Rachel Weldrick, PhD (they/she)

Research Fellow

Dr. Rachel is a Research Fellow at the HAP Lab and currently holds a CMHC-SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellowship. Rachel completed her PhD in Social Gerontology at McMaster University where she studied place-based risk factors and neighbourhood characteristics linked to social isolation and exclusion among older people. Since then, Rachel conducted postdoctoral work at Simon Fraser University with the Aging in the Right Place Partnership – a cross-Canada project addressing homelessness and housing insecurity among older persons. Since joining TMU and the HAP Lab, Rachel has launched a study with older persons who live alone and rent in the urban peripheries of Toronto and Hamilton. Throughout her work, Rachel prioritizes participatory research, community-based methods, collaborative development of knowledge mobilization outputs, and mixed methods.

Research Interests: Housing and homelessness; Environmental gerontology; social in/exclusion; Participatory and adapted research methods

Projects: Care and Dementia in the Suburbs, Dementia Capable Communities, COVID-19 and Dementia in Oshawa, Failing Better in Access

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