Center Leadership

Director

CDE is guided by a leadership team comprising Associate Directors, Core Leaders, and Research Area Directors. Together with the Executive Committee, these leaders shape the Center’s research priorities and graduate training programs. By balancing formal annual reviews with frequent informal communication, CDE fosters a highly coordinated, consensus-driven environment. This leadership approach is rooted in a long-standing ethos of collaboration, as set forth in the Center’s Guiding Principles. Additionally, research activities are organized directly under each of the Center’s primary research areas.

Associate Director for Training

CDE’s associate director for training reviews student applications to the demography training program, coordinates appointments for funding via research assistantships and traineeships, and monitors students’ progress throughout the year, paying particular attention to the quality of mentor/trainee relationships and timely progress through program requirements.

Core Leaders

CDE is powered by three specialized cores that provide the foundation for our research and training excellence.

The Administrative Core

Led by Katherine Curtis, this core manages the Center’s operational mission. By overseeing development, training, and dissemination activities, the administrative team handles the logistical complexities of the Center so that CDE affiliates can focus their full energy on the scientific impact of their research.

The Development Core

Led by Marcy Carlson, this core acts as an incubator for growth. It is dedicated to launching innovative new research projects and expanding CDE’s extramural portfolio. A central part of its mission is fostering the next generation of researchers by actively promoting the professional development of early-career faculty.

The Scientific and Technical Core (STC)

Led by Eric Grodsky and Andrew Arnold, the STC provides the sophisticated analytic infrastructure necessary for high-level discovery. This core ensures the technical quality of population science produced across campus, offering vital support to scholars at every career stage, with a particular emphasis on empowering early-career researchers.

Executive Committee

The CDE Executive Committee advises the CDE director on center priorities and direction. The committee includes CDE’s center grant core leaders (Curtis, Carlson, and Grodsky) among others in key leadership roles at the Center.

The CDE director solicits guidance from executive committee members on the development and implementation of new center initiatives and nominations of new CDE affiliates.  Committee members represent CDE to their respective departments and participate in the review of proposals for seed grants via the Development Core.

The executive committee also plays a role in identifying new opportunities for on-campus and external sources of support for CDE affiliates, and in representing CDE in negotiations with the College of Letters and Science.

Training Committee

The CDE Training Committee works closely with leaders of other NIH T32 training programs on the UW–Madison campus, as well as with the office of the Vice Chancellor for Research (VCR) and the Graduate School, to develop and utilize campus-wide opportunities for training in the responsible conduct of research.