Sally Bould, University of Delaware, United States

Sally Bould, PhD., Fellow, The Gerontology Institute, University of Massachusetts, Boston and Professor Emerita of Sociology, University of Delaware where she had been on the Faculty teaching the Sociology of Aging for more than 20 years. She has published numerous articles in the areas of women and aging, poverty, and family with a focus on policy. She is a coauthor of the book, Eighty-five Plus, which examines issues of state and family responsibilities for the oldest
old population in the United States. She received a Fulbright Award in 2006 to study issues of women, aging and families in Europe and she currently has an appointment as Senior Research Fellow, Centre for the Study of Poverty, Population and Socio-Economic Policy (CEPS), Differdange, Luxembourg. Her recent publications in the area of aging include “Hidden Gender Inequalities in Old Age, Sociology of Health Care Vol.28 (forthcoming), an entry on the “Oldest Old” in
the Encyclopedia of Health and Aging (2007), a review of Tamara Hareven’s contribution to the literature on carework in The History of the Family (2006) and “A Population Health Perspective on Disability and Depression among Elderly Men and Women” in the Journal of Aging and Social Policy (2005). Currently she is working on an examination of older women’s (aged 55-64) employment and retirement policy in the context of aging of the population in Europe.

Email: salbould@udel.edu

Libby Brooke, Swinburne University of Technology, Australia

My initial research, which concentrated on the aged care field, has more recently focused on the employment of older
workers. I have been undertaking research in ageing since the mid-1990s and publications include the areas of ageing and social support, social health and public housing, older women’s homelessness, veterans’ communities and aged, community and residential care. Over the last decade, my research has primarily focused on ageing workforces and has included publications on the human resources costs and benefits of mature age workers, age discrimination in employment, career-retirement transitions and the management of older workforces in differing occupational contexts (e.g information technology and aged care employment). Recent research projects include the role of Australian Chief Investigator within a Canadian funded SSHRC project (2002-2006) (Workforce Ageing in the New Economy) under the
auspices of the University of Western Ontario, which examined intersections between ageing, information technology and the new economy. A current research project, the ‘Meteor’ project (2006-2011) aims to support the retention of older aged care workers in employment through applying a life-course approach based in the Finnish Institute of Occupational
Health ‘workability’ concept. Further current projects (funded by the Australian Research Council) as a Chief Investigator, include a study of older women’s worklife transitions and another study of older workers’ place in labor supply in a globalizing economy. I have a PhD in social gerontology, from La Trobe University Melbourne Australia.

Email: lbrooke@groupewise.swin.edu.au

Ricca Edmondson, University of Ireland Galway, Ireland

Ricca Edmondson is based at the National University of Ireland, Galway. Her research on ageing stresses questions relating to meaning, purpose and wisdom in older people’s life-courses. Her sympathy with work by critical and cultural gerontologists is shown in the collection Valuing Older People: A Humanist Approach to Ageing which she co-edited with Hans-Joachim von Kondratowitz (2009), and in Ageing, Insight and the Life Course: Social Practices and Intergenerational Wisdom (Bristol: Policy Press, to appear 2012). She has published on ethnographic issues associated with ageing, and specifically on wisdom and ageing; she is now working on a history of discursive wisdom with Markus
Woerner. Her work also emphasises the importance of international, intercultural and interdisciplinary elements in the study of ageing, and of bringing to bear debates in other fields (those on communication and power, or discursive democracy) on questions of ageing. One of her major interests in teaching and research is in developing innovative, theoretically-informed ethnographic methods for tracing the elicitation of meaning. She is a member of the international board of Ageing and Society. For a decade Ricca Edmondson has been a co-ordinator of the Research Network on
Ageing in the European Sociological Association, and has regularly co-organised international conferences for the ESA and elsewhere.

