About
Athina Vlachantoni is a Professor of Gerontology and Social Policy, and Admissions Tutor for Postgraduate Taught programmes in the Department of Gerontology. She has been a member of the Centre for Research on Ageing since 2008, and a member of the ESRC Centre for Population Change since 2014. She is the Director of the ESRC South Coast Doctoral Training Partnership and a member of the ESRC Peer Review College. She is a member of the UK Social Policy Association, the British Society of Gerontology, and the British Society of Population Studies. She was Associate/Deputy Editor of Ageing & Society between 2015-25, and is currently a member of the Editorial Board for the Journal of Social Policy. Professor Vlachantoni was elected as a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in 2022. Professor Vlachantoni served as Chair of the ESRC Grants Assessment Panel D (2021-3) and as a member of the ESRC Grants Assessment Panel C (2019-21). She is currently Chair of the Wellcome Trust Discovery Advisory Board for Social Sciences, and Chair of the ESRC Grants Assessment Panel A.
Research
Research groups
Research interests
- Informal care provision and receipt
- Unmet need for social care
- Pension protection
- Health inequalities across the lifecourse
- Ethnic diversity and accumulated (dis)advantages across the lifecourse
Current research
Professor Vlachantoni is a member of the Centre for Research on Ageing and the ESRC Centre for Population Change. She is currently involved in three research projects:
- Co-Investigator in the ESRC Centre for Population Change - Connecting Generations research programme (2022-27). As part of this programme, Professor Vlachantoni leads a Strand on Intergenerational flows of support in later life. She works with Professor Falkingham, Professor Evandrou and Dr Qin to investigate flows of support upwards and downwards between generations, focusing on financial, emotional and instrumental contributions.
- Principal Investigator of the ESRC project on Promoting inclusivity in pension protection and other forms of saving among men and women from black and minority ethnic communities in the UK: a mixed methods study (2023-26). She works with Professor Yuanyuan Yin (Winchester School of Art), Dr Spela Mocnik and Dr Saddaf Akhtar to examine the determinants and direct perspectives of pension protection and saving among minority ethnic communities in the UK.
- Co-Investigator on the NERC-funded project on 'Co-developed Environmental Solutions to Mitigate the Impact of Temperature Extremes on the Health of Vulnerable Populations' (2023-6), led by Professor Justin Sheffield. As part of this project, she works with Dr Rebecca Collins (Geography) to examine the impact of temperature extremes on older persons using nationally representative datasets.
PhD students
- Yifan Ge
- Valentina Hinojosa
- Wanting Huang
- Nadine Marshall
- Ella Moonan-Howard
Research projects
Active projects
Completed projects
Publications
Teaching
Professor Vlachantoni teaches on the MSc programmes in the Department of Gerontology and the MSc Social Research Methods programme of the ESRC South Coast Doctoral Training Partnership. She also teaches modules offered to Undergraduate students in the University of Southampton, and one module offered to the Southampton Medical School.
Professor Vlachantoni co-convenes the following modules in 2023-24:
- UOSM2041 Emerging and Resilient India (with Professors Evandrou and Padmadas, and Amarjit Singh)
- GERO6022 Poverty and social protection around the world (Distance Learning) (with Dr Fei Wang)
- RESM6305 Mixed Methods (with Dr Fei Wang)
- Student Selected Unit3: Ageing over the Lifecourse (Medicine)
External roles and responsibilities
Biography
Professor Vlachantoni joined the University of Southampton in 2007, following a PhD in Social Policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science, an MSc Comparative Social Policy at the University of Oxford (Wolfson College) and a BA Social Policy and Politics at Royal Holloway, University of London.
Prizes
- University of Southampton Vice-Chancellor's Award (2012)
- University of Southampton Vice-Chancellor's Teaching Award (Department of Gerontology Team) (2012)
- 2020 ESRC Impact Prize - with Centre for Population Change (2020)
- University of Southampton Vice-Chancellor's Award (2012)
- University of Southampton Vice-Chancellor's Teaching Award (Department of Gerontology Team) (2012)
- 2020 ESRC Impact Prize - with Centre for Population Change (2020)