James W. Vaupel (May 2, 1945 – March 27, 2022) was an American scientist in the fields of aging research, biodemography, and formal demography.

He was instrumental in developing and advancing the idea of the plasticity of longevity, and pioneered research on the heterogeneity of mortality risks and on the deceleration of death rates at the highest ages.

[1][2][3][4][5] Vaupel was the founding director of the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock, Germany in 1996.

His research activities here strived to understand age-specific mortality in terms of the evolutionary processes that shape it.

[14] Because in his studies, particular attention is paid to mortality improvements at the end of the lifespan, Vaupel was instrumental in the emerging field of research into supercentenarians as a population subset.