2nd International conference on Inclusive Futures: Forging an interdisciplinary dialogue in aging research and practice

Dr. Saima Farhad is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Social Work, University of Kashmir. She has a PhD in Social Work from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, and master’s in social work from University of Kashmir.

Her teaching and research interests include gender, elderly care, incarceration, and counselling. Alongside publications in various journals, she has also edited a volume on Elderly care and concerns in Kashmir region.

She is a part of the Proctorial Team at Kashmir University and is also a member of the Internal Complaints Committee (ICC) which deals with sexual harassment cases. She has conducted sessions on Gender Sensitisation and Awareness of PoSH Act in various colleges and universities in Kashmir.

Tannistha Samanta (PhD, University of Maryland, College Park) is currently an Associate Professor with the Department of Social Sciences, FLAME University, Pune. Her research and teaching involve combining large survey data analysis with qualitative/interpretive approaches. Her most active line of research is in the intersecting fields of health and aging (with a focus on South Asia) where she examines questions related to intergenerational relationships, online communities/mediated technologies, place-making, social capital, older adult sexualities and theory development in aging. In another line of inquiry, she has examined the sexual and reproductive health of women through the intersecting lens of the body and the market. She has taught both undergrad and graduate-level courses in (medical) sociology, global health and development, social demography and research methods. She is currently the Co-editor for the journal Anthropology & Aging and an Associate Editor for The Journal of Family Studies (Routledge). Additionally she serves on on the editorial boards of The Sociological Review (SAGE) and the Journal of Aging Studies (Elsevier).
Prior to joining FLAME University, she was a faculty member with the department of Humanities & Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar, India, where she taught undergrad and graduate students for about 8 years. Apart from research, she remains committed to student engagement and contributing to an emerging community of young researchers. In this role, she has mentored several Masters and doctoral students and have served on academic committees and curriculum development boards.

Dr Srivastava is a senior scientist and Head, Innovation & Translational Research Division with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), New Delhi looking after innovation translation and Intellectual Property Right Unit.
Dr Srivastava holds a doctorate degree in biosciences and is a qualified patent agent. She was an intern at the Cornell University and Office of Technology Transfer, NIH, Washington to gain experiences on IPR and other policy issues. She is also closely working with the UK-based MIHR-Centre for the Management of IP in Health R&D. Dr Srivastava was part of the Government delegation in WHO Inter-Governmental Working Group on Intellectual Property & Public Health meeting held at Geneva; 63rd World Health Assembly of WHO led by Honorable Minister of Health & Family Welfare held at Geneva on May, 2010. She participated in Annual Meeting organized by Association of Technology managers AUTM held on March, 2010 at New Orleans, USA as only Indian representative and in Khorana Program Technology Transfer Course Award, Illinois USA, 2012. Dr. Srivastava was shortlisted for Human resource development scheme of Department of Health Research, for Short term fellowship (2017) at University of Wisconsin, USA and got advanced training on intellectual property rights, licensing of biomedical inventions, technology transfer and translational research in areas of modern biology. She participated in one week program on Road from Global Entrepreneurship Summit Technology Led Women Entrepreneurs Delegation to the United States organized by FICCI, held on Feb 20 – 23, 2018 at Washington D.C., Pittsburgh/Boston & Silicon Vallev USA.

Professor Loretta Baldassar is Vice Chancellor Professorial Research Fellow in the School of Arts and Humanities at ECU. She is Professor of Anthropology and Sociology.
In her current role, Professor Baldassar leads a new research group in the School of Arts and Humanities at ECU, the Social Ageing (SAGE) Futures Lab. Her team is leading research in social care across the life-course, contributing social science perspectives and methodologies to the creative and caring professions. This approach is targeted at the development of a social care research agenda for the aged care sector to facilitate collaborative communities of care that extend people’s support networks at every age, with a particular focus on:

1. Social and Cultural Care
2. Diverse and Migrant Communities
3. Music and Arts Engagement, and
4. Digital Ageing and Inclusion.

Baldassar is one of Australia’s leading Social Scientists and Internationally recognised leaders in migration and diversity studies. In 2020, 2021 and 2022 she was named Australian Research Field Leader in Migration Studies (Social Sciences) and in 2021 she was also named Research Field Leader in Ethnic and Cultural Studies (Humanities, Arts and Literature) (The Australian, 8 12 2021). Topping the list in both these fields is an exceptional achievement and constitutes public and academic recognition of the world class nature and relevancy of her research. Baldassar was one of only 10 UWA scholars to be named in this Award list and the only woman.

Harish Naraindas is professor of Sociology at Jawaharlal Nehru University, and honorary professor at the Alfred Deakin Institute, Deakin University. He was adjunct faculty at the University of Iowa 2004-19); DAAD visiting professor at the Department of Anthropology, University of Heidelberg (2017); joint-appointments professor of the Cluster of Excellence, University of Heidelberg (2008-12); and visiting professor at the Department of Sociology, University of Freiburg (2009). He works on the history and sociology of science and medicine and has published on a range of topics, including an epistemological history of tropical medicine, a comparative history of smallpox from the 18th to the 20th century, on the creolisation of contemporary Ayurveda, on spa medicine in Germany, on pregnancy and childbirth within the context of competing medical epistemes, a critique of global mental health through a hospital ethnography of German psychosomatic medicine, and on the sacramental nature of anthropological explanations of the non-human. Among his publications are a co-edited special issue of Anthropology and Medicine called ‘The fragile medical: the slippery terrain between medicine, anthropology and societies’ (2017), and two co-edited books: Healing Holidays: Itinerant Patients, Therapeutic Locales and the Quest for Health (London: Routledge, 2015), and Asymmetrical Conversations: Contestations, Circumventions and the Blurring of Therapeutic Boundaries (New York: Berghahn, 2014)

