Javier de la Fuente

Javier de la Fuente is a Research Scientist in the Department of Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, College of Liberal Arts. His work focuses on aging epidemiology, integrating genetics, epidemiology, and lifespan psychology to study cognitive decline and dementia. He holds a PhD from Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (summa cum laude, 2019), where he contributed to the EU-funded ATHLOS project on health trajectories. Postdoctoral training expanded his expertise to genomic methods for multivariate analyses of cognitive function and aging-related traits.

Research interests include genetic determinants of cognitive aging, Alzheimer’s disease, and the interplay of non-cognitive skills with academic achievement. He collaborates with the WHO’s Information, Evidence, and Research Department and has published extensively on topics like genomic SEM, genetic architecture of skeletal forms, and mental health correlations. His work emphasizes multivariate statistical approaches and large-scale genomic studies.

Key contributions include developing the Healthy Ageing Scale for global aging studies and advancing methodologies for estimating brain atrophy via MRI. His articles span cognitive neuroscience, genetic epidemiology, and public health, reflecting a multidisciplinary approach to understanding human aging and resilience.