Prof. Sergio Ginebri is an Associate Professor at the Department of Jurisprudence, University of Rome Tre. He holds a PhD in Economics from Sapienza University of Rome and has extensive experience in fiscal policy, pension systems, and public finance research. His work focuses on topics like pension sustainability, social inequality, and the political economy of public debt. Education: PhD in Economics, Sapienza University of Rome (1988–1992) MA in Economics, University of Warwick (1987–1988) Laurea in Statistics and Demography, Sapienza University of Rome (1977–1984) Research Interests: Prof. Ginebri specializes in public policy, fiscal sustainability, and the social impacts of pension reforms. His research explores how demographic trends, wealth distribution, and political dynamics shape economic policies. Recent work includes analyses of longevity risks, pension equity, and fiscal policy integration in the EU. Key Projects: Coordinated studies on pension system sustainability (2002–2018) Developed models for forecasting public pension expenditure Contributed to EU tax policy observatories Awards: Recipient of the national PhD award (1994) and recognition for academic excellence in tax policy research (2001). Teaching: Teaches courses in political economy, public finance, and macroeconomics at undergraduate and graduate levels.
Emily Hannum is a Professor of Sociology and Education at the University of Pennsylvania's College of Arts & Sciences, where she also serves as Associate Dean for Social Sciences. She is affiliated with the Population Studies Center, Center for the Study of Contemporary China, Graduate School of Education, and Penn Development Research Initiative. Education: PhD in Sociology from University of Michigan (1998) Research Focus: Poverty and child welfare, gender and ethnic stratification, sociology of education Projects: Gansu Survey of Children and Families, climate-environment-childhood inequalities in LMICs Workshops: Co-organizer of Penn Education and Inequality Workshop Her research explores childhood poverty in China, demographic impacts on education systems, and climate risks affecting children's welfare. She investigates environmental hazards, educational disparities, and family separation effects across China, India, and low/middle-income countries. Recent publications analyze educational expansion in East Asia, climate crisis impacts on child health, and gender disparities in Latin America. She directs longitudinal studies on rural poverty and collaborates on cross-national projects related to environmental and educational equity. Scientific awards include the Stanley I. Sheerr Term Professorship in Social Sciences.
Professor Lisa Strohschein holds dual roles as a Professor in the Sociology Department and Director of Undergraduate Programs at the University of Alberta's Faculty of Arts. Her research focuses on family dynamics and health inequalities, employing longitudinal methodologies to analyze large datasets. She teaches courses on health sociology, mental illness, and socialization, emphasizing sociological perspectives on health distribution and care systems. Her research interests include the interplay between socioeconomic factors and mental health, gender disparities in marital outcomes, and generational shifts in parenting practices. She has published extensively on topics like teen pregnancy correlates, poverty dynamics, and the mental health implications of family structures. Strohschein has received the 2019-20 Killam Annual Professorship and serves as Editor-in-Chief of Canadian Studies in Population, a peer-reviewed journal focusing on demographic research. She also contributes to policy through roles like membership in Statistics Canada's Demographic Statistics Advisory Committee and past presidency of the Canadian Population Society. Her scholarly work bridges theoretical frameworks (life course, stress process theory) with methodological rigor, often using growth curve models and competing risks analysis. Current research trends emphasize cross-national comparisons and applied policy relevance, particularly in understanding how family transitions impact health across the life course.
Scott D. Landes is a Professor in the Sociology Department at Syracuse University's Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. He holds affiliations with the Aging Studies Institute, Lerner Center for Public Health Promotion, and Center for Aging and Policy Studies. Landes earned his Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Florida in 2014. His research focuses on disability mortality disparities, veteran health outcomes, and the intersection of disability with medical and social theory. Education: Ph.D. in Sociology, University of Florida, 2014 Research Interests: Landes investigates mortality trends for disabled adults and veterans, disability theory integration with life course frameworks, and data equity in disability measurement. His work addresses systemic undercounting of disability in federal surveys and explores racial/ethnic disparities in lifespan outcomes for individuals with intellectual/developmental disabilities (IDD). Recent Research Trends: His publications analyze pandemic impacts on IDD populations, combat veteran longevity, and diagnostic overshadowing in mortality reporting. Recent work critiques Washington Group disability measures' limitations and advocates for improved data collection methods. Awards: 2025 Excellence in Graduate Education Faculty Recognition Award O’Hanley Faculty Scholar (Syracuse University) NIH-funded research projects on aging policy and mortality disparities Advising & Grants: Recipient of multiple National Institutes of Health grants. Advises on disability data equity initiatives and participates in interdisciplinary teams addressing veteran health disparities. Supervises graduate research on IDD lifespan trajectories and pandemic vulnerability. Labs/Teams: Core member of Syracuse’s Aging Studies Institute and Lerner Center for Public Health Promotion. Collaborates with the Center for Aging and Policy Studies on federal health data projects. Engages with national disability advocacy groups through research briefs and policy consultations.
