Dr Mei Lan Fang, PhD, is a Lecturer (Teaching and Research) with a health science gerontology focus, located in the School of Health Sciences at the University of Dundee. She is also a Senior Research Scholar as a part of the Science and Technology Aging Research Institute at Simon Fraser University.

Dr Fang has a background in public health specialising in social and health inequities. She completed her Undergraduate Honours Degree in Health Sciences and Master of Public Health at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, British Columbia Canada. Her postgraduate education is accompanied by a PhD in Urban Studies completed at Heriot Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland where her research focused on progressing community-based participatory research concepts, theory, and methods for designing age-friendly environments to enhance the health and wellbeing of older people.

Funded the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, her postgraduate research stems from a longitudinal community-based affordable housing project.

For the past 10 years, Dr Fang has worked as a transdisciplinary research scientist and health sciences methodologist where she has developed theory, methods and practice in health-related areas of critical public health, ethnic and migration studies, environmental gerontology, ageing and technology, global health promotion and mental health and addiction. With a diverse background in health and social care research, she has expertise in a variety of (i) community-based participatory research; (ii) knowledge synthesis and (iii) integrated knowledge translation methods, including: (i) in-depth interviews, storytelling, digital storytelling, photo-voice, and community mapping; (ii) scoping reviews, systematic reviews, realist reviews, network meta-analysis, and discourse analysis; and (iii) deliberative dialogue, co-creation camps, world cafés, and knowledge cafés.

During her tenure at Simon Fraser University, Dr Fang served as a Research Associate at the Gerontology Research Centre where she led a Vancouver Foundation funded community-based research project, Place-Making with Seniors, working closely with local stakeholders to capture needs of older adults transitioning into affordable senior housing. She was also an Academic Fellow in Community Engagement with the AGE-WELL Networks of Centres of Excellence, where she focused on developing research, and guidelines that facilitated transdisciplinary working across several Pan-Canadian Research Institutes. As a recipient of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Doctoral Fellowship and Storytellers Award, Dr Fang’s research has been recognised for progressing the fields of health and social sciences. Dr Fang has also produced a range of peer-reviewed publications, and unpublished knowledge translation outputs, consisting of journal articles, books, book chapters, method protocols, published conference proceedings, guidelines, briefing notes, and conceptual models that all stem from a broad spectrum of completed and ongoing community-oriented and participatory projects. Her current research aims to co-create intergenerational, age-friendly places and spaces with and for people of all ages across cultures and global contexts and address social and health inequities experienced by older people.

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