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, Marjorie Cantor Endowed Professor in Aging and chair of sociology in the , has received the 2026 Outstanding Mentoring Award from the American Sociological Association’s Section on Aging and the Life Course.

The award recognizes section members who have distinguished themselves as mentors to students and junior faculty in the field of aging and the life course. Silverstein will be recognized at the association’s 121st Annual Meeting, Aug. 7 to 11 in New York City.

“Merril’s influence extends far beyond his own scholarship—it lives on in the generations of researchers he has trained and championed,” says . “This award reflects the generosity and rigor he brings to mentoring, and it is richly deserved.”

Silverstein is the inaugural holder of the Marjorie Cantor Chair in Aging Studies. The professorship was established by then-Chancellor Nancy Cantor and her brother, Richard L. Cantor, in memory of their mother, Marjorie Cantor, whose scholarship advanced understanding of the lifestyles of older adults, the importance of caregiver support systems and the needs of elders across class and culture.

Silverstein earned a doctorate in sociology from Columbia University. At Syracuse, he plays a leading role in advancing collaborative research and teaching through the University’s interdisciplinary Aging Studies Institute.

The author of more than 200 research publications, Silverstein studies aging in the context of family life, with an emphasis on intergenerational relationships, social support, public policy and later-life migration across life course and international perspectives. He has received nearly $4.5 million in external grants for his research and is principal investigator of the Longitudinal Study of Generations, with related projects in China, Sweden, the Netherlands and Israel. He is a Brookdale Fellow and a Fulbright senior scholar, and he served as editor-in-chief of the Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences, the flagship journal of the Gerontological Society of America, from 2010 to 2014. He has also held a visiting fellowship at the University of Oxford’s Institute of Population Ageing.

Silverstein’s honors include the Matilda White Riley Distinguished Scholar Award from the American Sociological Association (2020), the Chancellor’s Citation for Excellence in Faculty Excellence and Scholarly Distinction from ������ (2021), the Outstanding Contribution to Graduate Education award from the University’s Graduate School (2023) and the Olson Grant for Bridging Research, Theory and Practice from the National Council on Family Relations (2023 and 2024).