Sandra Torres

Professor at Department of Sociology; Faculty

Telephone:
+46 18 471 51 71
E-mail:
sandra.torres@uu.se
Visiting address:
Engelska parken
Thunbergsvägen 3H
Postal address:
Box 624
751 26 UPPSALA

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Short presentation

Sandra Torres holds a Ph.D. in sociology, and is Prof. of Sociology & Chair of Social Gerontology. She was elected into the (Swedish) Royal Society of Sciences in 2016, and was awarded the Fellow status "in recognition of outstanding achievement and exemplary contributions to the field of gerontology" by the Gerontological Society of America (GSA) in 2017.

Biography

Prof. Torres is a sociologist of aging whose research problematizes old age-related constructs, sheds critical light on commonly used methods in health and social care and deconstructs some of the taken for granted assumptions that guide policy and practice for the older segments of our populations. This is why she is often regarded as a critical gerontologist. Sandra's main scholarly contributions have aimed to expand the social gerontological imagination through the use of knowledge gathered in the sociology of ethnicity/ race and migration.

Prior to joining the professorial team of the Department of Sociology, Sandra held (between 2008-2012) an (adjunct) professorship in rehabilitation and aging (at Oslo University College in Norway; an institution that is now called Oslo Met), and a professorship in social work (between 2009-2010) at Mälardalen University in Sweden. Between 2025-2027 she is back at that university in the capacity of Visiting professor in social work.

Since 2021, Sandra is the Editor-in-Chief of Ageing & Society; one of the leading journals in the socio-behavioral sciences of aging. Between 2018-2023 (June), she was the President of the Research Committee on Aging of the Int'l. Sociological Association (also known as ISA's RC-11). She has also held the position of President of the Socio-Behavioral Section of the Int'l. Association of Gerontology & Geriatrics: European Region (IAGG-ER), and was, as such, a member of the Executive Committee of IAGG-ER. Between 2006-2021, she co-convened the Gerontological Society of America's Interest Group on International Aging and Migration.

Her latest sole authored book - which is entitled Ethnicity & Old Age: Expanding our Imagination (Policy Press, 2019) - received the Gerontological Society of America's Richard M. Kalish Innovative Publication Book Award in 2021. She has co-edited collections like the Handbook on Migration and Ageing (Elgar Publishing, 2023), and the one entitled Critical Gerontology for Social Workers (Policy Press, 2022), and has also contributed to several of the key handbooks/ encyclopedias in the field of aging. Her latest publications in Swedish include a co-edited collection entitled Äldrevård och omsorgen i migrationens tidevarv (published by Studentlitteratur in 2021).

Past achievements (highlights):

At the European level, Sandra was one of the first emerging scholars to receive the ERA-AGE grant known as FLARE: Future Leader of Aging Research in Europe; a grant she received to study the intersection of migration and aging while specifically focusing on eldercare. Thus, it is perhaps understandable that she was involved in the research networks that first launched European research on the intersection of migration and aging back in the mid 2000's (such as those funded by the European Research Foundation which was the predecessor to the COST-framework).

Most recently, Sandra was a member of both the Steering and the Management Committee for the COST- ACTION on old age and social exclusion known as ROSENet; a network that brought together 180+ researchers from 41 countries and had funding between 2016-2020. Together with Prof. Ariela Lowenstein (Haifa University, Israel), she co-led the Working Group on Civic Exclusion in that COST-funded network.

Sandra sits also on the Editorial Board of established peer-reviewed journals such as the Journal of Aging Studies and Ethnicity & Health, and has also had editorial board commitments for other journals, such as Vulnerable Groups and Inclusion and Socialvetenskaplig tidskrift. She was also one of the founders of, and Associate Editors for, one of the first open-access journals in gerontology: the International Journal of Ageing and Later Life for many years, and served also in the editorial board of the Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences and Social Policy & Society.

At the national level and in terms of some of the latest policy contributions that Prof. Torres has made, it is perhaps worth mentioning that Sandra was one of the scientific experts who worked on the policy plan on eldercare quality that the the Swedish Government launched in 2017 (which in Swedish is called the SOU Nationella Kvalitetsplan för Äldreomsorgen). In terms of contributions made to Uppsala University, and the Department of Sociology (which she joined in 2010), it is perhaps worth noting that Sandra co-founded (in 2012) - together Prof. em. Rafael Lindqvist - the Welfare Research Group; a group that brings together researchers who are trained in either sociology or social work, and conduct research on inequality and welfare, and that welcomes every year several visiting researchers from around the world (e.g., UK, Spain, Slovenia, Germany and Japan to name but a few). She co-lead this group between 2012-2020 (at first with Prof. Lindqvist, and then with Prof. Hannah Bradby). Since 2023 she is back in that co-leading role with Prof. Matilda Hellman who joined this department in 2023. For more information on this group see: The Welfare Research Group – Department of Sociology – Uppsala University

Sandra was Head of Department between 2020-2021, and Deputy Head of Department between 2014-2018. It is in the later capacity that she played an instrumental role in securing the university funding necessary to establish the Centre for Social Work (CESAR), the chair in social work as well as the PhD program in that discipline. This center operated out of the Department of Sociology for many years since education in social work was originally primarily offered by sociologists working on social care and welfare-related issues in this university. This center was re-named the Institute for Social Work in 2023 and it is now a department of its own.

