Thomas Scharf is Professor of Social Gerontology in the Population Health Sciences Institute at Newcastle University, UK. He was previously Director of the Irish Centre for Social Gerontology, NUI Galway, Ireland (2010-2015) and Director of the Centre for Social Gerontology, Keele University, UK (2006-2010). A Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, Professor Scharf is current President of the British Society of Gerontology. His research addresses issues relating to social inclusion and exclusion in later life, often with a focus on the spaces and places in which inclusion and exclusion arise and on the policy responses to forms of exclusion. Professor Scharf’s research on forms of social exclusion has been published in leading gerontology journals. His most recent book, based on the work of COST Action CA15122 ‘Reducing Old-Age Social Exclusion: Collaborations in Research and Policy’ (ROSEnet), is Social Exclusion in Ageing Societies: Interdisciplinary and Policy Perspectives (co-edited with Kieran Walsh, Sofie van Regenmortel and Anna Wanka, Springer, 2021).