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Beyond Six Billion: Forecasting the World's Population (2000)

Chapter: Biographical Sketches

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Suggested Citation:"Biographical Sketches." National Research Council. 2000. Beyond Six Billion: Forecasting the World's Population. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9828.
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Biographical Sketches

John Bongaarts (Chair) is vice president of the Population Council, Policy Research Division. His research has focused on a variety of population issues, including the determinants of fertility, population-environment relationships, the demographic impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and population policy options in the developing world. He has written recently on such topics as “Social interactions and contemporary fertility transition ” (with Susan Watkins), “Can the growing human population feed itself?” and “Population policy options in the developing world.” Bongaarts currently serves on both the Committee on Population and the Board on Sustainable Development of the National Research Council. He is a member of the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and received the Robert J. Lapham award in 1997 and the Mindel Sheps award in 1986 from the Population Association of America. He has a master 's degree in systems analysis from the Eindhoven Institute of Technology, the Netherlands, and a Ph.D. in physiology and biomedical engineering from the University of Illinois.

Juha M. Alho is professor of statistics at the University of Joensuu, Finland. He has published extensively on various aspects of statistical demography, forecasting, and biostatistics. Alho is a fellow of the American Statistical Association and a former president of the Finnish Society of Biometrics. He has a Ph.D. in statistics from Northwestern University.

Alaka M. Basu is senior research associate in the Division of Nutritional Sciences at Cornell University. Her major research work is on the social

Suggested Citation:"Biographical Sketches." National Research Council. 2000. Beyond Six Billion: Forecasting the World's Population. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9828.
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and cultural context of demographic behavior and the political context of population policy. She has done extensive field research in India. She served as the chair of the Scientific Committee on Anthropological Demography of the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population. She earned a B.Sc. degree in microbiology from the University of Bombay, an M.Sc. in biochemistry from the University of London, and an M.Sc. in medical demography from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

John G. Cleland is professor of medical demography at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He has long-standing interests in fertility, family planning, and child survival in developing countries and has published widely on these subjects. He assisted the Global Programme on AIDS at the World Health Organization (WHO) in the design and analysis of surveys on sexual behavior and coedited a book, Sexual Behaviour and AIDS in the Developing World, on the main results. Another recent book is on The Determinants of Reproductive Change in Bangladesh. Cleland currently serves on committees of WHO's Department of Reproductive Health and Research and of the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population. In 1994-1995, he served on the National Research Council's Panel on Research and Data Priorities for Preventing and Mitigating AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa. He has an M.A. in economics and sociology from Cambridge University.

Joel E. Cohen is professor of populations and head of the Laboratory of Populations jointly at Rockefeller University and Columbia University. Cohen studies the uncertainty of population projections, theoretically and in practical applications, such as the projection of asbestos-related diseases. He won the Mindel C. Sheps award for mathematical demography of the Population Association of America in 1992. His analysis of the concept of human carrying capacity in his 1995 book, How Many People Can the Earth Support?, won the first Olivia Schieffelin Nordberg prize (1997) for excellence in writing in the population sciences. In 1999, he won the Tyler world prize for environmental achievement. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the National Academy of Sciences. He has a Ph.D. in applied mathematics and a Dr.P.H. in population sciences and tropical public health from Harvard University.

Kenneth H. Hill is professor of demography in the Department of Population and Family Health Services at Johns Hopkins University. Besides previous experience at the U.S. Census Bureau and the National Research Council, he has been employed overseas at the Centro Latinoamericano de Demographia in Costa Rica and the Ministry of Planning in Uganda.

Suggested Citation:"Biographical Sketches." National Research Council. 2000. Beyond Six Billion: Forecasting the World's Population. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9828.
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His research interests include estimation of vital rates from incomplete or defective data, especially in developing countries, and estimating the demographic impact of program interventions, such as child survival programs. He has published work on indirect estimation methods, mortality measurement, migration flows, demographic trends in a variety of developing countries, and other areas. From 1988 to 1994, Hill served on the National Research Council's Committee on Population and chaired its Panel on the Population Dynamics of Sub-Saharan Africa. He has a B.A. from New College, Oxford, and a Ph.D. in demography from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Nico Keilman is professor of demography at Oslo University and senior research fellow at Statistics Norway. He has also previously worked at Statistics Netherlands and the Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute (NIDI). He has written extensively on various aspects of demographic forecasting methodology, household modeling, and mathematical demography and is the author of Uncertainty in National Population Forecasting. Keilman is Norway's representative to EUROSTAT's Working Group on Population Projections. He has an M.Sc. in applied mathematics from Delft University of Technology and a Ph.D. in demography from Utrecht University.

