J. Richard Udry Distinguished Lecture Series
Dr. J. Richard (Dick) Udry’s research was highly innovative and interdisciplinary—features that he embedded in the Carolina Population Center’s practices and culture as its Director. In recognition of his enduring contributions, CPC named its distinguished lecture series in his honor.
2025
Diana Greene Foster
Professor at the University of California, San Francisco, and Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH)
Title: “Health and Social Consequences of Ending Federal Protections for Abortion in the United States: Lessons from the Turnaway Study”
2024
Jennifer Manly
Professor of Neuropsychology in Neurology at the Gertrude H. Sergievsky Center and the Taub Institute for Research in Aging and Alzheimer’s disease at Columbia University
Title: “Social and Structural Drivers of Cognitive Aging and Dementia”
2023
Steven Ruggles
Regents Professor of History and Director of the Minnesota Population Center at the University of Minnesota
Title: “It’s None of Their Damn Business: Privacy and Disclosure Control in the U.S. Census, 1790-2022″
2022
Marta Tienda
Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs at Princeton University
Title: “Adolescent Romance in the Digital Age: Insights from a Mobile Diary Study”
2021
Teresa Seeman
Professor of Epidemiology at the Fielding School of Public Health and of Medicine in the Geffen School of Medicine at University of California, Los Angeles
Title: “Aging Trajectories Through Biopsychosocial Lens”
2020
No lecture given due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
2019
Lisa Berkman
Director of the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies
Director of Harvard’s PhD program in Population Health Sciences
Thomas D. Cabot Professor of Public Policy, Epidemiology, and Global Health and Population
Title: ” Work, Family and Health: Understanding Diverging Trends in Life Expectancy”
2018
Douglas Massey
Henry G. Bryant Professor of Sociology and Director of the Office of Population Research at Princeton University
Title: “America’s Immigration Policy Fiasco”
2017
John Bongaarts
Vice President and Distinguished Scholar of the Population Council
Robert J. Lapham Award (1997) and the Mindel Sheps Award (1986) from the Population Association of America
Laureate of the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population, 2013
Title: “Demographic Trends in sub-Saharan Africa: The Role of Family Planning Programs”
2016
Lawrence Haddad
Senior Research Fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)
Director of the Institute of Development Studies, Sussex (2004 – 14)
Title: “Can We Really End Malnutrition by 2030?: The Case For and Against”
2015
David Kertzer
Paul Dupee University Professor of Social Science and Professor of Anthropology and Italian Studies
Founded and directed the Anthropological Demography Program at Brown University
Title: “Identity Categories and Identity Construction in Demographic Research”
2014
Jane Menken
Director of the Institute of Behavioral Science at University of Colorado Boulder
Past President of the Population Association of America
Title: “Thirty-Five Years Later: Longitudinal Evaluation of Effects of a Quasi-Random Maternal and Child Health and Family Planning Program in Rural Bangladesh”
2013
Amy Tsui
Director of the Bill and Melinda Gates Institute for Population and Reproductive Health & Professor of Population, Family, and Reproductive Health
Director of the Carolina Population Center from 1997 – 2002
Title: “Contraception and Demography: Strange but Productive Bedfellows”
2012
Kenneth Hill
Professor of the Practice of Global Health at Harvard University
Title: “One Hundred Years of Mortality Change.”
2011
Christine Bachrach
Nannerl O. Keohane Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and Duke University
Former Acting Associate Director for Behavioral and Social Sciences Research
Former Acting Director of the Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research at the National Institutes of Health
Former Chief of the Demographic and Behavioral Sciences Branch at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development