Aïda Solé Auró

I am an Associate professor and a researcher in the Department of Political and Social Sciences at Pompeu Fabra University (UPF), Barcelona. Since 2014, I have been a member of the Sociodemography Research Group (DemoSoc) of the same Department, which I coordinated during eight years. After defending my doctoral thesis at the University of Barcelona (2009), I did a postdoctoral degree at the University of Southern California (Los Angeles) until 2012, when I left for Paris, where I did a second post-doctorate at the National Institute of Demographic Studies (Ined) (2013-2014). 

The long and healthy life of my grandfather, Tonet —who died at 103 years old—sparked my lifelong interest in the aging process. My passion is to study the aging process and how it links to social systems.

My scientific career has mainly focused on investigating population health inequalities in different groups as they age, and its relationship to demographic dynamics and individual well-being. Currently, my lines of research consist of analyzing the healthy life trajectories of individuals from different socio-demographic groups to measure the evolution of true comorbidity patterns; examining the healthy immigrant paradox by levels of education, and studying the evolution of gender inequalities in health when aging.

In addition, I have been a member of several competitive projects, and now I coordinates the LONGHEALTH project, which aims to understand how social, economic, demographic or cultural context influences the true evolution of true comorbidity patterns of a population. 

Some of my research has been published in prestigious journals in the field of demography, population, public health, and ageing. Since joining UPF, I have served in various institutional positions, first as vice-dean of the Department (2015-2017), then as Department deputy director (2017-2024), and now as vice-rector for Students and Alumni (2024-).

The idea is to die young as late as possible

Ashley Montagu