When Harvard Pop Center Director Lisa Berkman and Associate Director Jason Beckfield are both on sabbatical during the 2020-2021 academic year, Mary Waters, the PVK Professor of Arts and Sciences and the John L. Loeb Professor of Sociology at Harvard University, will serve as interim director.
Professor Waters is a closely affiliated faculty member and long-time Center collaborator, whose research interests—such as the integration of immigrants and their children, and the social, demographic, and psychological impact of natural disasters—often dovetail with the Center’s focal areas. She is co-PI of The Resilience in Survivors of Katrina (“RISK”) Project, a longitudinal study of low-income parents who lived in New Orleans at the time of Hurricane Katrina, and she sits on the core programming committee of the popular Social Demography Seminar series hosted at the Pop Center on Thursdays.
The author of numerous book and scholarly articles, Professor Waters holds an MA in demography and a PhD in sociology. She has chaired the Sociology Department twice during her tenure at Harvard. We look forward to her capable guidance and positive presence as the interim director starting this coming fall.