Tannistha Samanta is a sociologist and an aging studies scholar by training. She received her Master’s and PhD from the Department of Sociology, University of Maryland College Park. Prior to that, she had obtained graduate-level degrees in Economics from JNU, New Delhi and University of Calcutta. Broadly, her research lies at the interdisciplinary crossroads of family sociology and gerontology where she focuses on living arrangements, social capital, health policy, older adult sexualities and theory development in aging studies. In another line of inquiry, she is interested in examining the complex nexus of motherhood, sexual politics and the biomedical markets. Her work has been funded by research grants from the United Nations Population Fund, Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR), Government of Gujarat, Population Foundation of India, University of California, San Diego (School of Medicine) and recently, the University of Haifa (Israel). Apart from research, she remains committed to student engagement and contributing to an emerging community of young researchers. In this role, she has mentored several Masters and doctoral students and has served on academic committees and curriculum development boards.
Currently, she serves as a co-editor of the journal of Anthropology & Aging (the official journal of the Association for Anthropology, Gerontology & the Life Course) and an Associate Editor of the Journal of Family Studies (Taylor & Francis). She also serves on the editorial board of the journal, The Sociological Review (SAGE) and the Journal of Aging Studies (Elsevier). Prior to joining FLAME University, she was a faculty with the department of Humanities & Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar, India, where she taught undergrad and graduate students for about 8 years.
2023
2022
2021
2020
GRANTS (2020)