SUES Postgraduate Seminar 2026
We are pleased to announce another of our seminars in which postgraduate students present their research. These sessions enable us to hear about current university research, while giving the students an opportunity to speak to a non-specialist audience – surely good practice for giving conference presentations. This year’s seminar will be at 2:30 p.m. on Friday 6th March at the usual venue, All Saints Church Hall.
Our speaker will be Joanna Chen, a third-year PhD student at the University of Greater Manchester, with a keen interest in positive psychology research focused on older adults. Currently, her research centres on successful ageing and flourishing among older adults. Her goal is to ensure that her research has tangible benefits for the elderly, improving their quality of life and overall mental health. Through her work, she hopes to contribute valuable insights and effective approaches to support older adults in flourishing during the later stages of life.
Joanna will speak on the subject of Flourishing in Later Life. She has provided the following information about her talk:
“This talk will introduce my research on flourishing and positive ageing, highlighting how older adults maintain wellbeing as they grow older. Drawing on qualitative interviews, I will discuss key themes that emerged, including cultural similarities and differences in how flourishing is cultivated among older adults in both Western (UK) and Eastern (Taiwan) contexts. The talk will also present insights from interviews with widows, widowers, and older adults who have lost children in the UK and Taiwan, highlighting their lived experiences, how they cope with loss, and how they continue to find meaning and flourish.”
Joanna will be accompanied by her two supervisors from the University of Greater Manchester – Professor Jerome Carson and Professor Marcus Chiu. They plan to bring several sets of Joanna’s questionnaires, with an SAE, which they will hand out to any attendees who might be willing to complete them after the event.
All SUES members, or prospective members, are most welcome to attend the seminar, which will be informative, informal and interactive and should lead to some interesting debate. Admission is free.