In a letter posted on the Population Research Center's [PRC] website on June 5, the College of Liberal Arts Dean Ann Huff Stevens announced that Dr. Elizabeth Gershoff from the Department of Human Development and Family Sciences will begin her role as the new Director of the PRC effective September 1, 2020. 

Liz will serve a 3-year term to continue the PRC's mission to "provide outstanding infrastructure resources and sustain a dynamic interdisciplinary culture geared toward facilitating the highest level of population-related research among its faculty members and graduate and undergraduate trainees."

Before this appointment, Liz held the role of the PRC's Development Core Director and Postdoctoral Training Director.


"Liz's past contributions and leadership within the PRC make her an outstanding choice."

Ann Huff Stevens, Dean of the College of Liberal Arts

Dean Stevens called the PRC a "gem" of the University of Texas at Austin which supports more "cutting edge" population research that is interdisciplinary in nature and falls under four themes: 

  1. Family Demography and Intergenerational Relationships; 
  2. Education, Work, and Inequality; 
  3. Population Health; and 
  4. Reproductive Health. 

The PRC is housed in the College of Liberal Arts, but there are over 100 faculty researchers that are from colleges and schools across the UT-Austin campus and other US institutions. Faculty research might overlap in the four themes and collaborate together as research teams. HDFS faculty are highly involved in the PRC, as well as the departments of Nutrition, Psychology, Sociology, and Economics, and includes others like the LBJ School of Public Affairs and the Steve Hicks School of Social Work. 

To learn more about the research and faculty, please go to the Population Research Center's site.