Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies

Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies
Center for Population and Development Studies
Established	1964 (1964)
Parent institution	Harvard University
Academic affiliation	Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Location	Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America
Director	Lisa F. Berkman
Website	www.hsph.harvard.edu/population-development/
aHigher education. bDemography.

Lisa F. Berkman
Title	Thomas D. Cabot Professor of Public Policy, Epidemiology, and Global Health and Population at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Director of the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies
Website	www.hsph.harvard.edu/lisa-berkman/
Academic background
Alma mater	Northwestern University (B.A.), University of California, Berkeley (M.S., Ph.D.)
Academic work
Discipline	Demography and Social epidemiology

^aHigher education.
^bDemography.

The Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies (HCPDS) is an interdisciplinary center at Harvard University, officially affiliated with the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, which supports and pursues research that produces population-based evidence to better inform policies needed to create healthy and vital societies. The Center aims to conduct research, disseminate information, and engage the public in a way that will enable societies to be more responsive to demographic transitions in terms of policies and cultural change, better understand the interaction of demographic changes with social and economic development, and help answer policy questions involving population, resources, health, and the environment, mainly in the context of developing countries.

The Center houses several post-doctoral programs, including the David E. Bell Fellowship, Sloan Fellowship on Aging and Work, and previously the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health & Society Scholars program.

The Center also contains a Research Core, consisting of researchers and assistants who provide help on grant preparation, field management, and analysis.

The Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies was founded in 1964 by the Harvard School of Public Health (now the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health) under the direction of Dean Jack Snyder and director Roger Revelle with a mandate to address issues of population control. Over the years, the Center’s intellectual concerns have evolved, in broad strokes by decades, to address the following themes:

As a celebration of its 50th anniversary, the Center for Population and Development Studies honored several individuals who played important roles in the development of the Center, including:

In addition, the Center hosted a 50th anniversary symposium entitled "Reimagining Societies in the Face of Demographic Change," which concerned recent demographic challenges faced by communities in the 21st century, including a rapidly aging global population, women's health and declining fertility, and initiatives the Center for Population and Development Studies is pursuing to help address these challenges. Some of the keynote speakers at the symposium included:

Harvard School of Public Health