Charles Rahal is an Associate Professor in Data Science and Informatics at the University of Oxford, with additional affiliations as an Associate Member of Nuffield College and Researcher at the Gradel Institute, New College. He serves as a Co-Investigator at the ESRC Centre for Care and sits on the Steering Group of Reproducible Research Oxford. His academic career includes previous roles as a Senior Departmental Research Lecturer at the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science and a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow. Dr. Rahal completed his PhD in 2016 and has established himself as a prominent social science methodologist and applied social data scientist with expertise in high-dimensional econometrics. His research spans multiple domains, focusing particularly on unique Big Data origination processes and their relationship to social inequality, mobility, and stratification. He is deeply engaged in machine learning methods, civic technology, spatial and time series econometrics, model uncertainty, and scientometrics. His recent publications reveal a strong trend toward computational social science, with significant contributions to understanding prediction limits, pandemic impacts, healthcare systems, and environmental sustainability. The articles demonstrate his interdisciplinary approach, bridging traditional social science with cutting-edge computational methods, particularly in the analysis of large-scale datasets and development of novel metrics like the InterModel Vigorish for model comparison. Dr. Rahal is actively involved in teaching and mentoring, co-convening courses in Demographic Analysis, Life Course Research, and the Oxford Partner site of the Summer Institute in Computational Social Sciences. He has developed workshops on machine learning, command line interfaces, and LaTeX, reflecting his commitment to methodological training in social science. He leads the Metrics and Models lab and maintains several open-source projects including the GWAS Diversity Monitor and RobustiPy. His editorial roles include Associate Editor-in-Chief at the Journal of Social Computing and Associate Editor at ACM Transactions on Social Computing, highlighting his influence in shaping computational social science methodology.
William S. Horton (Sid) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at Northwestern University , where he has taught since 2005 and directed the Cognition and Communication Lab (Cresap 108). Starting in September 2025, he will serve as Chair of the Department of Linguistics . His research focuses on socio-cognitive mechanisms in language use, particularly discourse pragmatics , perspective-taking , and non-literal language processing . Education: B.S. in Psychology/German from Duke University (1991), M.A. and Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology from University of Chicago (1994/1999) Previous roles: Postdoctoral research at SUNY-Stony Brook, Cognitive Aging at Georgia Tech Research trends from his 20+ years of publications include common ground , memory processes , figurative language , and age-related communication changes . His work increasingly incorporates computational text analysis and real-time digital communication studies. Awards : Fellow, Society for Text and Discourse Students : Supervised Ph.D. theses on conversational alignment, common ground activation, and digital communication. Undergraduate honors projects explore inhibitory deficits, speech internalization, and perspective-taking in bilingualism. Cognition and Communication Lab investigates language processing in spoken/written contexts using experimental methods and computational models.
Sarah Harper is the Clore Professor of Gerontology at the University of Oxford and Director of the Oxford Institute of Population Ageing. She was appointed a CBE in 2018 for services to Demography and serves as Chair of HelpAge International. Professor Harper has held numerous influential positions including serving on the Prime Minister's Council for Science and Technology and as Director of the Royal Institution of Great Britain. Her educational background includes an MA from Cambridge and a DPhil from Oxford. Prior to her academic career, she trained with the BBC as a News and Current Affairs Reporter and Producer. She subsequently held academic positions at the University of London and the University of Chicago before returning to Oxford to found the Oxford Institute of Population Ageing. Professor Harper's research focuses on demographic change, particularly the implications of falling fertility and increasing life expectancy. Her work examines life course factors in healthy ageing, social and economic drivers of health and well-being, with emphasis on life transitions. She has conducted significant research on eldercare in China, fertility patterns in sub-Saharan Africa (revealing that ideal family size remains high despite girls' education), and demographic changes in Vietnam and Myanmar affecting agricultural production and food security. Her publication record demonstrates consistent focus on global demographic trends, with recent work increasingly addressing the intersection of population change with environmental challenges. She has authored influential books including 'How Population Change Will Transform Our World' (Oxford University Press, 2016) and is working on a new book for Cambridge University Press on Population and Environmental Change. Scientific Awards and Honors CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in 2018 for services to Demography Royal Society for Public Health: Arts and Health Research Award (2011) Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences Fellow of the Royal Anthropology Institute Professor Harper has supervised numerous PhD students across diverse topics from biodiversity conservation in Southeast Asia to intergenerational solidarity in Turkey. Her advisory work extends globally, having served on the Scientific Advisory Board of Natural England, the Royal Society's Working Group on Population and Environment, and as an advisor to governments including the UK, Malaysia, Singapore, and the European Commission. She has received research funding from organizations including the US National Institutes of Health, which supported the founding of the Oxford Institute of Population Ageing. As Director of the Oxford Institute of Population Ageing, Professor Harper leads a multidisciplinary team examining demographic trends and their societal implications. The Institute serves as a hub for international collaboration on ageing research, working with organizations including Population Europe and the International Association of Research Universities. She also serves as founding editor of the Journal of Population Ageing and editor of the Handbook of Ageing and Public Policy.
