Christine Bachrach is now a Research Professor at College Park after a distinguished career at NIH. She recently served there as Acting Associate Director for Behavioral and Social Sciences Research. Chris is currently President of the Population Association of America, an office that previous Maryland demographers, Harriet Presser and Suzanne Bianchi once held. Bachrach is exploring a new line of research on cultural schemas in social demography, especially about parenthood. As co-director of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Health and Society Scholars Program, she is also following up work she pioneered at NIH to promote a fuller integration of basic social science in health research.

Research Professor Monica DasGupta joined us recently from the World Bank. Monica is an anthropologist and demographer who is working on the interrelations between population, poverty, and sustainable development. She has studied how family systems shape individuals’ life chances, gender differentials in health, and how health behaviors affect child survival. She has also studied public health systems that reduce population exposure to disease. Monica further strengthens Maryland Sociology's expertise in the demography of Asia, where she adds to Sonal Desai's and Reeve Vanneman's work on India and Feinian Chen's work on China.

Associate Professor Liana Sayer joined us in January from Ohio State. Liana is a leading authority in the growing area of time use studies. She has published widely on gender and social class differences in how people spend their time. New research expands these interests to cross-national comparisons of time use. Liana will be developing more departmental support for time use research, a field pioneered by Maryland's John Robinson and where Melissa Milkie and Sandy Hofferth have also made important contributions.