Update from Former Research Assistant Chris Liu on Life at Law School
Chris Liu, who worked in LHC’s lab from 2009 to 2013 as an Undergraduate Research Assistant, was accepted to University of Saskatchewan’s law school in September 2013. Read More
Dr. Emmanuelle Tulle’s Visit to UBC
As part of the School of Kinesiology’s Distinguished Speakers’ series, Dr. Emmanuelle Tulle visited UBC for two days in May 2016 Read More
I am a Professor in the School of Kinesiology at the University of British Columbia (Vancouver). I hold a Bachelor of Arts (Sociology) from Queen’s University, a Masters of Social Work from Wilfrid Laurier University, and a Doctor of Philosophy (Sociology) from McMaster University.
My areas of expertise include older men’s and women’s experiences of aging, ageism, body image, and embodiment. My work considers how older adults’ perceptions and experiences of their bodies are shaped and constrained by age and gender ideals and norms, health and illness, healthism, disability, media representations, and their social position (including culture, ethnicity, sexuality, and social class).
My CIHR (Canadian Institutes of Health Research), MSHFR (Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research), and SSHRC (Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council) funded research has included:
- Older women’s body image and embodiment (anti-aging, consumer culture, dieting, and exercise)
- Older men’s body image and embodiment (body functionality, healthism, masculinities, and physical activity)
- Older men’s and women’s experiences of multiple chronic conditions and disability
- Older men’s and women’s experiences of ageism (in health care, the workplace, and everyday interactions)
- Older adults’ use of assistive technologies (such as power wheelchairs and scooters)
View Dr. Hurd Clarke’s publications.
Current projects
I am currently involved in the following research projects:
Project 1:
Principal Investigator, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Insight Grant (2017-2022) entitled “Aging and the Body: Portrayals, Perceptions, and Experiences of LGBTQ Older Adults.”
Project 2:
Co-Investigator, Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR) Operating Grant (2015-2018) entitled “Systematic, Comprehensive, One-to-One Training (SCOOT) for Scooter Skills.”
Project 3:
Co-Investigator, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Insight Development Grant (2016-2018) entitled “Aging Masculinity: Understanding Older Men’s Body Perceptions and Experiences.”
Deana Kanagasingam
Hometown: Singapore
Education:
BA, Gender Studies/Sociology, The University of Toronto, 2008
MA, Gender Studies/Women’s Health, The University of Toronto, 2010
Research interests: Sociology of health and illness, sociology of the body, sociology of emotions, social theory, feminist theory, health communication, critical obesity studies, physical activity, narrative inquiry, ethnography
I am a first year PhD student co-supervised by Dr. Laura Hurd Clarke and Dr. Moss Norman. My doctoral research adopts a social justice lens in examining the health professional and patient interaction. Conventional health promotion and biomedicine have attributed obesity to a lack of personal control and conflated weight management with moral worth, revealing a neoliberal ideology that recasts problems rooted in social inequalities as purely individual ones. Specifically, I am interested in how this moralizing discourse of obesity plays out during the clinical encounter. Some of my research questions include: What kind of moral and social values pertaining to food, health, fitness and obesity do health professionals convey to patients? How are these values bound by racialized, gendered and classed body ideals? How do these different values impact a patient’s subjective well-being and understanding of their body? By bringing patients’ narratives to the public domain, I hope to encourage greater reflection amongst health professionals on whether prevailing neoliberal ideas about individual responsibility and self-sufficiency serve patients’ best interests.
Anusmita Devi
Hometown: Gujarat, India
Education:
BA, Sociology, Delhi University, 2009
MA, Sociology, Jawaharlal Nehru University, 2012
Research interests: Aging, body image, popular culture, gender studies, social gerontology
I am a doctoral candidate in the discipline of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar under the supervision of Dr. Samanta. I am currently a visiting scholar at UBC under the supervision of Dr. Laura Hurd Clarke as part of my Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute Fellowship. My broad areas of research interests span across social gerontology, gender studies, popular media and culture studies. My doctoral research explores the questions of body, beauty, gender subjectivities, and later life identities through an analysis of media representation of older adults in post-liberal India and a cross-national comparison of subjective experiences of aging among people of Indian origin in India and Canada.