Between 2010-2019, Prof. Torres led the Social Gerontology Group which was comprised of researchers in social gerontology from Uppsala University, Stockholm University and Gävle University College. This group was founded by the late Prof. Lars Tornstam back in the mid 1990's, who held the first Chair in Social Gerontology at Uppsala University. It is that Chair that Prof. Torres now holds.

As a professor, Sandra is committed to the training and mentoring of new generation of scholars who can think critically and evidence-based about taken-for-granted matters within their respective fields and academia at large. She has been offering lectures, discussions, and workshops on an array of (academic) professional development topics to junior scholars since 2003. These have been offered not only in Sweden, Norway, and Finland, but also in Slovenia, Costa Rica, Australia, Morocco and South Korea, as well as online to academics in Singapore, and numerous European countries. Committed to demystifying the know-how behind the many unspoken expectations that academic contexts place (but seldom teach) on their junior scholars, she tries to empower them by encouraging them to create their own sustainable approach to managing everyday life as a research-focused academic. One of the latest skill-based-lectures she has offered on the topic of how to create systems for not only successful but also sustainable research-focused careers were designed at the request of the Int’l. Association of Sociology’s as part of their 1st ever Professional Development Series (the 1st one was offered at the World Congress of Sociology, which was held in Australia in 2023 and the 2nd one was offered at the ISA FORUM, which was held in Morocco in 2025).

Prof. Torres has thus far supervised 14 doctoral students who have successfully been awarded their PhDs in sociology, aging research and health sciences. Two of them wrote dissertations that were awarded the Best Dissertation Award by the Swedish Sociological Association. She is therefore a committed PhD supervisor who takes pride in supporting her mentees academically, while also offering critical feedback to allow them to grow intellectually and develop a sociological imagination of their own.

Research

Sandra's research has often (but not always) focused on the intersection of migration and aging. Funding for her work has often (but not solely) come from the two main research councils for social sciences in Sweden [i.e., the Swedish Research Council (or Vetenskapsrådet in Swedish) and the Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare (known as FORTE in Swedish)]. Her most recent grant was awarded by the latter for the Swedish part of a five country European project on older people's civic participation, known as CIVEX (which stands for 'Exclusion from civic engagement of a diverse older population: features, experiences and policy implications'). CIVEX was funded as part of the Joint Programming Initiative More Years, Better Lives, which is a collaboration between European and national research programs (which is why FORTE funds the Swedish part of the project). The CIVEX consortium included four European countries selected to represent contrasting welfare state regimes and socio-cultural contexts: Anglo-Saxon (UK), Continental (Belgium), Nordic (Sweden and Finland) and Southern (Spain). As a whole, CIVEX was lead by Dr. Rodrigo Serrat (Univ. of Barcelona) [see Inici - CIVEX Research Project - Projectes de recerca for more information]. Prof. Torres lead the Swedish team, and together with Dr. Serrat, she lead also the study that relied on qualitative life-course interviews (n=240). CIVEX ended in 2024 but the Swedish team worked on the data collected in this project until 2026.

In addition to the CIVEX project, Sandra is currently the Primary Investigator for a project on the documentation practices that needs assessors within eldercare rely on, which is funded by The Kamprad Family Foundation for Entrepreneurship, Research & Charity. This project aims to shed light on how care managers within eldercare (which is the term often used for needs assessors) reason about documentation practices in general, and especially in light of the increasing demands for standardization that are placed on welfare representatives. To address this aim, the project relies on focus group interviews (approximately 50 care managers have been interviewed). In addition, the project analyzes (both quantitatively and qualitatively) the case files that need assessors use (n=900-1,200 approx.). The project is being conducted in collaboration with Prof. Anna Olaison (Linköping University; who is primarily responsible for the data collection via focus groups) and Dr. Maricel Knechtel (Uppsala University; who is primarily responsible for the quantitative analysis of case files).

Sandra Torres

Publications

Recent publications

All publications

Articles in journal

Books

Chapters in book

Collections (editor)

Conference papers

Manuscripts (preprints)

Monograph doctoral thesis

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