Team

Marc Freedman Portrait

*

CAL J. HALVORSEN

Senior Research Fellow

Cal J. Halvorsen, PhD, MSW, is an assistant professor at the Boston College School of Social Work, a project lead and investigator at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health Center for Work, Health, and Well-being, and an affiliate of the Center on Aging & Work at Boston College. His work examines aging societies and the need and desire for people past midlife to work past traditional retirement age, with particular emphasis on self-employment, encore careers, low-income workers, and volunteering. His research and training have been funded by the U.S. Social Security Administration, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, National Institutes of Health, AmeriCorps, AARP, and the Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life, and Welfare. His publications can be found at Google Scholar.

Cal’s op-eds on older entrepreneurs have been published in Fast Company and Next Avenue. His expertise on older workers has also been featured in The New York Times regarding older entrepreneurs and freelancers, as well as The Washington PostBBCAARPMarketWatch, and more. His insights on the importance of interactions between generations were featured in the APA Monitor, and he has written invited pieces on older entrepreneurs for AARP International and Generations, the journal of the American Society on Aging.

Prior to earning his Ph.D., Cal worked for six years at Cogenerate (formerly Encore.org), later serving as the organization’s director of research and evaluation. During this time, Cal managed national surveys, presented at national and international research conferences, and acted as the organization’s liaison to higher education institutions.

Cal serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Gerontological Social Work and the Journal of Intergenerational Relationships and previously served on the board of directors for the Association for Gerontology Education in Social Work. He is a graduate of both the MSW and Ph.D. programs at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis and earned his BA from the University of Iowa in his hometown of Iowa City.