Loretta Baldassar

Loretta Baldassar is Professor of Anthropology and Sociology, Vice Chancellor Professorial Research Fellow, and Director of the Social Ageing (SAGE) Futures Lab, Edith Cowan University (ECU). The ECU SAGE research team is leading innovation in social care across the life-course, contributing social science perspectives and methodologies to the creative and caring professions.

Baldassar was named Australian Research Field Leader in Migration Studies, as well as in Ethnic and Cultural Studies, by The Australian Research Magazine (23 12 20; 8 12 2021; 10 11 2022). She is co-Chief Investigator of the Australian Research Council (ARC) funded longitudinal Project, Youth Mobilities, Aspirations and Pathways (YMAP). She is first named CI on a Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) project on dementia and migrant communities, and is social support stream lead on an MRFF project developing a National Frailty Kit. Her work is foundational to the field of Transnational Family Studies, and includes Visits Home (2001), which won a NSW Premier’s Literary Award; Families Caring Across Borders (with Baldock & Wilding, 2007); Transnational Families, Migration and the Circulation of Care (with Merla, 2014), and most recently, Transnational Families in Africa (with Marchetti-Mercer and Swartz, 2023). Baldassar has been a Chief Investigator on 56 projects, 20 as Lead. She is a highly-regarded supervisor, with 26 PhD completions and 7 international postdoctoral fellowships. Her career has been devoted to better understanding the impact of migration on families and communities, with a focus on social care and the role of social support networks, intergenerational relations, the ageing process and the social uses of new technologies.