Congratulations to Kathleen Mullan Harris, this year’s recipient of the ASA’s Sociology of Population Distinguished Career Award!

Few scholars have shaped the sociology of population as profoundly as Kathleen Mullan Harris. As Director and Principal Investigator of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) from 2004 to 2021, and through her continuing leadership of the Add Health Parent Study, Kathie built one of the nation’s most consequential population health data infrastructures. Add Health has supported more than 5,000 peer-reviewed publications and hundreds of dissertations.

Across her career, she has secured hundreds of thousands of dollars in research funding, and her 200+ publications integrate biological, behavioral, social, and contextual determinants of health. Her research has documented persistent health disparities by race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and immigrant status, and helped pioneer the study of gene-environment interactions in population health.

Her service to the field is equally distinguished: President of the Population Association of America, Chair of the Committee on Population of the National Academies, and Chair of the National Academies consensus study on rising midlife mortality. She is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Fellow of the AAAS.

Through her research, her leadership, and the data infrastructure she has helped build, Kathie Mullan Harris has shaped the work of generations of population health scholars. Kathie will receive her award at the upcoming ASA meeting in August.

For more information about the award, visit the ASA website.