Biography
Samuel Van Vleet, PhD, MGS, is a social gerontologist and Assistant Professor who directs the Community Health and Aging Trajectories (CHAT) Research Group. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, and earned his MGS (Master of Gerontological Studies) and PhD in Social Gerontology at Miami University. His research examines how social, environmental, and structural factors shape health and well-being across the life course, with particular attention to aging, community health, social connection, and place-based inequities.
Research Interests
Samuel's research centers on how spatial and systemic inequities shape psychosocial health outcomes in later life, and how policy and community intervention can promote equitable aging in place. His dissertation examined older adult displacement through neighborhood change, showing how gentrification and the legacy of practices like redlining compound to put marginalized older adults at greater risk, while identifying place-based services that help prevent displacement. This work produced the Gentrification Acceleration Press (GAP) Schema, a theoretical framework now guiding his research on housing, spatial justice, and aging.
His current work extends this framework to the individual level, focusing on loneliness, social isolation, and community-based interventions that support healthy aging, including a peer support intervention for underrepresented older adults developed during his postdoctoral fellowship. He is also developing research on intergenerational "third places" as social infrastructure that fosters learning, belonging, and connection across generations. Looking ahead, he is building a mixed-methods research program that pairs large-scale displacement-risk modeling with community-based qualitative work.
His current work extends this framework to the individual level, focusing on loneliness, social isolation, and community-based interventions that support healthy aging, including a peer support intervention for underrepresented older adults developed during his postdoctoral fellowship. He is also developing research on intergenerational "third places" as social infrastructure that fosters learning, belonging, and connection across generations. Looking ahead, he is building a mixed-methods research program that pairs large-scale displacement-risk modeling with community-based qualitative work.
Teaching Interests
Samuel's teaching interests span sociology and gerontology, including introductory sociology, aging and society, social inequalities, the life course, global aging, and intergroup dialogue. Across these courses, Samuel is particularly interested in helping students connect sociological theory to their own lives and to the experiences of people whose perspectives may differ from their own. His teaching is guided by the belief that aging, identity, and social experience are shaped by broader structures of opportunity and inequality. He encourages students to question taken-for-granted assumptions, examine how identity and historical context shape lives over time, and approach complex social issues with curiosity and empathy. Through discussion, reflection, creative media, and intergenerational learning, Samuel creates opportunities for students to engage difficult questions and connect scholarship with lived experience. Ultimately, he aims to help students develop strong critical thinking skills and a deeper understanding of how social forces shape both individual lives and the communities they inhabit.