External Research Associate
lokamen1[at]yorku.ca
Research Associate
York Centre for Asian Research, York University
Research Keywords:
Gender; aging; critical gerontology; South Asian Diaspora; feminist methods; auto/biography
Research Diaspora(s):
South Asian Diaspora
Lois Kamenitz holds a PhD from the Faculty of Education at York University. A Research Associate at the York Centre for Asian Research, her research interests include gender, aging, critical gerontology, the South Asian Diaspora, feminist methods and auto/biography. She began her doctoral journey at age 70 and successfully defended her dissertation in 2021 at the age of 75. Using a feminist life course lens, her research was on older women learners who returned to university to pursue a PhD in the early-to-mid 2000s and successfully defended their dissertations between 2010 and 2018. By documenting these women’s stories, her research added to the literature on the older adult learner. It also contributed to a shift in the discourse on aging and, in particular, on older women from one primarily of decline and loss to one of life stories still developing.
In 2021–2022, she and colleagues from York University’s Department of Sociology examined the effectiveness of an innovative program delivery model developed by Human Endeavour. Technology Access and Support for Seniors (TASS) enhanced vulnerable seniors’ social inclusion while also helping senior-serving organizations meet the workforce and skills challenges required to reduce the senior digital divide.
From 2023 to May 2025, she was the Principal Investigator on an evaluation of a Public Health Agency of Canada-funded project—Tech-Empowered Healthy Living for Seniors Living with Dementia (TEHL)—that provided seniors living with dementia and their carers senior-friendly and accessible Android tablets customizable to their needs with built-in intelligence, automation software, voice- or touch-based operation, data/internet and remote login support for debugging problems. These tablets assisted with activities of daily living, social inclusion and entertainment. TEHL built on her previous research with TASS.
Currently she is co-lead on a community based photovoice study of horizontal naturally occurring retirement communities (NORCs) and community belonging.