Project | Representation of older adults with diverse cultural contexts in gerontechnology for ageing in place |
Host: | Open University of the Netherlands |
Main Supervisor: | Prof. Dr. Alexander Peine |
Co-Supervisors: | Dr. Catharina M. van Leersum (Open University of the Netherlands), Prof. Dr. Henk Herman Nap (Eindhoven University of Technology & Vilans) |
I am gerontologist by training. My PhD topic focuses on representations of the diversity of ageing and ageing populations during the co-creation of gerontechnology that are promoted to support ageing-in-place. Apart from my academic trajectory, I hold a project manager role at TheGeronTechnologist.com to create e-learning content for AgeTech Academy and the community.
In my spare time, I am the EU bubble representer of Senex: Association for Ageing Studies for early career researchers (located in Antalya, Turkey), and I am an active member at communication team of Socio-Gerontechnology Network and HOMeAGE-DN to promote on-going projects to outsiders on social media channels. It is a privilege to be part of these such communities to be able to connect the dots in gerontechnology(aka AgeTech) space.
Right before this doctoral researcher role, I graduated from research master in Gerontological Sciences at Vrije Universiteit Brussel, in Belgium. My thesis was about exploring the digital experiences of 50+ years old Turkish individuals in Belgium. Previously, I completed my bachelor degree dissertation in Gerontology at Akdeniz University in Turkey about creating a smart phone based app content for Alzheimers’ informal caregivers in Turkish. During this undergraduate programme, I had a chance to follow a semester of exchange programme at Oberlin University in Tokyo, Japan and one academic year at Windesheim University of Applied Sciences with Erasmus exchange in Zwolle, the Netherlands. These experiences has supported me to develop an interest and awareness to the diversity of life styles, its’ impact to gerontechnology, and human rights of ageing population. Therefore, after the graduation, I worked as a junior non-key expert to collect data from Turkish newspapers, and to report old people’s right abuses and ageism during the COVID19 pandemic in Turkey.
My main motivation is raising awareness about topics which are related with human rights of older individuals and especially in gerontechnology. I have been discovering different ways to communicate and build a meaningful network with my fresh academic skills and knowledge.
Please feel free to reach me out to exchange conversation regarding to gerontechnology.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nilmeral,
Open University page: https://www.ou.nl/web/open-universiteit/zoek-medewerker#!user/nm2
Title of Project: Representation of older adults with diverse cultural contexts in gerontechnology for ageing in place
Aim of Project: My PhD project aims to critically examine how co-creation is used in the development and implementation of gerontechnology. It explores how inclusive and culturally sensitive these approaches are in both research design and technology design practices.
Short description/abstract: This PhD project investigates how participatory approaches can be used to co-create gerontechnology with older adults from various cultural backgrounds. The first publication of this PhD project is a scoping review that explores co-creation methods with older adults from diverse cultural contexts in gerontechnology for ageing in place. Through a scoping review and the use of ethnographic methods, I aim with this project to exame the inclusivity of co-creation methods, placing particular attention on diverse real-world representations of ageing images, the accessibility of methods, and the efforts within these methods to embrace cultural sensitivity. The aim is to provide recommendations for the practice of co-creation methods in gerontechnology to foster inclusivity and in line with the co-constitution of ageing and technology enhance heterogeneous voices to represent real-world examples.
Current state of research project: The scoping review is getting ready for publication, and fieldwork preparations are in progress.