Christian FISCH is an Associate Professor in Business Economics and Entrepreneurship at the University of Luxembourg's Interdisciplinary Centre for Security, Reliability and Trust (SnT). His research focuses on the intersection of entrepreneurship with digital technologies, venture finance, and socio-cultural influences. Key areas include blockchain-based financing mechanisms (e.g., ICOs), the psychological and digital identity aspects of entrepreneurs, and the impact of environmental/climate factors on entrepreneurial activity. He has published extensively in top journals, addressing topics such as B Corp certification signaling effects, venture capital decision-making, and the paradox of technology adoption among SMEs. His work spans both theoretical contributions (e.g., extending Schumpeterian frameworks) and applied analyses (e.g., post-pandemic entrepreneurial resilience). FISCH collaborates with global institutions, leveraging mixed-methods approaches including digital trace analysis from platforms like Twitter to study investor behavior and entrepreneurial traits. He has no listed awards but maintains active research agendas in decentralized finance, climate entrepreneurship, and cross-cultural entrepreneurial motivations. Professional activities include editorial roles in entrepreneurship journals and advising on innovation policy. His research often addresses emerging trends such as NFTs in creative industries, DAO governance structures, and the role of trademarks/patents in regional innovation ecosystems.
Claus Thustrup Kreiner is a Professor of Economics and Director of the Center for Economic Behavior and Inequality (CEBI) at the University of Copenhagen's Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Economics. He also serves as Area Director of Public Economics in the CESifo network and was co-editor of the Journal of Public Economics from 2014 to 2020. Kreiner has held various leadership positions including Director of the Economic Policy Research Unit (EPRU) since 2005 and Director of the Center of Excellence WEST from 2011-2013. Education: Ph.D. in Economics, University of Copenhagen, 1998 Visiting Ph.D. student, University of York, 1996 M.Sc. in Economics, University of Copenhagen, 1994 B.Sc. in Economics, University of Copenhagen, 1991 Claus Thustrup Kreiner's research primarily focuses on Public Economics , with secondary specializations in Labor Economics, Household Finance, Applied Microeconometrics, and Experimental Economics. His work examines inequality in income, wealth and health, optimal redistribution policy, and behavioral responses to public policy. Kreiner has conducted significant research using Danish administrative data to analyze tax compliance, labor supply responses, and inequality dynamics. His research often involves collaborations with institutions like Columbia University, London School of Economics, and UC Berkeley. His recent publications reveal a strong focus on inequality across multiple dimensions (income, wealth, health, life expectancy), tax policy design and compliance, labor market responses to policy changes, and the intersection of behavioral economics with public policy. Kreiner frequently employs high-frequency administrative data from Denmark to provide empirical evidence on how individuals and households respond to economic policies and shocks. Scientific Awards and Recognition: Appointed Knight of The Order of Dannebrog by Queen Margrethe II (2018) The Invisible Hand Award from the Society of Social Economics (2006, 2001) Best Teacher Award from the Study Board of Economics at University of Copenhagen (2002) Research Fellow at Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), London (2009-) Kreiner has supervised numerous students primarily in Public Economics and has received multiple research grants including from the Danish Social Science Research Council (2003, 2006, 2009), International Growth Center (2009), and Danish National Research Foundation (1998-2003). He has served on important policy bodies including as co-chair of the Danish Economic Council (2010-2014) and member of the Danish Tax Commission (2008-2009). As Director of CEBI (Center for Economic Behavior and Inequality), Kreiner leads a major research center funded by the Danish National Research Foundation. He also directs the Economic Policy Research Unit (EPRU) and has been instrumental in establishing research collaborations through networks like CESifo. His work bridges academic research and policy application, as evidenced by his practical policy experience with government commissions.
