News

DUPRI Scholar Manoj Mohanan has been named vice provost for interdisciplinary programs, effective July 1. Mohanan, a professor of public policy, economics, and global health, will lead Duke’s efforts to strengthen interdisciplinary research, education, and collaboration across the university’s schools and academic units. He succeeds Ed Balleisen, who is leaving Duke to become provost at George Washington University.

The 3rd annual Population Ecology, Aging, and Health Network (PEcAHN) in-person meeting took place April 30–May 1, 2026 at the Washington Duke Inn in Durham, NC.

Established in 1995, this biennial award originally honored innovative contributions to the design, collection, modeling, or analysis of population survey or census data. Beginning with the 2000 award, the terms were modified to recognize early career achievement in population studies and demography, broadly defined. It honors outstanding innovative scholarly achievements of population professionals who have attained their highest professional degree within the previous 10-20 years. The award is sponsored by PAA in association with the Population Research Institute of the Pennsylvania State University, and commemorates the memory and creative contributions of Clifford C. Clogg to the field of quantitative methods and labor force demography.

NextGenPop is an undergraduate pipeline program in population research that aims to increase the diversity of the population field and nurture the next generation of population scientists. It is funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development of the National Institutes of Health (R25 HD105602). In June 2024, DUPRI hosted the the 3rd NextGenPop cohort of 21 fellows from 19 universities across the nation for a 2-week, in-person, on-campus summer experience. Many Duke NextGenPop alums attended the Population Association of America (PAA) Annul Meeting in St. Louis, Missouri from May 6 - 9, and three presented their research. We are very proud of their work!

Several DUPRI students attended the Population Association of America (PAA) Annual Meeting in St. Louis, Missouri from May 6-9. There they presented their research at both panels and poster sessions. Here we highlight their work.

A new article published in Demography by Christina Gibson-Davis, Lisa Keister, Lisa Gennetian, and Shuyi Qiu uses Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) data to examine the "role of wealth deprivation across a child’s life course" and the association with high school graduation and college attendance.

A 2025 article published in Demography by DUPRI Scholar Jen'nan Read and DUPRI student Fatima Fairfax has been selected as a a recipient of a 2025 IPUMS Research Award! The IPUMS Research Awards competition honors outstanding research using IPUMS data to advance or deepen our understanding of social and demographic processes. IPUMS looks for papers that use innovative approaches, comparative analyses, and showcase the power of the IPUMS data collections.

Every year, scholars and students from DUPRI present research papers, prepare professional posters, and serve as panel discussants at the Annual Meeting of the Population Association of America. This year's PAA Annual Meeting will take place in St. Louis, Missouri from May 6-9. Below is a list of all DUPRI scholars and students participating in PAA sessions.

Tyson Brown, a DUPRI Scholar and professor of sociology and medicine at Duke University, helped author a new National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) report examining the factors that shape economic and social mobility in the United States. The report, Economic and Social Mobility: New Directions for Data, Research, and Policy, brings together insights from sociology, economics, medicine, public policy and related disciplines to develop a new framework for understanding how opportunities and inequalities unfold across generations.

Herman Pontzer, Professor of Evolutionary Anthropology and DUPRI Scholar, has been elected a 2025 Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.