Email: ricca.edmondson@nuigalway.ie

Arvind Joshi, Banaras Hindu University, India

Prof. Arvind Kumar Joshi is a Professor of Sociology and Coordinator Social Work Programme in Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India. He has more than 25 years of teaching and research experience. He has three books and dozens of papers (research papers, articles, chapters in books, review articles, etc.) to his credit. He is actively involved in the academic assignments in different universities/colleges of the country and on time to time invited for special lectures and public discourses. He is Convener of Research Committee 19 (Aging and Social Structure) of Indian Sociological Society and Secretary of Association of Gerontology, India. He is a widely travelled person and visited Norway, Canada, Australia, China, Japan, Thailand for academic pursues. He has convened a session at the 36th World Conference of the International Institute of Sociology, Beijing, China, July, 2004 and was a panelist in Chiba University, 21st Century COE Programme International symposium, The First Asian Public Policy Research Consortium meeting, Japan, 27-28 March, 2006. He was also a Visiting Professor at Mahamakut Buddhist University, Bangkok, Thailand, 2000. He is a Principal Investigator of a major project on Elder Abuse and Neglect. He has produced 16 Ph.D.s and 8 Ph.D. research students are working under him on ageing related topics. Prof. Joshi has managerial and leadership capabilities and has wide experience pertaining to teaching, extension, examination, research and administration. He has a working experience with students of Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, London and also with the study team of JICA, Japan at Varanasi. He is member of several professional/academic bodies.

Email: arvindvns@sify.com

Kathrin Komp, University of Lethbridge, Canada

Kathrin Komp is a postdoctoral researcher at the Prentice Institute for Global Population and Economy, University of
Lethbridge, Canada. She holds a PhD in sociology from VU University Amsterdam, the Netherlands and Master’s degrees in political science and home economics from Justus-Liebig-University Giessen, Germany. Her research interests are in social gerontology, comparative welfare research and research methods. In particular, she is studying third-agers from the perspective of the moral and political economy of ageing. Her publications include a co-authored article on the influence of welfare states on the number of third agers (published in Ageing & Society) and a co-edited
book entitled “Gerontology in the era of the third age” (forthcoming with Springer, New York). Kathrin Komp is a coordinator of the “Research Network on Ageing in Europe” of the European Sociological Association.

Email: kathrin.komp@uleth.ca

Jacob John Kattakayam, University of Kerala, India

Prof. Jacob John Kattakayam, MA, LL.B., Ph.D., President of the Indian Sociological Society, Director of the Centre for Gerentological Studies, was the Director cum Professor of the UGC Academic Staff College, University of Kerala for more than twelve years. Before that he was on the faculty of the Department of Sociology, University of Kerala. He was member of the ICSSR (2005-2008) Secretary of the Indian Sociological Society for two times (2001-2005), and Visitor’s nominee to the Faculty of Education, University of Delhi (2007-2010). He has served as Visiting Professor, at University of Southern California, U.S.A 2004, and Montclair State University, New Jersey, USA during Spring 2003. He has also served as visiting faculty in the Morgan State University, USA in 1987 and Duke University, North Carolina, USA (1998) and has visited several Universities in USA, Canada, Europe, South America, Australia, Africa and Asia and delivered lectures. He was selected by the UNFPA to attend an international workshop on Social Gerontology in Malta (1993) and an international workshop on health expectancy at Nihon University, Tokyo (1999). The Ministry of Human Resource
Development at the invitation of the South African Government nominated him to present the country paper in the Academic Seminar held in connection with IBSA Summit in Johannesburg, Oct. 15 – 17, 2007. He has authored four books and edited three. He is a member of several professional organizations in India and abroad and has published several research papers in journals of national and international repute. He was the Dean, Faculty of Social Sciences,
(2007-2009), member of the Senate and Academic Council of the University of Kerala, Secretary of the Indian Sociological Society (2001-2005), president of the Kerala Sociological Society (1995-99) Member of the Executive Committee (RC 11) of the International Sociological Association (1998-2002). Currently he is the Kerala Sociologist and Hon Director of the Centre for Gerontological Studies, Thiruvananthapuram. Recently he has been elected to the Board of Directors of International Rural Network, (IRN) Canada.

Email: jjkattakayam@yahoo.com

Hong Kin Kwok, Lingnan University, Hong Kong

Dr. Hong-kin Kwok is assistant professor in the Department of Sociology and Social Policy in Lingnan University, Hong Kong. His research interests are family care, family change and educational change. He is centre fellow of the Asia-Pacific Institute of Aging Studies of Lingnan University, and Executive Board Member of the Research Committee on Sociology of Aging (RC11), International Sociological Association, 2002-2006 & 2006-2010.