Laia Becares is a Professor of Social Science and Health at King's College London, part of the School of Global Affairs and the Department of Global Health & Social Medicine. She previously held roles at the University of Sussex (2018-2022) and the University of Manchester (2010-2018), where she maintains an Honorary position. She serves as an Editor of Sociology of Health and Illness and on the Academic Reference Group of the NHS Race and Health Observatory. Her work is funded by organizations such as the Nuffield Foundation and the Health Foundation. Laia holds a PhD in Social Epidemiology from University College London (UCL) and a Master's in Public Health from Boston University School of Public Health. Her research employs an interdisciplinary approach, collaborating with sociologists, psychiatrists, geographers, and demographers to understand how discrimination and marginalization perpetuate social and health inequities. Key areas include racism, homophobia/heterosexism, LGBTQ+ inequalities, and the impact of systemic oppression across life stages. She co-developed the Queerantine Study on pandemic impacts on LGBTQ+ communities and leads the ESRC Centre for Society and Mental Health, fostering student mentorship in health inequality topics. Her scientific awards include ESRC/MRC Postdoctoral Research Fellowship (2010-2012), Hallsworth Research Fellowship (2012-2016), and ESRC Future Research Leader Fellowship (2012-2015). Recent work focuses on ethnic healthcare disparities in multimorbidity and longitudinal studies of racism's effects on health outcomes. Ongoing projects include LGBTQ+ policymaking networks and the GHSM Anti Racism Steering Group, addressing structural inequities in academia and healthcare. Laia’s grants include Nuffield Foundation funding for ethnic inequalities in later life and Health Foundation support for healthcare equity studies. She advocates for integrating lived experiences into research design, particularly through the Evidence for Equality National Survey (EVENS). Her lab affiliations include Queer@King’s and the ESRC Centre for Society and Mental Health, emphasizing collaborative, community-driven approaches.
Toomas Laarits is an Assistant Professor of Finance at the Leonard N. Stern School of Business, New York University, where he joined in 2019. His research lies at the intersection of asset pricing, financial intermediation, and monetary policy, with a focus on investor behavior, safe assets, and macroeconomic announcements. Education: PhD in Financial Economics, Yale University, 2019 MPhil in Financial Economics, Yale University, 2017 MA in Financial Economics, Yale University, 2016 AB in Mathematics, Harvard University, 2010 His research investigates puzzles in financial markets, such as the pre-FOMC announcement drift, retail investor behavior, and the role of safe assets in times of crisis. By combining empirical analysis with theoretical modeling, he explores how investors interpret public information, the hedging demand for Treasuries, and the impact of fiscal stimulus on equity markets. His interdisciplinary work also extends into financial history, examining the 1930 downturn and the evolution of financial architecture. The most recent research articles show a strong trend toward understanding decision-making under uncertainty, the role of information in asset pricing, and the behavior of retail investors using novel datasets such as browser activity. His work frequently appears in top finance journals and receives media attention from outlets like the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, and The Economist. Scientific Awards: No awards mentioned in the text. Professor Laarits has advised or collaborated with researchers such as Marco Sammon and has been involved in multiple high-impact projects with leading scholars including Gary Gorton, Viral Acharya, and Robin Greenwood. While no formal grants are listed, the scope and publication record suggest active funding. He teaches Foundations of Finance at the undergraduate level and contributes to the academic life at NYU Stern through research and mentorship. Labs and Research Teams: No formal lab is mentioned. However, his extensive co-authorship network indicates active participation in collaborative research groups focused on financial economics, macro-finance, and market microstructure.
