Two decades later, James Birren was appointed as the founding director of the first academic research center devoted exclusively to the study of aging, the Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center at the University of Southern California.
Ob spoznanju, da se strokovnjaki na številnih področjih ukvarjajo s starejšo populacijo, je postalo jasno, da je potrebna skupina kot je Ameriško gerontološko društvo (ustanovljeno leta 1945).