Sandra Torres MD

Prof. Torres – who holds both a Professorship in Sociology and the Chair in Social Gerontology at Uppsala University as well as a Guest Professorship in Aging at Linköping University - is a critical gerontologist who has conducted numerous studies that problematize old age-related constructs; shed critical light on commonly used methods in health and social care and deconstruct some of the taken for granted assumptions that guide policy and practice for the older segments of our populations.

Her main contributions to research on aging and old age are based on studies that have aimed to expand the social gerontological imagination through the use of knowledge gathered in the sociology of aging, the sociology of ethnicity/ migration as well as social work (her first professorship appointment was in this discipline) and the caring sciences (her second professorship appointment – which was in Norway – was in rehabilitation and aging). Her research has been awarded several grants from the two main Swedish research councils for social scientists (VR and FORTE) and has been a part of some of the research programs, centers of excellence and research schools on aging that the Swedish Council for Working Life and Social Research (FORTE) has funded over the past decade.