Heather Elizabeth Whitson

Professor of Medicine

Dr. Whitson's research is focused on improving care options and resilience for people with multiple chronic conditions.  In particular, she has interest and expertise related to the link between age-related changes in the eye and brain (e.g., How does late-life vision loss impact the aging brain or cognitive outcomes?  Is Alzheimer's disease associated with distinctive changes in the retina, and could such changes help diagnose Alzheimer's disease early in its course?).  Dr. Whitson leads a collaborative Alzheimer's Disease initiative that brings together investigators from Duke University and the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill, with a bold vision to transform dementia research and care across Eastern North Carolina. Dr. Whitson is also interested in improving health services to better meet the needs of medically complex patients.  Within the Duke Aging Center, she leads research efforts aimed at promoting resilience to late-life stressors (e.g., surgery, sensory loss, infection).  She has developed a novel rehabilitation model for people with co-existing vision and cognitive deficits, and she is part of a inter-disciplinary team seeking to improve peri-operative outcomes for frail or at-risk seniors who must undergo surgery.  As a co-leader of a national resilience collaborative, she seeks to better understand the biological and psychological factors that determine how well we "bounce back" after health stressors.  

Appointments and Affiliations

  • Professor of Medicine
  • Professor in Neurology
  • Professor in Head & Neck Surgery and Communication Sciences
  • Professor in Ophthalmology
  • Director of the Duke Center for the Study of Aging and Human Development

Contact Information

  • Office Location: Dept of Medicine, Durham, NC 27710

In the News

Representative Publications

  • Colón-Emeric, Cathleen, Jeremy Walston, Alessandro Bartolomucci, Judith Carroll, Martin Picard, Adam Salmon, Shakira Suglia, Heather Whitson, and Peter Abadir. “Stress tests and biomarkers of resilience: Proceedings of the second state of resilience science conference.” J Am Geriatr Soc 73, no. 4 (April 2025): 1017–28. https://doi.org/10.1111/jgs.19246.
  • Burrows, Brett T., Maren K. Olsen, Theodore S. Z. Berkowitz, Battista Smith, Heather E. Whitson, Nicole DePasquale, Virginia Wang, Matthew L. Maciejewski, Steven D. Crowley, and C Barrett Bowling. “Psychological Resilience and Physical Function in Veterans With Chronic Kidney Disease: A Brief Report.” J Am Geriatr Soc, March 13, 2025. https://doi.org/10.1111/jgs.19422.
  • Mielke, Michelle M., Nicole R. Fowler, Heather E. Whitson, Heidi D. Klepin, Antoine R. Trammell, Ambar Kulshreshtha, Kyra S. O’Brien, Margaret Manchester, Marcel E. Salive, and Jeff Williamson. “Proceedings of the Alzheimer's Diagnosis in Older Adults with Chronic Conditions (ADACC) Network Inaugural Annual Conference.” J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci, March 9, 2025. https://doi.org/10.1093/gerona/glaf052.
  • Mayan, Inbal, Heidi Roth, Dhrubajyoti Ghosh, Heather E. Whitson, and Kim G. Johnson. “Genetic and biomarker disclosure process in a memory and aging study.” J Alzheimers Dis 104, no. 2 (March 2025): 312–18. https://doi.org/10.1177/13872877251315957.
  • Hreha, Kimberly, Nathan A. Boucher, Brian Mac Grory, April Martina Burch, Emmanuel Acheampong, and Heather E. Whitson. “Research Best Practices for Eye Stroke Vision Rehabilitation: A Qualitative Study.” Curr Eye Res, January 28, 2025, 1–7. https://doi.org/10.1080/02713683.2025.2456788.