Yeonjung Lee

Dr. Lee’s current research focuses on applying innovative Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technologies to assess, measure, and quantify the accessibility of social and physical environments to bolster community impacts in healthy aging. With an emphasis on improving the quality of life for older adults, Dr. Lee examines the impacts social and built environments have on greying populations, while considering individual well-being and the ability for individuals to age in place.

Dr. Lee’s research project titled Communities of Concerns for Older Adults (CoCOA) in Calgary, is an innovative study combining qualitative and quantitative analysis to develop best practices to determine community viability for aging populations. Through a partnership with the City of Calgary, Dr. Lee’s research identified twenty-six super-aged communities, where more than twenty percent of the population were aged sixty-five and older. Quantitative results came from employing GIS applications to analyze civic census data to determine a community’s accessibility patterns for health, social and daily services via transit or walkability. Furthermore, a qualitative counterpart to this study will include personal narratives by community residents that explore their perceptions and experiences of aging in their community and the community resources required to continue living in their own homes. When complete, the study will provide evidence-based information for policy development, city planning, and practice interventions the City of Calgary can use in reassessing and applying to its Age-Friendly Calgary Strategy.

This Innovation Fellowship will allow Dr. Lee to build research capacity for this study and support innovation and entrepreneurship within her teaching practice. As an emerging research methodology, Dr. Lee will train, and mentor highly qualified personnel (HPQ) interested in learning how to apply GIS technology in social work research. With a focus on technology transfer, Dr. Lee and her research team will pursue partnerships with industry, investors, and organization like Innovate Calgary and the University of Calgary’s Hunter Hub to develop a prototype and explore commercialization opportunities; this includes developing an app using GIS data from the CoCOA study to assist aging populations to better navigate their communities.

Ensuring students in the Faculty of Social Work have opportunities to engage in social innovation and entrepreneurship, Dr. Lee will develop the faculty’s first social entrepreneurship course and the first social enterprise speakers’ event. The speakers’ event will include local, national, and global experts involved in social entrepreneurship within the social work field. These initiatives will give students and faculty opportunities to connect with those interested in entrepreneurial activities, while establishing a social innovation and entrepreneurial culture within the Faculty of Social Work.