Ronald D. Lee is professor of demography and economics at the University of California, Berkeley, and director of its Center for Economics and Demography of Aging. His recent research examines intergenerational transfers of resources, and he also works on methods for forecasting population, merging these interests in work on stochastic forecasts of the finances of the social security system. He has also worked on various topics in historical demography. Lee is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and former chair of the Committee on Population. He has a B.A. from Reed College, an M.A. from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University.

Massimo Livi-Bacci is professor of demography in the Faculty of Political Science and Department of Statistics, University of Florence, Italy. He is the author of many books and articles on demographic history, including Population and Nutrition: An Essay on European Demographic History and A Concise History of World Population. His most recent book is The Population of Europe: A History. He has also written on demographic methods and current demographic issues, including low fertility in Spain and Italy and attitudes toward immigration. Livi-Bacci is a former president of the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population. He has a Dottore in political science from the University of Florence.

Douglas S. Massey is Dorothy Swaine Thomas professor of sociology at

Suggested Citation:"Biographical Sketches." National Research Council. 2000. Beyond Six Billion: Forecasting the World's Population. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9828.
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the University of Pennsylvania and chair of the Sociology Department. His most recent book is Worlds in Motion: Understanding International Migration at Century 's End. Other books include American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass, Return to Aztlan, and Miracles on the Border: Retablos of Mexican Migrants to the United States. He was recently elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences. He has M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in sociology from Princeton University.

S. Philip Morgan is professor of sociology at Duke University, where he has recently transferred from the University of Pennsylvania. His research focuses on family and fertility change in the United States and in selected developing countries. His many books and articles include First Births in America: Changes in the Timing of Parenthood and Adolescent Mothers in Later Life. Morgan is past chair of the American Sociological Association's Population Section and has served on its council (1989-1992). He has also served on the board of directors of the Population Association of America and is now coeditor of its official journal, Demography. He has M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in sociology from the University of Arizona.

Alberto Palloni is professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. His primary research interests are the demography of Latin America and demographic methodology. His works include University and Society and Measurement and Analysis of Mortality: New Approaches. He currently serves on the National Research Council's Committee on Population and previously served on the Panel on Decennial Census Methodology. He has a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Washington.

Anne R. Pebley is Bixby professor in the School of Public Health and Department of Sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her work has focused on children's welfare, family organization, fertility choices, marriage, and social and health programs in the United States and abroad. She is the director of the new longitudinal Los Angeles Family and Neighborhood Survey, a study of the effects on children of neighborhood and family life. She also continues to work on social aspects of health in Latin America and on population change in Central America. She was president of the Population Association of America in 1998 and president of the Association of Population Centers in 1997. In 1990-1995, she served on the National Research Council' s Committee on Population. She has an M.P.S. in international development and a Ph.D. in sociology from Cornell University.

Sharon Stanton Russell is a research scholar at the Center for International Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she chairs the Inter-University Committee on International Migration and directs the Mellon-MIT Program on Non-Governmental Organizations and

Suggested Citation:"Biographical Sketches." National Research Council. 2000. Beyond Six Billion: Forecasting the World's Population. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9828.
×

Forced Migration. Her research focuses on international migration trends and policies, the relationship of migration to economic and social development, and forced migration. She has served as a member of two United Nations Expert Groups on international migration and is currently a member of the Academic Advisory Board of the International Organization for Migration and the National Research Council's Roundtable on the Demography of Forced Migration. She has master's degrees from Harvard University and the University of Chicago and a Ph.D. in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Warren C. Sanderson is professor and chair of the Department of Economics at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He also regularly collaborates with the Population and Environment Project at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Laxenburg, Austria. His work includes papers on expert-based probabilistic population projections, the accuracy of United Nations projections versus those based on structural models, and the accuracy of population confidence intervals. His books include Modeling Growing Economies in Equilibrium and Disequilibrium, Population in Asia, and Economic-Demographic Simulation Models. He has a Ph.D. in economics from Stanford University.

Thomas Schelling is distinguished professor of economics and public affairs at the University of Maryland. He has published articles on military strategy and arms control, energy and environmental policy, climate change, nuclear proliferation, organized crime, foreign aid and international trade, conflict and bargaining theory, racial segregation and integration, the military draft, tobacco and drugs policy, and ethical issues in public policy and in business. Schelling has received numerous honors, including being elected president of the American Economic Association, being named distinguished fellow of the American Economic Association, and receiving the Frank E. Seidman distinguished award in political economy. Schelling is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine. He has a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University.

