I am a sociologist, demographer, population health scholar, and education policy researcher with experience and expertise in the collection, production, and dissemination of large-scale data products for research on health, aging, education, and labor force outcomes through my NIH- and NSF-funded work on High School and Beyond (HSB), the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (WLS), the 1940 U.S. Census, and the IPUMS version of the Current Population Surveys (IPUMS-CPS). I am involved in the construction of the new 100% count historical Census data sets for IPUMS, and I have two ongoing NIH-funded projects to link early 20th century U.S. Census data to (1) several modern surveys of older Americans, including the HRS, PSID, and WLS and (2) recent mortality records from the Social Security Administration.
I am currently Co-Director, with Theresa Osypuk, of the NICHD-funded Training Program in Population Health Science (T32HD095134).
With Chandra Muller, Eric Grodsky, and Jennifer Manly I am conducting follow-up surveys of the High School and Beyond cohort (with support from 1R01AG058719-01A1). These ~25,500 people were first interviewed in high school in 1980. HS&B data - including a 2021-2022 follow-up focused on the early-life predictors of cognitive impairment - provide leverage in understanding the roles of education, skills, and childhood social circumstances in shaping work, health, and cognitive well-being at midlife.