Cal J. Halvorsen

Cal J. Halvorsen, an associate professor at the Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis, is a scholar whose work is at the confluence of aging societies, paid and unpaid work, and social purpose. He has expertise on self-employment, job-training programs, volunteering in later life, and intergenerational initiatives, with his work cited in both academic and public spheres.

His scholarship has been published in leading peer-reviewed journals in gerontology, social work, and public health, and his op-eds have been published in The Conversation, Fast Company, Forbes, and Next Avenue. His insights on older workers have been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, BBC, and more. Cal’s research has been supported by the U.S. Social Security Administration, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, National Institutes of Health, and AARP. In recognition of his contributions, he was named a Fellow of the Gerontological Society of America, the society’s highest category of membership.

Cal has ongoing collaborations with social purpose organizations to evaluate the impact of their work and build internal research and evaluation capacity. These include CoGenerate, which advances multigenerational solutions to social problems, and the Treehouse Foundation, which develops intergenerational communities that support children in the child welfare system. He has advised national research initiatives to benefit older worker and volunteer programs within the U.S. Department of Labor and AmeriCorps Seniors.

At Washington University in St. Louis, Cal is also a secondary faculty member at the School of Public Health and a senior fellow at the Harvey A. Friedman Center for Aging. He is a faculty affiliate at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden. Cal was formerly an assistant professor at the Boston College School of Social Work and a project lead and investigator at the Center for Work, Health, and Well-being at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.