Laura Tamblyn Watts

Laura Tamblyn Watts, LLB, ICD.D is the CEO of CanAge, Canada’s National Seniors’ Advocacy Organization. She is a lawyer, seniors’ advocate, professor, media commentator, corporate director and #1 International Bestselling Author of “Let’s Talk About Aging Parents”. She is an Assistant Professor (status) at the Factor Inwentash Faculty of Social Work at the University of Toronto, a Fellow of the University of Toronto’s Institute for LifeCourse and Aging, A Fellow of McMaster’s Gilbrea Centre of Aging and the member of University of Victoria’s Institute for Aging and Lifelong Health.  She is the author of numerous leading reports and publications on aging, in Canada and internationally and has been involved for 15 years on the development of a UN Convention on the Rights of Older Persons.

Laura is the recipient of a number of national and international awards for her work.  In June 2025 she was presented with Queen’s University’s highest humanitarian honour, the “Global Citizenship Award”. She has also inducted as an inaugural AgeTech Innovation Fellow of the Centre for Aging and Brain Health Innovation (CABHI) at Baycrest. She serves on various Boards including the CIRO – the Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization and AGE-WELL, Canada’s Network Centre on Excellence on Aging and Technology.

She is also affiliated faculty at a number of global universities and has a broad research portfolio spanning topics such as mental capacity and decision-making, dementia, age-tech, ageism, loneliness and social inclusion, international human rights, financial mistreatment and financial regulation, artificial intelligence and governance, elder abuse, regulatory compliance, vaccines, patient advocacy, rural and remote aging, and aging in place.