WHO WE ARE

Our Team

Ginger Grant

Dean, Office of Research and Innovation

Ginger is the Dean of Office of Research and Innovation at Humber College in Canada and a Visiting Professor at the Copenhagen Business School in Denmark. Her areas of specialization include innovation management and metrics, creativity and creative problem solving, and values-based leadership programs for high performance teams. She is a widely published author, international speaker and management consultant.

Barath Michel Roy

Emerging Researcher

Michel, equipped with over ten years of professional expertise, boasts a Master's degree in Social Work and Human Resources. His diverse background encompasses Project Management, Human Resources, Data Analytics, and Consulting. Currently working as a Senior Project Manager at Humber College, he oversees Applied Research Projects and stands out as a driven Emerging Researcher. Michel's passions lie in uncovering insights from data and spearheading initiatives for upskilling.

Jeremy Staples

Research Specialist

Jeremy has worked in Ontario post-secondary education for over 30 years and is currently a Research Specialist in the Office or Research and Innovation at Humber College. He is focused on creating learning experiences that challenge learners to embrace discomfort as a means to develop their critical, creative and reflective thinking capacity so that they are prepared for the ambiguity and uncertainty of the 21st Century workplace.

Muge Abac

Emerging Researcher

With over a decade of professional experience, Muge holds a Ph.D. in Strategy and Management along with a Master's degree in Global Marketing and Brand Management. Integrating insights from both industry and academia, she specializes in strategy development, innovation management, entrepreneurship, and project management. Currently, she applies her expertise at Humber College, bridging academia and industry and fostering interdisciplinary collaboration through innovative research initiatives.

Pat Spadafora

Consultant

With many years of experience in post-secondary education, social work and applied research, Pat Spadafora, of Kaleidoscope Consulting, has a proven track record of bringing innovative projects to fruition.

Pat’s expertise and interests include the human cost of social isolation and loneliness, social prescribing, the needs and interests of older workers and aging in community.

What We Do

Humber’s Aging in Community Education and Research hub (ACER) is an initiative of the Office of Research and Innovation (ORI).

ORI actively engages in applied research and innovation services, collaborating with partner organizations, faculty and student research teams to address real-world challenges. These collaborations not only benefit partners but they provide students with valuable hands-on experience, ORI plays a pivotal role in fostering Humber’s research culture by encouraging a focus on discovery, collaboration and meaningful impact within the institution.

ACER’s mission is to ‘conduct innovative research that creates, implements and evaluates solutions that strengthen community-based supports to empower older adults to remain engaged in and connected to their communities’.

ACER has six foundational research themes; Potential research topics have been identified for each one of them. While these topics guide both ACER research and educational initiatives, the ACER team is always open to exploring opportunities as they present themselves.The results of ACER research and educational activities will enrich Humber’s academic programs, create new and strengthen existing business and industry partnerships.

ACER Themes

The following areas represent ACER’s six founding themes. It is important to note that these six themes do not exist in isolation. Rather, there are synergies and many points of intersection between them upon which research projects will be built.

Community Connections

Despite many efforts over the last decade to reduce social isolation and loneliness among older adults, they continue to be complex and persistent societal problems. ACER researchers will investigate ways to enable older adults to remain connected to and engaged in their communities. In doing so, we will evaluate technology tools that may support connections.

Workplace Innovation (WIN)

Older workers have an important role to play in Canada’s economy. Examples of research focal points include recruiting, training and retaining older workers; creating age-inclusive work places, both in design and organizational culture; supporting older entrepreneurs; seeking solutions to labour force participation and managing 5 generation workforces.

Health and Wellness

The overarching goal of this theme is to explore ways to extend one’s health span, which is different from life span. Drawing on the World Health Organization’s social determinants of health, researchers will focus on ways to support older adults in all aspects of health and wellbeing. This could include improving access to health and community supports and creating innovative health promotion strategies.

Enabling Technologies

The potential for technology to facilitate aging in community has enormous potential. Research associated with this theme may include, but is not limited to, automating ways for people to remain and be cared for in their own homes, technologies that support social inclusion and community connections, wearables for fitness and to monitor health and to detect falls.

Communications & Marketing

While older consumers represent a powerful marketing opportunity, many companies continue to dedicate their marketing efforts towards a younger demographic. How to shift that dynamic and increase awareness about marketing to and communicating with mature consumers will be investigated.

The Built Environment

Our interest in the built environment includes all aspects of what it means to age well in community. This includes not only the development of a range of housing options but the design and use of public spaces, both buildings (e.g. banks, restaurants, medical clinics, grocery stores) as well as outdoor spaces (e.g. parks, hiking trails).