Joseph F. Coughlin, Ph.D. is founder and Director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology AgeLab.

He teaches policy and systems innovation in MIT’s Sloan School of Management Advanced Management Program and the Department of Urban Studies & Planning. Author of over 150 publications, his research explores how demographic change, technology and social trends converge to drive future innovations in business and government.

Coughlin publishes the online publication Disruptive Demographics and is a regular contributor to Wall Street Journal MarketWatch. He is one of Fast Company Magazine’s “100 Most Creative People in Business” and one of the Wall Street Journal’s “12 pioneers inventing the future of retirement and how we will all live, work, and play tomorrow.” The Financial Times profiled him as a ‘guru in global aging’ and Money Magazine dubbed him a ‘retirement game-changer’.

He frequently appears on news programs including the BBC, CBC, CBS, CNN, NBC & Japan NTK. He is a Gerontological Society of America Behavioral Sciences Fellow and a Fellow of Switzerland’s World Demographics & Ageing Forum. He has served on advisory boards for British Telecom, Daimler, Fidelity Investments and regularly consults and speaks to businesses, governments, and NGOs worldwide.

Coughlin spoke at Falling Walls in Berlin on the 25th anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall and keynoted the 2014 Nobel Prizes in Stockholm. This summer he spoke at the White House on technology innovations to support a lifespan of 100 years and this fall will address the Annual Meeting of the National Academies Institute of Medicine (IOM).

He has testified before Congress, the National Governors Association and the National Transportation Safety Board and was appointed by President George W. Bush to the White House Advisory Committee on Aging. Coughlin chaired the multination OECD Task Force on Older Adults and Transportation Technology in Paris.

Prior to joining MIT, Coughlin was with EG&G, a global technology company, where he consulted to the Departments of Defense, Transportation, State and the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy. Coughlin was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Science from the State University of New York for his contribution to research and policy to improve the lives of older adults. He is a graduate of the State University of New York at Oswego (BA), Brown University (AM) and Boston University (PhD)