Founding Academy Member Dr. Yung-Ping Chen recently passed away at his home in Seattle, WA. Dr. Chen was the first holder of the Eminent Scholar’s Chair in Gerontology at the University of Massachusetts -Boston.
Known a
s “Bing,” he was a delegate or consultant to the 1971, 1981, 1995, and 2005 White House Conferences on Aging and the 1998 White House Conference on Social Security. He also served on a panel of actuaries and economists of the 1979 Advisory Council on Social Security. Among his books are Social Security in a Changing Society: Checks and Balances in Social Security. In addition to his research on Social Security, he focused on home equity conversions, long-term services and supports, and gaps in private pension coverage of minority workers.
Dr. Chen served as a Visiting Scholar at our Academy in 1989. Among his other affiliations were the Gerontological Society of America, where he was a Fellow, and the National Council on Aging, on whose Board of Directors he served. He was also on the Advisory Board of the Social Insurance Research Network’s “Journal on Social Security, Pensions, and Retirement Income.”
Academy Member and Chief Actuary at the Social Security Administration Stephen Goss said: “I am one of many who had the pleasure of knowing Bing as a friend and colleague for decades. His dedication to developing and enhancing approaches to maintaining income through life is a model and a guide for all of us. His generosity, energy, integrity, and compassion are unmatched. Bing’s passing is a great loss, but we are all better for knowing him and will be trying to follow his example.”
He was a generous supporter of the Academy’s work. In October 2020, he wrote: “I am certain Bob Ball would have been exceedingly proud of the Academy’s work.”
Bing used his years in the world contributing to all, with grace and wisdom, and is now resting in peace.
Donations in his honor may be made to the University of Washington Medical.
