Spatial Structures in the Social Sciences (S4)

Michael White is the Robert E. Turner Distinguished Professor of Population Studies at Brown University, where he is also Professor of Sociology and Director (as of 1 July 2016) of the initiative in Spatial Structures in the Social Sciences.  Previously at Brown, he served as Chair of the Sociology Department and as director of the Population Studies and Training Center.  White is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and Honorary Research Professor in the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa.  He currently serves on the advisory board of the Asian Demographic Research Institute (Shanghai), and he is an associate editor of Demography.  Prior to arriving at Brown in 1989, White taught at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and was a Senior Research Associate at the Urban Institute in Washington DC.

White’s research covers a wide array of topics within the broad area of migration and population distribution: from urban residential segregation, to rural-urban migration in developing societies, to contemporary international migration and immigrant assimilation.  White’s publications reflect his combination of sociology, demography, and public policy interests.  He is editor of the International Handbook of Population Distribution and Migration (Springer, 2016), a 26 chapter compendium of knowledge on the subject with contributions from leading scholars around the world. Other recent books include Achieving Anew: How New Immigrants Do in American Schools, Jobs, and Neighborhoods (with J Glick; Russell Sage, 2009; Otis Dudley Duncan Prize) and The Dynamics of Migration, Health and Livelihoods (co-edited with M Collinson, K Adazu, and S Findley; Ashgate, 2009).