Keith Whitfield

Vice Provost for Academic Affairs

Keith E. Whitfield is a Professor in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, a Research Professor in the Department of Geriatric Medicine at Duke University Medical Center, and Co-Director of the Center on Biobehavioral and Social Aspects of Health Disparities. Since coming to Duke in 2006, he has served as chair of the Curriculum Committee, the Academic Council's Trustee Selection Committee, and a number of faculty and staff review and recruitment committees. He came to Duke after rising through the ranks at Penn State University (1993-2005). As Vice-Provost, Whitfield is responsible for the administrative oversight of Duke's academic assessment, facilitates cross department and cross –school hiring, the oversight of strategic academic initiatives, provides guidance for the creation of new degree programs, and promoting research and teaching across traditional scientific boundaries.

Whitfield earned a Bachelor's degree in Psychology from the College of Santa Fe in 1984 and a Ph.D. in Life-Span Developmental Psychology from Texas Tech University in 1989. He also received post-doctoral training in quantitative genetics from the University of Colorado, Boulder in 1992. He has published more than 130 articles, books and book chapters on individual development and aging that including papers on genetics , cognitive impairment, depression, stress and coping, hypertension, lung function, obesity, mortality and health disparities. Whitfield has earned numerous awards and is a fellow in the Gerontological Society of America.