Michael Teitelbaum is a demographer and a program officer at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. He is acting chair of the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform (known as the Jordan Commission after its late chair, former Congresswoman Barbara Jordan). He has previously been on the faculties at Oxford University and Princeton University and was staff director of the Select Committee on Population, U.S. House of Representatives. His books include Threatened Peoples, Threatened Borders, Population and Resources in Western Intellectual Traditions, and The Fear of Popula

Suggested Citation:"Biographical Sketches." National Research Council. 2000. Beyond Six Billion: Forecasting the World's Population. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9828.
×

tion Decline. Teitelbaum has a D.Phil. from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes scholar.

James W. Vaupel is the founding director of the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock, Germany. He is also cofounder (with Hans Christian Johansen) of the recently established Danish Center for Demographic Research and holds the position of director of the Center for Population, Policy, and Aging at Duke University. He has conducted research on mortality, morbidity, population aging, and biodemography, as well as research on population heterogeneity, population surfaces, and other aspects of mathematical and statistical demography. He is engaged, with Chinese collaborators, in a major survey of the oldest-old in China. Vaupel has bachelor's, master's and Ph.D. degrees from Harvard University.

Rodolfo A. Bulatao was staff director for the panel. His research has covered psychosocial issues in population, fertility determinants, family planning program effectiveness, and program and reproductive health service costs. He previously directed the World Bank's annual population projections and has worked on projections in various areas, including causes of death. He has also helped develop and evaluate population projects in developing countries. Bulatao was previously affiliated with the East-West Center and the University of the Philippines. He served on the National Research Council's Committee on Population in 1983-1985 and on its Working Group on Population Growth and Economic Development. He has an M.A. in sociology from the University of the Philippines and a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Chicago.

Holly E. Reed is research associate for the Committee on Population. Other projects for the committee she has worked on include forced migration and urbanization in developing countries. She has a B.S. in foreign service and an M.A. in demography from Georgetown University.

Suggested Citation:"Biographical Sketches." National Research Council. 2000. Beyond Six Billion: Forecasting the World's Population. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9828.
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Suggested Citation:"Biographical Sketches." National Research Council. 2000. Beyond Six Billion: Forecasting the World's Population. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9828.
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Suggested Citation:"Biographical Sketches." National Research Council. 2000. Beyond Six Billion: Forecasting the World's Population. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9828.
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Page 219
Suggested Citation:"Biographical Sketches." National Research Council. 2000. Beyond Six Billion: Forecasting the World's Population. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9828.
×
Page 220
Suggested Citation:"Biographical Sketches." National Research Council. 2000. Beyond Six Billion: Forecasting the World's Population. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9828.
×
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Suggested Citation:"Biographical Sketches." National Research Council. 2000. Beyond Six Billion: Forecasting the World's Population. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9828.
×
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Suggested Citation:"Biographical Sketches." National Research Council. 2000. Beyond Six Billion: Forecasting the World's Population. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9828.
×
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Suggested Citation:"Biographical Sketches." National Research Council. 2000. Beyond Six Billion: Forecasting the World's Population. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9828.
×
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Next: Index »
Beyond Six Billion: Forecasting the World's Population Get This Book
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Is rapid world population growth actually coming to an end? As population growth and its consequences have become front-page issues, projections of slowing growth from such institutions as the United Nations and the World Bank have been called into question.

Beyond Six Billion asks what such projections really say, why they say it, whether they can be trusted, and whether they can be improved. The book includes analysis of how well past U.N. and World Bank projections have panned out, what errors have occurred, and why they have happened.

Focusing on fertility as one key to accurate projections, the committee examines the transition from high, constant fertility to low fertility levels and discusses whether developing countries will eventually attain the very low levels of births now observed in the industrialized world. Other keys to accurate projections, predictions of lengthening life span and of the impact of international migration on specific countries, are also explored in detail.

How good are our methods of population forecasting? How can we cope with the inevitable uncertainty? What population trends can we anticipate? Beyond Six Billion illuminates not only the forces that shape population growth but also the accuracy of the methods we use to quantify these forces and the uncertainty surrounding projections.

The Committee on Population was established by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in 1983 to bring the knowledge and methods of the population sciences to bear on major issues of science and public policy. The committee's work includes both basic studies of fertility, health and mortality, and migration; and applied studies aimed at improving programs for the public health and welfare in the United States and in developing countries. The committee also fosters communication among researchers in different disciplines and countries and policy makers in government, international agencies, and private organizations. The work of the committee is made possible by funding from several government agencies and private foundations.

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