Dr. Walston was the Raymond and Anna Lublin Professor of Geriatric Medicine at Johns Hopkins University (JHU) with clinical, research and education roles. He held multiple leadership positions at JHU, including Deputy Director of the Division of Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology, Multiple Principal Investigator of the Johns Hopkins Claude D. Pepper Older Americans Independence Center, Co-Director of the Biology of Healthy Aging program, Director of the Human Aging Project, and Multiple Principal Investigator of the AI and Technology Collaboratory for Aging.
Dr. Walston’s research, which bridged clinical and basic science, was centered on frailty, resilience, and the interface of mitochondrial biology with chronic inflammation and age-related changes. Dr. Walston chaired the Clin-STAR Research & Dissemination Core and oversaw the review and selection of pilot awardees and helped build research resources for the Clin-STAR community. Clin-STAR early career researchers benefited from his expertise and mentorship in many ways, from one-on-one mentoring to active involvement in the Clin-STAR Frailty and Inflammation Research Groups where he collaborated on both groups’ publications. Since becoming a Beeson Scholar in 1998, Dr. Walston has been actively involved with the Beeson community and annual meetings. He has led the JHU Pepper Center since 2008, further strengthening a highly productive framework for clinical, population-based and biological discovery on frailty and for the development of junior investigators for academic careers in frailty and aging research.
The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine recently acknowledged his dedication to mentorship with the Dean’s Distinguished Mentoring Award in 2025. Within the past year, Dr. Walston also received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Conference on Frailty and Sarcopenia and the American Federation for Aging Research (AFAR) 2024 Irving S. Wright Award of Distinction which recognizes exceptional contributions to basic or clinical research in the field of aging.
Dr. Walston will be profoundly missed by family, friends and the scientific community. He is survived by his husband George Lavdas and their sons Oliver and Alex, and his sister Wendy Walston Vaughn. Opportunities for tributes or donations are listed in his official obituary. There are plans underway to memorialize Dr. Walston in Baltimore, Maryland.
