About the Author

Lars Tornstam, PhD, is a pioneer of Swedish social gerontology, who wrote the first Swedish doctoral thesis within the field of gerontological sociology back in 1973. At Uppsala University he launched the first Swedish academic courses in gerontology and did the same in Denmark during a five year stay as adjunct professor of social gerontology at the University of Copenhagen. He has also been one of the leaders of a Swedish nation-wide, cross faculty, research program Elderly in society – Past, present and in the future, where he himself focused his research on empirical studies of what today is labeled ageism.

Dr. Tornstam is now holding the first Swedish chair in social gerontology at Uppsala University, where he is the leader of The Social Gerontology Group.