Email: kwokhk@ln.edu.hk

Wendy Martin, Brunel University, UK

Dr. Wendy Martin joined the School of Health Sciences and Social Care at Brunel University, UK, in October 2009 as a Lecturer in Health Studies. Previously Wendy was a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Reading developing a research agenda into social aspects of ageing. Wendy’s background has involved nursing and contract research, and she has completed a BSc in Sociology and Anthropology at Oxford Brookes University (1997); and an MA in Sociological Research in Health Care (1999) and a PhD in Sociology (2007) both from the University of Warwick, UK. Her doctoral
thesis was entitled ‘Embodying active ageing: health, bodies and emotions in later life’. Wendy is currently co-investigator on 5 externally funded research projects as well as a Principal Investigator for the ESRC First Grants scheme research project ‘Photographing Everyday Life: Ageing, Lived Experiences, Time and Space’. This project brings together Wendy’s interests in visual research, embodiment, and the sociology of everyday life. Wendy is Honorary Secretary of the British Society of Gerontology (BSG), co-convenor of the BSA (British Sociological Association) Ageing, Body and Society study group, and Officer at Large for the Executive Committee of ISA (International Sociological
Association) RC11: Sociology of Ageing.

Email: wendy.martin@brunel.ac.uk

Shirley Nuss, United States

During the early years of my professional career, I served national professional organizations as an elected member of several committees for the American Sociological Association and as elected officers for Sociologists for Women in Society. At the same time, I helped organize the first four meetings of an ISA research committee as an elected member of its Executive Board and as Chair of its Nominations Committee. During the 1990s, I was a visiting research fellow at Oxford Univerisity and my professional papers were accepted for the archives of the Schlessenger Library on the History of American Women at Harvard University. In a departure from the traditional academic career, however, the bulk of my
professional career has been spent working abroad as an independent research consultant exclusively for the specialized agencies of the United Nations at their international headquarters in New York, Geneva, Paris and Vienna. As supplement, I spend nearly two decades conducting research in the Asia and Pacific region where I prepared the first comprehensive survey of social protection scheme (including social security and health care) for the sixty-member
countries and compiled national indicators for the elderly population in these same countries. When my mother became seriously ill in 2000, I immediately returned to assume full responsibility for the care for my elderly parents in their home in a rather isolated rural area where health care and elder care remains inadequate. These experiences support a unique perspective on the research focus of this research committee. I thus offer this perspective and my commitment to policy-oriented research with international implications as a foundation for my service to further the activities of this committee.

Email: nussphd@yahoo.com

Virpi Timonen, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland

Virpi Timonen, DPhil (Oxon.) is Senior Lecturer in Social Policy and Ageing and Director of the Social Policy and Ageing Research Centre (www.sparc.tcd.ie) in the School of Social Work and Social Policy at Trinity College Dublin. Dr. Timonen has published articles on long-term care policies, migrant care workers, grandparents’ role in families and participation of older adults in care settings and communities in Ageing & Society, Journal of Aging Studies, Canadian
Journal of Aging, Research on Aging, Journal of Social Policy and several other leading international journals. Dr. Timonen is the author of Ageing Societies: A Comparative Introduction (Open University Press) and four other books. She is a co-investigator in the Irish Longitudinal Study of Ageing, TILDA (www.tilda.tcd.ie), and chairs the TILDA Translational
Research and Policy Implementation sub-committee. Virpi has been involved in RC 11 since 2006 when she was elected an Officer-at-Large at the Durban world congress meeting. She has been actively involved in the work of the RC as a member of the organizing committees for the Barcelona (2008) and Gothenburg (2010) conferences.

Email: timonenv@tcd.ie

John Williamson, Boston College, USA

John B. Williamson is currently Professor Sociology in the Department of Sociology at Boston College. He is also
affiliated as a research associate at the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College a research associate at the Center for Retirement at Boston College and as a Research Fellow at the Sloan Center on Aging and Work at Boston College. His BS degree is from MIT and his Ph.D. is from Harvard University. He was recently the Chair of the Social Research, Policy, and Practice Section and a vice president of the Gerontological Society of America. His research focuses is on the comparative study of old-age security systems and the debate over generational equity. His books deal
with such topics as the politics of aging, the senior movement, and the comparative study of social security. Recently he has published on such topics as ageism and the future of retirement security. He has written a great deal about the partial privatization of pension systems and alternative to privatization such as the use of notional defined contribution
(NDC) schemes. Much of his recent work focuses in developments in East Asia, particular China and Japan. For a full list of publications Google “John B. Williamson” or go to http://www2.bc.edu/~jbw/ .

Email: jbw@bc.edu