Prof. Dr. William G. Axinn
Research Professor
Survey Research Center, University of Michigan, USA
Professor of Public Policy
Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, University of Michigan, USA
Research Professor
Population Studies Center, University of Michigan, USA
Dr. Axinn studies the relationships among social change, family organization, intergenerational relationships, marriage, cohabitation and fertility in the United States and Nepal. His research also includes the development of new methods for collecting social science data. His teaching centers on the family, the life course, fertility and research methods.
Prof. Dr. Brian Rowan
Burke A. Hinsdale Collegiate Professor in Education
University of Michigan,USA
Professor of Sociology
University of Michigan, USA
Research Professor
Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, USA
Brian Rowan is the Burke A. Hinsdale Collegiate Professor in Education, a research professor at the Institute for Social Research, and a professor of sociology at the University of Michigan. A sociologist by training (PhD, Stanford University), Rowan’s research has focused on the organization and management of schooling, paying special attention to the measurement and improvement of teaching quality. Over the past 10 years, he has been principal investigator of several large-scale survey and video studies of teaching practice, including the Study of Instructional Improvement, the Description of Reading Instruction in the United States, Understanding Teaching Quality, the Measures of Effective Teaching-Extension project, and the Pilot of Educator Effectiveness Tools in Michigan. His current research includes a randomized field trial of an early grades reading intervention, an evaluation of a high school instructional improvement program (known as Excellence for All initiative), and a study of online high schools in Florida. He is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Education and past recipient of the William J. Davis award for outstanding scholarship in the field of educational administration. He also has served on the editorial boards of top scientific journals in the field and consulted widely with U.S. federal government and U.S. private research organizations. Prior to joining the faculty at the University of Michigan in 1991, he was a senior research director at Far West Laboratory for Educational Research and Development, in San Francisco, California, and chairperson of the Department of Educational Administration at Michigan State University.
Dr. Michael N. Bates
Adjunct Professor
School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley, USA
His research interests have always been diverse, but with a particular focus on defining the relationships between environmental and occupational chemical exposures and health effects. They include investigation of the possible health effects of long-term exposure to hydrogen sulfide gas, Investigation of the health effects of household air pollution from fuels used for cooking, heating and lighting in developing countries, Study of possible health effects of solvent use by motor vehicle mechanics, Study of the possible health effects of dental amalgam fillings, Cancer risks in firefighters, Health effects of low level exposures to arsenic in drinking water.
Prof. Dr. Scott T. Yabiku
Professor
Department of Sociology and Criminology, Pennsylvania State University, USA
Although initially trained as a sociologist and demographer, Dr. Yabiku's research is characterized by diverse collaborations across disciplines. This interdisciplinary research on how human and natural systems affect each other spans the social and natural sciences. His research is also international in scope with data collections or field work in the United States, Mexico, Mozambique, China, and Nepal. To support his research, he uses tools to develop apps and conduct statistical analysis.
Prof. Dr. Jennifer Glick
Hoffman Professor of Sociology
The Pennsylvania State University, USA
Dr. Glick is a social demographer who focuses primarily on migration and family processes. Her work has been directed at the intersection of migration and the family life course and the extent to which migration alters educational and labor force trajectories and influences the timing and patterns of family formation. She is also interested in the importance of migration for intergenerational relationships and living arrangements.
Prof. Dr. Nathalie Williams
Associate Professor
University of Washington, USA
Prof. Dr. William's research primarily focuses on migration patterns, during periods of armed conflict, natural disasters and climate change, and social change in general. Her work seeks to develop theoretical and empirical understandings of why some people migrate and many do not. Incorporating all these demographic patterns during periods of disasters, Williams is now using agent-based models to investigate the macro-level population trends that can result from these micro-level behavioral changes during the recent armed conflict in Nepal and during climatic disasters in Northeast Thailand.
Prof. Dr. Arland Thornton
Research Professor
Population Studies Center, University Of Michigan, USA
Research Professor
Survey Research Center, University Of Michigan, USA
Professor
Sociology, University Of Michigan, USA
Prof. Dr. Thornton specializes in the study of marriage, family, and life course structures and processes. His work currently focuses on intergenerational relations, cohabitation, marriage, divorce, reproductive behavior, living arrangements, and gender roles in Nepal, Taiwan, and the United States. A major program explores developmental idealism as a set of ideas that have shaped important aspects of social and family life. His teaching centers on the sociology and demography of the family and life course.
Prof. Dr. Natalie Wilkens
Associate Professor
T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics, Arizona State University, USA
Dr. Natalie Wilkens is an Assistant Professor in ASU's T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics. She is a consulting editor for Developmental Psychology. Dr. Wilkens researches children's socio-emotional adjustment, and her research is funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Her research provides insight into child, social, and cultural factors that shape children’s and adolescents' social, school, and psychological adjustment internationally. Her methodological interests involve latent variable modeling of longitudinal data.
