Silvia Sara Canetto, a professor in the College of Natural Sciences’ Department of Psychology, has been elected a Fellow of the Gerontological Society of America (GSA). GSA is the world’s oldest and largest interdisciplinary organization devoted to research, education and practice in the field of aging. She was recognized through the society’s Behavioral and Social Sciences Section for her “outstanding, sustained contributions to the field of gerontology.”
Canetto is an affiliate faculty member in CSU’s Department of Human Development and Family Studies, and in the Department of Ethnic Studies’ Center for Women’s Studies and Gender Research. Her research is at the intersection of aging with gender, culture, sexual orientation and disability.
In the field of gerontology, Canetto is best known for her scholarship on cultural and gender scripts of suicidal behavior, and her theoretical and empirical work on older, “white” male suicide; her research on gender, cultural, age and disability issues in assisted suicide and euthanasia; and her studies of stereotypes of aging, gender and sexual orientation. She is the author or co-author of more than 86 peer-reviewed publications, and the editor, co-editor/or co-author of five books.
As noted in her nomination letters, several of her students (including Drs. Julia Kasl and Sara Weisenbach) have gone on to become highly regarded gerontologists themselves. Her mentoring contributions have been recognized with CSU’s Jack E. Cermak Outstanding Advisor Award, as well as the Strickland Henderson-Daniel Distinguished Mentoring Award of the American Psychological Association.
Canetto’s GSA Fellow nomination letters highlight the high regard her gerontology peers have for her. She is described as an “exceedingly talented yet humble, thoughtful yet playful, as well as an ambitious and generative colleague who inspires others by her example.”
Her election to Fellow, and her gerontology accomplishments, will be celebrated at the GSA Annual Scientific Meeting, Nov. 16-20 in New Orleans.
