Dr. Albert Banerjee Appointed Health Research Chair in Community Health and Aging
Dr. Albert Banerjee has been appointed Health Research Chair in Community Health and Aging at St. Thomas University.
Dr. Banerjee brings a background in feminist and critical theories of health, aging, and end-of-life care to the new Health Research Chair position. He boasts a stellar record of research in peer-reviewed journals, like Social Science & Medicine, the Canadian Journal on Aging, and the Journal of Aging Studies.
The Health Research Chair is the result of a commitment of $1 million over five years from the McCain Foundation and the New Brunswick Health Research Foundation. New Brunswick is one of Canada’s most rapidly aging regions, which makes age-related research, policy analysis, and program development increasingly important.
“St. Thomas University is the ideal location for this research chair and Dr. Banerjee’s track record and research expertise bodes well for progress in this field,” said Kim Fenwick, Vice-President (Academic and Research).
“We are the only university in the province to offer a Bachelor of Arts with a major in gerontology, and this new position will build on the scholarship of our current faculty and bring new research projects and curriculum development to STU, as well as providing additional experiential learning opportunities for students.”
“The Health Research Chairs Program has been instrumental in building capacity in the health research enterprise in New Brunswick,” said Leah Carr, interim CEO, New Brunswick Health Research Foundation. “We welcome Dr. Banerjee to St. Thomas University where he will train and mentor students, develop expertise, and achieve excellence in research.”
Dr. Banerjee is currently coinvestigator on the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Partnership Grant Imagining Age-Friendly Communities—an international project to identify practices that foster healthy, inclusive age-friendly communities, while taking gender, diversity, and meaning into account. The project brings together philosophers, economists, literary theorists, physicians, nurses, sociologists, and anthropologists to study age-friendly initiatives in 12 cities across Australia, Canada, Germany, Norway, New Zealand, and Taiwan.
“The aging population is an opportunity to rethink the values that have dominated the health dialogue and promote new visions, policies and practices that can enable us to live well,” said Dr. Banerjee.
“My background has taught me the importance of thinking across traditional divides and contributed to the development of interdisciplinary and international comparative projects.”
Dr. Banerjee holds a PhD in Sociology from York University, an MA in Communications from Simon Fraser University, and a BA in Psychology from the University of British Colombia. He is currently a research associate at the Trent Centre for Aging and Society and was a COFAS Marie Curie Research Fellow at Stockholm University.