Papers, publications, photographs from the career of James E. Birren, the USC gerontology program's first director, and the Davis School of Gerontology's inaugural dean,a position he held until 1989. He studied cognitive changes in relation to aging, publishing more than 250 papers, and authoring and editing several of the field's most important books. In 1989, he moved to UCLA, where he remained as the associate director of the UCLA Center on Aging until he retired in 2003. He returned to USC in 2006 to teach guided autobiography, a subject he researched and championed for more than 30 years. At his 90th birthday party in in 2008, he and his wife announced the Birren Endowed Fund for Autobiographical Studies, which they established with a gift of $100,000 to the Davis School. Birren died on January 15, 2016.