Duke School of Medicine Distinguished Professor in Neuroscience
Dr. Whitson is a geriatrician, memory care specialist, and clinical researcher. Her career is focused on improving care options and resilience for people with multiple chronic conditions. In particular, she has interest and expertise related to how aging biology and comorbidities impact brain health and risk for Alzheimer's disease. She is co-director of the Duke/UNC Alzheimer's Disease Research Center (Duke/UNC ADRC), which aims to transform dementia care and research in Eastern North Carolina while developing novel preventions and treatment strategies for Alzheimer's disease by identifying aging-related factors across the lifespan that drive risk, progression, or experience of dementia. The Duke/UNC ADRC conducts the Memory and Aging Study, which is tracking brain and cognitive changes in over 400 individuals at risk for dementia in later life. Dr. Whitson also co-Chairs the Alzheimer's Association's Clinical Practice Guideline panel for the use of blood-based biomarkers in the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease. As a thought leader in a national collaborative focused on the biomedical aspects of resilience, Dr. Whitson seeks to better understand biological, psychological, and contextual factors that determine how well we "bounce back" after acute health stressors and why our resilience capacity changes with age. Dr. Whitson has contributed to work examining resilience to many types of health stressors, including surgery, dialysis, infection, vascular events, and vision loss - often focused on how these stressors affect the brain. She has led multiple studies to examine how the aging brain responds to the late-life stressor of vision loss, and she has developed a rehabilitation model to improve independence in older adults living with comorbid impairments in vision and cognition.
Appointments and Affiliations
- Duke School of Medicine Distinguished Professor in Neuroscience
- Professor of Medicine
- Professor in Ophthalmology
- Professor in Head & Neck Surgery and Communication Sciences
- Professor in Neurology
- Director of the Duke Center for the Study of Aging and Human Development
Contact Information
- Office Location: Dept of Medicine, Durham, NC 27710
Education
- M.D. Cornell University, 2000
- M.H.S. Duke University, 2009
- Duke University, 2003
- Duke University, 2004
- Duke University, 2006
In the News
- MADE FOR THIS Campaign Hits the Road (Jul 31, 2026)
- How This Doctor Found a Calling (Jan 9, 2026)
- How Public Supported Studies Bring This Researcher and Patient Closer to a Cure…
- Heather Whitson on Care for Your Aging Brain (Feb 18, 2025)
- Duke Awards 32 New Distinguished Professorships for 2024 (Mar 19, 2024)
- Alzheimer's Research: Unlocking the Secrets of the Brain (Mar 20, 2022)
- Duke/UNC Awarded Grant to Establish Joint Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center (…
- Two Blues Join Forces to Fight Alzheimer’s Disease (Mar 18, 2021)
- Harnessing the Brain’s Resilience to Fight Alzheimer’s Disease (Mar 8, 2021)
- Center for Vision and Population Health at Prevent Blindness Established to Imp…
- Novel rehabilitation model for people living with both vision impairment and co…
- Race, sex may influence who calls an ambulance for stroke symptoms (Aug 13, 20…
- Doctor shortage: Who will take care of the elderly? (Apr 23, 2015)
- Why are Boomers Getting STDs? (Mar 29, 2013 | New York Times)
Representative Publications
- Liu, Andy J., Alexander A. Moghadam, Mohammad Samsul Alam, Michael W. Lutz, Amber Navarra, Sheng Luo, Laura A. Wang, et al. “Clinical Practice Outcomes With Lecanemab for Alzheimer Disease (Accepted).” Neurology Open Access 2, no. 3 (September 2026). https://doi.org/10.1212/wn9.0000000000000121.
- Ashner, Marissa C., Virginia B. Kraus, Heather E. Whitson, Corey B. Simon, Janet L. Huebner, Akshay Bareja, Chelsea R. Perfect, et al. “An Exploratory Stability Selection (ESS) framework for robust predictor discovery: An application to physical resilience in aging populations.” Exp Gerontol, August 10, 2026, 113277. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.exger.2026.113277.
- Ravi, Deepak K., Jeffrey M. Hausdorff, Heather E. Whitson, Nathalie van der Velde, Vivian Weerdesteyn, and René J. Melis. “Falls resilience framework: advancing from risk reduction to resilience building in older adults.” Lancet Healthy Longev, July 27, 2026, 100880. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lanhl.2026.100880.
- Whitson, Heather E., Marissa Ashner, Virginia B. Kraus, Sarah Peskoe, Janet L. Huebner, Corey B. Simon, Katherine Hall, and Cathleen Colon-Emeric. “Comparing two methods to quantify physical resilience.” J Frailty Aging 15, no. 4 (June 20, 2026): 100179. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tjfa.2026.100179.
- Kraus, Virginia Byers, Noah D. Greenberg, Marissa Ashner, Janet L. Huebner, Akshay Bareja, Sarah Peskoe, Corey Simon, Heather E. Whitson, and Cathleen S. Colón-Emeric. “Immune Biomarker Signatures as Predictors of Functional and Pain Recovery After Total Knee Arthroplasty in Older Adults.,” June 10, 2026. https://doi.org/10.64898/2026.06.08.26355189.