Aleksandr (Sasha) Aravkin is Associate Professor in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Adjunct Associate Professor of Health Metrics Sciences, Mathematics, and Statistics at the University of Washington. He serves as Director of Mathematical Sciences at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), where he leads the Mathematical Sciences and Computational Algorithms team and contributes to strategic direction for applying mathematical sciences to analytic challenges. Dr. Aravkin earned his PhD in Mathematics (Optimization) and MS in Statistics from the University of Washington in 2010, following a BSc in Mathematics and Computer Science in 2004. His educational background forms the foundation for his interdisciplinary research approach. His research expertise spans large scale optimization, machine learning, data science, convex and variational analysis, algorithm design, robust statistics, inverse problems, and uncertainty quantification . These methodologies are applied across diverse domains including health metrics, computational medicine, tracking and navigation, seismic imaging, computational finance, and neuroscience. Dr. Aravkin has pioneered approaches for fusing physics-based and data-driven models, enabling innovative solutions to complex problems. Dr. Aravkin's publication record demonstrates a strong focus on health metrics and Global Burden of Disease studies, with recent work emphasizing meta-analytic approaches for risk-outcome relationships. His research spans epidemiological modeling, health effects of various exposures, and forecasting disease burden across populations. The publications reveal a consistent pattern of high-impact work in top journals including The Lancet and Nature Medicine, often addressing critical public health questions through rigorous statistical and mathematical frameworks. At IHME, Dr. Aravkin has led significant projects including the Burden of Proof Studies (2019-2024) which analyzed 153 risk-outcome pairs, and COVID-19 Modeling (2020-2023) where his team developed forecasting models and excess mortality estimation methods. He has also been instrumental in developing the Evidence Score model, requiring novel algorithmic approaches. His work bridges theoretical mathematical sciences with practical applications to improve global health policy and practice.
Jesper Rangvid is a Professor of Finance and Director of the Pension Research Centre (PeRCent) at Copenhagen Business School (CBS), where he also serves as Associate Dean of the Executive MBA program . His research focuses on financial markets, macroeconomics, financial crises, household finance, and mutual funds. He has authored influential works such as How Low Interest Rates Change the World (Oxford University Press, 2025) and From Main Street to Wall Street (Oxford University Press, 2021), exploring topics like interest rate trends, economic growth, and policy impacts. He chairs the Council for Return Expectations and holds board positions at Formuepleje, Advantage Investment Partners, and Finansiel Stabilitet, among others. His advisory roles include Levring & Levring and projects for Danish institutions like Forenet Kredit and BankInvest. Recent research highlights include analyzing Denmark’s pension system reforms, fiscal-monetary policy interactions, and the implications of low interest rates on global economies. Rangvid’s publications combine rigorous academic analysis with policy relevance, addressing topics like dividend predictability, economic growth’s impact on asset returns, and the behavior of professional investors. His work often bridges theoretical frameworks with empirical data, offering insights into macro-financial linkages and policy design.
Peter Redfield serves as Professor of Anthropology at the University of Southern California's Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, where he bridges anthropology with science and technology studies, postcolonial theory, and humanitarian practice. He previously held the presidency of the Society for Cultural Anthropology (2017-2019) and maintains active affiliations with the LOST Research Network (Law, Organization, Science and Technology), though this network is transitioning to an archive in 2024. His research critically examines transnational expertise and the ethics of humanitarian interventions in contexts of unreliable infrastructure, with current projects including "Beyond Reliable Infrastructure"—which analyzes minimalist life technologies for water, sanitation, and health—and collaborative work with Stellenbosch University on sanitation politics in South Africa. Redfield's scholarship consistently interrogates how humanitarian design navigates utopian ideals of social justice while confronting material constraints and political complexities in global health. His publication trends reveal sustained focus on medical anthropology and humanitarian ethics, particularly through case studies of epidemic response (Ebola), technological fixes (LifeStraw®), and organizational practices (Doctors Without Borders). This work demonstrates evolving attention to material politics and infrastructure, moving from colonial histories (e.g., French Guiana rocketry) toward contemporary crises in global health governance. Redfield's research is supported by institutional affiliations including the Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton, 2016-17) and collaborative partnerships across Africa. He leads interdisciplinary teams examining humanitarian innovation, with recent work emphasizing the material dimensions of aid delivery and the political economies of "dignified living" in marginalized communities.
Scott McCabe is a Professor of Marketing at Birmingham Business School, University of Birmingham. He earned his PhD from the University of Derby in 2001, focusing on visitor motivations in the Peak District National Park, and holds an MA in Leisure and Tourism Studies from the University of North London (1993) and an HND in Leisure Studies from the University of Salford (1991). Current co-editor in Chief of the Annals of Tourism Research Editorial board member of Tourism Management Elected fellow of the International Academy for the Study of Tourism (2019+) His research spans social tourism , responsible tourism , tourist emotions , and socio-linguistic methodology , with significant work on wellbeing outcomes from supported holidays for disadvantaged families. He has contributed to Annals of Tourism Research , Journal of Travel Research , and other top-tier journals. Recent publications address topics like qualitative research sampling , tourism theory , dark tourism motivations , and smart destination engagement . His work combines tourism policy critique , consumer behavior analysis , and methodological innovation . Scientific awards include fellowships and leadership roles in international tourism research committees. He has served as VP for the International Sociological Association's Tourism Research Committee and co-chairs the Academy of Marketing's Tourism Marketing SIG.