Joe Kugler
Hometown: White Rock, British Columbia via San Francisco, California via Austin, Texas via Erie, Pennsylvania
Education:
BSc, Gannon University, Erie, Pennsylvania,1982
Research interests: aging, ageism, physical activity, medicalization
I am interested in older adults’ experiences of health and physical activity, with a particular focus on exercise programs and the pursuit of health and fitness goals. I will seek to uncover if and how fitness programs for older adults are becoming medicalized. Additionally, I want to investigate how older adults’ experiences in fitness programs are framed by ageism.
The following are the students currently working with the research team, providing invaluable assistance with study recruitment, data management, transcription, and the coding of qualitative data.
| Name | Position | Year | |
|---|---|---|---|
 |
Erica Bennett | Postdoctoral Research Assistant | 2010 to present |
 |
Lauren Currie | Graduate Research Assistant | 2016 to present |
 |
Karen Jiang | Mitacs Intern | 2017 to present |
 |
Deana Kanagasingam | Graduate Research Assistant | 2017 to present |
 |
Raveena Mahal | Research Technician | 2015 to present |
 |
Suzanne Ng | Undergraduate Research Assistant | 2017 to present |
Deana Kanagasingam
Hometown: Singapore
Education:
BA, Gender Studies/Sociology, The University of Toronto, 2008
MA, Gender Studies/Women’s Health, The University of Toronto, 2010
Research interests: Sociology of health and illness, sociology of the body, sociology of emotions, social theory, feminist theory, health communication, critical obesity studies, physical activity, narrative inquiry, ethnography
I am a first year PhD student co-supervised by Dr. Laura Hurd Clarke and Dr. Moss Norman. My doctoral research adopts a social justice lens in examining the health professional and patient interaction. Conventional health promotion and biomedicine have attributed obesity to a lack of personal control and conflated weight management with moral worth, revealing a neoliberal ideology that recasts problems rooted in social inequalities as purely individual ones. Specifically, I am interested in how this moralizing discourse of obesity plays out during the clinical encounter. Some of my research questions include: What kind of moral and social values pertaining to food, health, fitness and obesity do health professionals convey to patients? How are these values bound by racialized, gendered and classed body ideals? How do these different values impact a patient’s subjective well-being and understanding of their body? By bringing patients’ narratives to the public domain, I hope to encourage greater reflection amongst health professionals on whether prevailing neoliberal ideas about individual responsibility and self-sufficiency serve patients’ best interests.
Hometown: Gujarat, India
Education:
BA, Sociology, Delhi University, 2009
MA, Sociology, Jawaharlal Nehru University, 2012
Research interests: Aging, body image, popular culture, gender studies, social gerontology
I am a doctoral candidate in the discipline of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar under the supervision of Dr. Samanta. I am currently a visiting scholar at UBC under the supervision of Dr. Laura Hurd Clarke as part of my Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute Fellowship. My broad areas of research interests span across social gerontology, gender studies, popular media and culture studies. My doctoral research explores the questions of body, beauty, gender subjectivities, and later life identities through an analysis of media representation of older adults in post-liberal India and a cross-national comparison of subjective experiences of aging among people of Indian origin in India and Canada.
AHometown: White Rock, British Columbia via San Francisco, California via Austin, Texas via Erie, Pennsylvania
Education:
BSc, Gannon University, Erie, Pennsylvania,1982
Research interests: aging, ageism, physical activity, medicalization
I am interested in older adults’ experiences of health and physical activity, with a particular focus on exercise programs and the pursuit of health and fitness goals. I will seek to uncover if and how fitness programs for older adults are becoming medicalized. Additionally, I want to investigate how older adults’ experiences in fitness programs are framed by ageism.
Graduate Students
I am looking for potential graduate students who want to do further training in socio-cultural studies around topics such as physical activity in later life, the experience of health and illness, ageism, body image, beauty and appearance work (e.g anti-aging practices), disability, the use of assistive technologies, mobility, leisure, and masculinity/femininity and the body.
Graduate students under my supervision have engaged in research on topics that have included: menstrual suppression practices; physical activity among older adults with multiple chronic conditions; older adults’ perceptions of and experiences in exercise programs; older women’s beauty and fashion practices; elite athletes’ use of complementary and alternative medicine; paralympic athletes; body image and older women; and older adults’ use of assistive technologies.
If you have a background in kinesiology, socio-cultural studies, social gerontology, or sociology and are interested in learning more, please contact me at laura.hurd.clarke@ubc.ca.
Undergraduate Students
If you are currently an undergraduate student in the School of Kinesiology at UBC and you are interested in getting hands on qualitative research experience through involvement in a vibrant research team, please contact me at laura.hurd.clarke@ubc.ca about possible openings and opportunities.