Prof. Dr. Sarah R. Hayford
Professor
Department of Sociology, Ohio State University
Dr. Hayford studies family formation and reproductive health, primarily in the United States and sub-Saharan Africa. She is interested in knowing how people make plans about these behaviors and who is able to carry out these plans. Currently she is studying the impact of parental migration on children's socioemotional development, educational outcomes, and family formation behaviors in Mexico, Mozambique, and Nepal.
Prof. Dr. Sharon J. Hall
Associate Professor
School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, USA
Senior Sustainability Scientist
Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability, Arizona State University, USA
Dr. Sharon J. Hall is an ecosystem scientist who explores the ecology of native and managed ecosystems that sustain people and other organisms within the community of life. To achieve these goals, Professor Hall and her research team focus on understanding the ecological feedbacks between humans and the environment.
Prof. Dr. Li An
Professor, Geography
San Diego State University, USA
Dr. An is a Professor of Geography at San Diego State University (i.e., California State University at San Diego). His research focuses on better envisioning, understanding, and planning of complex human-environment systems (CHES).
Dr. Jennifer S. Barber
Research Professor
Population Studies Center, University of Michigan, USA
Research Professor
Survey Research Center, University of Michigan, USA
Associate Chair
Sociology, University of Michigan, USA
Professor
Sociology, University of Michigan, USA
Dr. Barber's research is conducted at the intersection of family sociology, demography, and social psychology, with a focus on teen pregnancy. She recently completed an NICHD-funded intensive longitudinal project, the Relationship Dynamics and Social Life study, that collected weekly data on 1,000 18- and 19-year-old women for 2.5 years, along with semi-structured interview data, observational data, and administrative data. The RDSL study identifies the types of attitudes, relationship characteristics, and contraceptive practices that affect early and/or unintended pregnancy. Barber also recently completed a William T. Grant Foundation Distinguished Fellowship, a mid-career opportunity to immerse herself in a practice setting – in this case a teen pregnancy prevention center in Detroit and a Planned Parenthood clinic in southeastern Michigan.
Prof. Dr. Lisa D. Pearce
Professor
Department of Sociology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA
Dr. Pearce is a Professor in the Department of Sociology and a Faculty Fellow at the Carolina Population Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research focuses on religious and family dynamics (especially relationships between the two) from adolescence through the transition to adulthood. She has ongoing research in the United States, Nepal, and Kenya. Pearce’s work often mixes survey and semi-structured interview methods, and she writes and teaches about mixed methods research.
Prof. Dr. Rebecca L. Thornton
Associate Professor
Department of Economics, University of Illinois, USA
Dr. Thornton's research focuses on issues related to health and education in developing countries and has involved field-experiments in Africa and South Asia. Current work includes examining how learning HIV results affect savings and investment behavior, measuring how financial incentives to stay HIV negative affect sexual behavior, and examining how menstruation affects education and labor force participation.
Prof. Dr. Emily McKendry Smith
Associate Professor
Department of Sociology, University of West Georgia, USA
Prof. Dr. Emily McKendry Smith is an Assistant Professor in the Sociology Department at the University of West Georgia. Her research centers on interconnections between religion and family, the ways individuals use religion to define their identities, and the meanings they attach to place.
Dr. Sean T. Murphy
Regional Director
CABI, UK
Dr. Murphy's expertise lies in invasive insect and weed biocontrol and integrated pest management (IPM). He works on biological control and IPM programmes (pre and post harvest) on a range of crops in tropcial areas. He has produced expert documents for international conventions and invited experts on international convention working groups (IPCC and CBD).
Dr Nicholas Nash
Research Fellow
School of Psychology, Cardiff University, UK
My research interests broadly revolve around social psychological approaches to environmental psychology, primarily using qualitative methodologies or mixed methods. Currently, I am involved in research examining the complex and contextual nature of individual-level perceptions of climate change and pro-environmental behaviour, in Wales and cross-culturally.
Dr. Sarah Brauner Otto
Associate Professor
McGill University, Canada
Dr. Brauner Otto is a social demographer studying global family change with a focus on the relationship between social context (e.g. schools, community organizations) and demographic behaviors over the life course. She is particularly interested in which dimensions of social context (e.g. characteristics of schools or health services) matter the most and how context influences the individual.
Prof. Dr. Abigail York
Associate Professor
School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University,USA
Associate Director
Center for Biodiversity Outcomes, Arizona State University,USA
Senior Sustainability Scientist
Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability, Arizona State University,USA
Prof. Dr. York investigates how, when, why, and who is able to manage neighborhoods, cities, forests, water resources, biodiversity hotpots, and agricultural lands sustainably. York deploys diverse methods including econometrics, social network analysis, spatial analysis, surveys, content analysis, and fieldwork; results from this work are integrated into decision-making models, agent-based models, and scenarios.