Marcia G. Ory, PhD
2016 Research Laureate
Award Winner
Marcia G. Ory, PhD, MPH, is Regents and Distinguished Professor, Department of Health Promotion and Community Health Sciences, School of Public Health (SPH) at The Texas A&M Health Science Center in College Station, Texas. Her primary administrative role is serving as Associate Dean for Research (since February 2015). She is also the Director of the SPH Program on Healthy Aging, chair of the Health and Wellness Committee, and the academic partner for the Community Research Center for Senior Health. She has been a principal investigator on multiple local, state and federally funded grants to implement and evaluate evidence-based behavioral interventions for promoting healthy lifestyle changes in midlife and older ages. Most recently, she has assumed responsibility as the Health Science Center lead for the legislatively mandated Healthy South Texas Initiative. In this capacity, she is working with a diverse group of academics, clinicians, and community stakeholders to identify and evaluate innovative programs in chronic disease management with the goal of improving the health of residents at the Texas-Mexico border.
Drawing upon a life-course perspective, she has also been a primary investigator on several research studies exploring policy and environmental interventions for reducing childhood obesity. In these roles she is examining how health promotion evidence-based programs for individuals at different life transitions can be translated to clinical, community or workplace settings.
She holds a doctorate from Purdue University and a Masters of Public Health from The Johns Hopkins University. She has been the author of more than 400 publications on a variety of topics including self-care, physical activity and mobility, doctor-patient interactions, chronic disease management, obesity prevention, falls and injury prevention, women’s health, minority health and translational research. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Health Behavior, Gerontological Society of America, and Society of Behavioral Medicine as well as an elected member of the American Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research. She has been the recipient of many national awards such as the Texas A&M Health Science Center Presidential Research Award and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Aging and Public Health Section of the American Public Health Association.
