Mathias Lerch

Mathias Lerch serves as Lecturer and Head of the Urban Demography Laboratory (URBDEMO) at the School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering (ENAC) of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL). With expertise spanning population dynamics, urbanization, and demographic estimation, he bridges demography with urban planning and environmental science through interdisciplinary research on mortality, fertility, and migration patterns.

His research centers on Population and Development, International Demography, and Urban Demography, examining how socioeconomic and environmental factors interact with demographic change. Methodologically, Lerch specializes in data collection, linkage, quality assessment, and advanced statistical modeling for demographic estimation and multi-regional projection, with particular focus on migration systems, fertility transitions, and mortality disparities in urban contexts.

Analysis of his 15 most recent publications (2017-2025) reveals consistent investigation into migration patterns across rural-urban continua, fertility transitions in developing regions, and mortality outcomes in urban environments. His work demonstrates methodological innovation through multi-regional projection techniques and large-scale dataset integration, significantly advancing demographic estimation practices and policy-relevant insights for urban population growth.

Dr. Lerch currently advises PhD students Beckendorff Dorothee and Du Wenxiu while teaching courses including Urban Demography and Border Forensics at EPFL. His advisory work focuses on training the next generation of demographers in quantitative methods and urban population analysis.

As head of URBDEMO, Lerch leads a research team developing systemic frameworks for understanding urban population dynamics. The laboratory's work integrates demographic methods with urban studies to address contemporary challenges in urbanization, migration flows, and sustainable city development through innovative data linkage and modeling approaches.