director
Stephen Anton, PhD
Professor,
Department of Physiology and Aging
Our Partners
The Pepper Center, administered through the College of Medicine’s Department of Health Outcomes and Biomedical Informatics (HOBI), collaborates with several entities in Florida and beyond. Some of our key partners are highlighted below; you can find a full list of our partners and collaborators here.
OneFlorida+ Clinical Research Network
he OneFlorida+ Clinical Research Network is a collaboration among researchers, clinicians and patients in Florida and health systems across the United States to create an enduring infrastructure for a wide range of health research, including pragmatic clinical trials, comparative effectiveness research, implementation science studies, observational research, and cohort discovery. The OneFlorida+ Clinical Research Network is united to address to address some of today’s biggest health challenges.
1Florida ADRC
1Florida Alzheimer’s Disease & Research Center (ADRC), funded by the National Institute on Aging, evaluates people for diagnosis and participation in research studies. The 1Florida ADRC is consortium of Florida institutions helping to change the current understanding of Alzheimer's disease and related dementias from being incurable, inevitable and largely untreatable to a new reality in which these diseases are curable, preventable and treatable.
TRAM T32 Training Program
The Translational Research in Aging and Mobility (TRAM) is a postdoctoral training program funded by the National institute on Aging and housed in UF’s Department of Health Outcomes & Biomedical Informatics. The training program is a mentored research education for post-graduate fellows (PhD, MD or equivalent).
IMPART T32
The IMPART Program (Integrative and Multidisciplinary Pain and Aging Research Training) provides research training for postdoctoral fellows interested in pain and aging research. The training program includes required and elective coursework, mentored research experiences, training in manuscript and grant writing, and additional career development opportunities.
Contact us
Our offices are located centrally on UF’s campus on the top floor of the Malachowsky Hall for Data Science & Information Technology.
Our Address
1889 Museum Rd, 7th Floor
Gainesville, FL 32611
Contact Us
info-aging@aging.ufl.edu
The Pepper Center
Malachowsky Hall
Malachowsky Hall for Data Science & Information Technology was designed to set the standard for future STEM buildings across national and international campuses and transform the artificial intelligence (AI) and data science workforce.