Dr. Jonas is a National Board-certified Psychiatrist, who completed his MBBS and Post-graduate Diploma in Psychiatry (DPM) from Christian Medical College, Vellore, India. He further went on to obtain his MRCPsych from the Royal College of Psychiatrists, UK, and his DNB(Psych) from the National Board of Examinations, New Delhi, India. Being an experienced clinician with a keen interest in research, he transitioned to a full-time research career when he joined CBR in 2019.

William Joe is Assistant Professor at the Population Research Centre, Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi. He is affiliated as Bernard Lown Scholar (also previously as Visiting Scientist) with the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (Harvard University). Dr. Joe has a PhD in Economics from Jawaharlal Nehru University. With focus on population health issues, Dr. Joe has several research collaborations and scientific publications to his credit. Currently, he is engaged in research support to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW, Government of India) on National Health Mission. Dr. Joe also leads the UNICEF-IEG collaboration on Anemia Mukt Bharat technical support activities. He is also involved in research supervision support for the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration (LBSNAA), Mussoorie.

Swati Agarwal is an Animation filmmaker and Designer. She is currently working as an Assistant Professor at IDC, School of Design, Indian Institute of Technology, IIT Bombay. She completed her M.Des in Animation in 2012 and worked at IDC as a Design Research Associate on different projects by the Government of India. She has also taught Animation Film Design at various other design Institutes in India.

She has documented the history of Indian Animation and interviewed some of the veteran Indian Animators. Her 3 claymation films ‘Gajar Ka Halwa’, ‘Lakshmi Aayi Hai’ and 'Meri Pyari Bakri' and a 2d animation film’ Amrita’ fetched several national and international awards. Swati has the experience of working with the renowned Oscar winning Animator ‘Adam Wrywas’ on a short claymation film ‘Tokri’. Working on humourous and socially impactful ideas is her core areas of interest.

Dr. Mahati Chittem is an Associate Professor of Health and Medical Psychology at the Department of Liberal Arts in the Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad, India. Her areas of academic and research expertise are in chronic disease management and health behaviours. Within the domain of chronic disease management, she has specialization in psycho-oncology and endocrinology focussed mainly on communication skills (for healthcare providers and patients/caregivers), cultural contexts of care, symptom identification and pathways to care, adherence, and end-of-life issues. Within the domain of health behaviours and using a relationship science approach, she examines the cultural aspects of engaging in dietary, exercise and safe sex behaviours.

S. Irudaya Rajan is Chair of the International Institute for Migration and Development, India and also Chair of the KNOMAD (The Global Knowledge Partnership on Migration and Development) World Bank working group on internal migration and urbanization. Prior to this, he was Professor at the Centre for Development Studies (CDS), Kerala (close to 40 years of research experience). He was the President of the Association of Gerontology (AGI, India) as well as Kerala Economic Association (KEA).

He has nearly four decades of research experience and has published extensively in national and international journals on social, economic, health and demographic facets of population ageing. He is the lead author of the book India’s Elderly: Burden or Challenge? (1999) and has coedited several other books including Social Security for the Elderly: Experiences from South Asia (2008); India’s Aged: Needs and Vulnerability (2017); Elderly Care in India: Societal and State Responses (Springer, 2017) and Abuse and Neglect of the Elderly in India (Springer, 2018). He is also the Chief Editor of the recent The Handbook of Aging , Health and Public Policy (Springer 2023). Professor Rajan has been involved in several projects on ageing funded by the United Nations (UN), United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA), World Bank (WB), International Labour Organization (ILO), HelpAge International, South Asian Network of Economic Institutes, Indo-Dutch Program on Alternatives in Development (IDPAD), and Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute and International Development Research Centre. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the international journal Migration and Development (Routledge) since 2012.

The Kerala Ageing Survey (KAS) was initiated in the year 2004 by Dr S Irudaya Rajan and Dr. K C Zachariah. As a longitudinal ageing survey, it is being conducted every 3 years and is the first of its kind in Kerala or India for that matter.

Dr. Mala Ramanathan is a Senior Professor at the Achutha Menon Centre for Health Science Studies, SCTIMST, Thiruvananthapuram. She is a trained statistician-demographer with a PhD from the International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS), Mumbai and has additional training in Medical Anthropology from the University of Amsterdam. She was an Ethics Fellow as the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, Boston in 2002-2004 as part of a National Institutes of Health program on Bioethics in LMICs. She is faculty on other NIH supported Bioethics training programs in India and elsewhere. Her research specialisation is gender and health. She also teaches research ethics and public health ethics in the MPH programme at AMCHSS. She is a Working Editor at the Indian Journal of Medical Ethics, a pubmed indexed peer reviewed open access bioethics journal published by the Forum for Medical Ethics, Mumbai. Her areas of specialisation are Use of quantitative and qualitative approaches, Gender in Health Research and Research Ethics.