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Harriet B. Presser
Distinguished University Professor
1936-2012

Ph.D. University of California, Berkeley, 1969

Departmental Specialty Areas:
Demography; Gender, Work and Family

Harriet B. Presser was a Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Sociology. She was the founding Director of the Center on Population, Gender, and Social Inequality (now the Maryland Population Research Center), serving from 1988 to 2001. Professor Presser was a Past President of the Population Association of America (1989), and was named George Washington University’s 1992 Distinguished Alumni Scholar, having received her B.A. from there in 1959. She held residential fellowships at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford (1986-87, 1991-92, and 2003-04), the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Science (1994-95), the Russell Sage Foundation (1989-99 and summer 2000), the Rockefeller Foundation's Bellagio Study and Conference Center (March-April 200) and the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Study (February-April 2007).

In 2002, Professor Presser was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). The certificate conveying this honor states: "For innovative research on issues of population, labor force, gender, and social inequality; for exceptional institution building; and for outstanding service to demographic and sociological societies." In 2007, she was named the recipient of the American Association of University Women's Founders Distinguished Senior Scholar Award.  This award recognizes a scholar for her lifetime of outstanding college and university teaching, her impressive publication record, and the impact she had on women in our profession and in the community--described in her award letter as "phenomenal."

In addition to conducting basic research in social demography, Professor Presser studied population and family policy issues from a national and international perspective and taught courses in these areas. Her book, Working in a 24/7 Economy: Challenges for American Families, was published by the Russell Sage Foundation in 2003. She received grants from the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the W.T. Grant Foundation, the Russell Sage Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the Population Council. Her most recent grant with the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation was a 25-year view of shift work over the life course, offering a new perspective on work and family time.