Lecture: A (Self) Reflexive Lens on Gerontology: Over Time, Through Change, With Aging, by Anne Martin-Matthews

Dr. Anne Martin-Matthews is the Acting Vice-President, Research, Knowledge Translation and Ethics at the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and a Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of British Columbia (UBC). Dr. Martin-Matthews has held positions of Associate Dean Research and Graduate Studies, Associate Dean Strategic Initiatives, and Dean pro tem in the faculty of Arts during her time at UBC. Previously, she acted as the Scientific Director of the CIHR Institute of Aging, leading the development and launch of the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging. In addition to her Fellowships with the U.S. Gerontological Society of America and the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences, Dr. Martin-Matthews was responsible for establishing and leading the pan-University Gerontology Research Centre at the University of Guelph for three terms.

Dr. Martin-Matthews has served on the Board of Trustees for the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies (UBC). She also currently holds membership with the Research Council of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, the International Scientific Advisory Boards for the AGE-WELL Networks of Centres of Excellence and the European Commission Joint Programming Initiative - Social inequalities in extending working lives of an ageing workforce. She serves on the Governing Board of the UK’s Cohort and Longitudinal Studies Enhancement Resources (CLOSER), and she has an appointment to the International Scientific Advisory Board, Centre of Excellence in AgeCare, Academy of Finland.

Dr. Martin-Matthews has published extensively in the fields of aging and lifecourse; health and society; health and social care services; and the intersections of formal and informal care. In recognition of her commitment to mentoring new researchers on aging, in 2012 CIHR created the “Anne Martin-Matthews Doctoral Research Prize of Excellence in Research on Aging.” In 2016, she received the Evelyn Shapiro Recognition Award for Excellence in Student Mentoring from the Canadian Association on Gerontology. She was awarded the UBC Killam Excellence in Student Mentoring Award, Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies in 2017.

In December 2017, Dr. Martin-Matthews was appointed as an Officer of the Order of Canada, for “extensive research contributions to gerontology, notably in implementing the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging”.

Dr. William F. Forbes was the founding Director of the Gerontology program at the University of Waterloo, Canada’s first English-language graduate program in Gerontology. In a long and diverse career at the University of Waterloo, he held faculty appointments in the Departments of Chemistry, Sociology, Statistics and Actuarial Science, and Health Studies, and was the Dean of the faculty of Mathematics from 1972-1980. He had a particular interest in research on smoking, playing an active role on the World Health Organization’s Expert Committee on Smoking Control as Head of the WHO Collaborating Centre on Smoking Habits and President of the Canadian Council on Smoking and Health. A strong advocate for longitudinal gerontological research, Dr. Forbes preserved the Ontario Longitudinal Study of Aging database by finding a home for it at Waterloo when it was threatened with destruction. He had significant influence provincially and nationally as the founding president of the Ontario Gerontology Association (OGA) and the Canadian Association on Gerontology (CAG), and was CAG’s first recipient of its Distinguished Member Award for “outstanding contributions to the Association and Gerontology in Canada.” His numerous research contributions and public advocacy for aging issues and senior Canadians have had international impact on the study and understanding of older adults. Dr. Forbes was honoured as a Distinguished Professor Emeritus from the University of Waterloo, and was presented with a 125^th Anniversary of Canada Commemorative Medal “for people who have made a significant contribution to Canada, to their community, or to fellow Canadians”.