Kenneth W. Wachter

Professor of Demography and Statistics, Emeritus
University of California, Berkeley

Office: 300 Social Sciences Building, Berkeley, California 94720-2120
Phone 510-642-9800; Fax 510-643-8558
Electronic Mail: kenwachter at berkeley dot edu

Vita (pdf)    

Abbreviated Curriculum Vitae

       A full Curriculum Vitae is also available in Portable Data Format.

Education

  • A.B., Harvard, 1968, magna cum laude, History and Literature.
  • M.A., Oxford, 1971, by special decree, Applied Mathematics.
  • Ph. D., Cambridge, 1974, Statistics.
  • Ph.D. Dissertation : “Foundations of the Asymptotic Theory of Random Matrix Spectra,”
  •     supervised by D. G. Kendall and J. F. C. Kingman, 4 June 1974.

Awards

  • Miller Professor, The Miller Institute for Basic Research in Science, 2009.
  • Distinguished Service Award, Division of Social Sciences, UCB, 2008.
  • Alumni Letter in Life, Commencement Speaker, The Pingry School, 2007.
  • Distinguished Teaching Award, Division of Social Sciences, UCB, 2002.
  • Member of the National Academy of Sciences, 27 April 1999.
  • Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, April 1996.
  • Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1997
  • Fellow of the American Statistical Association, 1986
  • Mindel Sheps Award of the Population Association of America, 1986.
  • Phi Beta Kappa Junior Eight, 1967.
  • Harvard Prize for History and Literature, 1967.
  • Named Presidential Scholar by President Johnson, June 1964.

Chronology of Positions

  • 2014–, Emeritus Professor and Professor in the Graduate School, U.C. Berkeley
  • 2013–2018, Graduate Advisor, Demography, U.C. Berkeley
  • 1997-2008, Chair, Dept. of Demography, U.C. Berkeley
  • 1985-2014, Professor of Demography and Statistics, U.C. Berkeley
  • 1979-85, Associate Professor of Demography and Statistics, U.C. Berkeley.
  • 1977-79, Miller Fellow in Statistics, University of California, Berkeley.
  • 1974-78, Assistant/Associate Professor of Statistics, Harvard University.
  • 1971-74, Research Fellow, St. Catherine’s College, Oxford.
  • 1970-71, Keasbey Memorial Scholar, Trinity College, Cambridge.
  • 1968-69, Associate Member of Technical Staff, Bell Telephone Laboratories.
  • 1964-68, Undergraduate, History and Litrature, Harvard College.
  • 1958-64, Student, The Pingry School, Elizabeth, New Jersey.

Selected Professional Service

  • Editorial Board, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, U.S.A., 2000–2006; 2010–.
  • Commmittee on Publications, National Academy of Sciences, U.S.A., 2015–2023.
  • U.S. National Member Organization, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Laxenburg, Austria, oversight committee, U.S. National Academy of Sciences, 2010–.
  • Cozzarelli Prize Committee, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2011, 2012.
  • Miller Professor, U.C. Berkeley, Miller Institute for Basic Research in Sciences, 2009–2010.
  • Editorial Board, Spatial Demography 2011–.
  • Chair, Committee on Population, National Research Council, 2002-2008.
  • Member, Committee on Population, National Research Council, 1999-2008.
  • Board of Directors, Population Association of America, 1999-2002.
  • Chair, National Research Council Workshop on the Biodemography of Fertility and Family Formation Behavior, 2000-2003.
  • Chair, Fachbeirat, Max Planck Institut fuer Demografische Forschung, Rostock, Germany, 1999-2005.
  • Steering Committee, 2000 Census Briefs, Russell Sage Foundation and Population Reference Bureau, 1999-2004.
  • John J. Carty Award Committee, National Academy of Sciences, 2002-2003.
  • Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris, Enseignant Invite’ 1986,1993,2001.
  • Selection Panel, Los Angeles Times Science Book Awards, 2000-2002.

Ken has been serving on the Editorial Board of PNAS, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, since 2010, with a previous terms from 2000 to 2006. In Social Sciences, the board also includes Mary Waters, Adrian Raftery, Dalton Conley, and Doug Massey. Ken is also a member of the Committee on Publications of the National Academy of Sciences.

Ken completed his service on the U.S. National Committee for IIASA in 2013. IIASA is the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Laxenburg, Austria. Between 2009 and 2012 he served on the Steering Committee for Section U (Statistics) of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Ken Wachter received the Distinguished Service Award of the Division of Social Sciences, UC Berkeley, on 20 May 2008. It was presented by Dean Jon Gjerde, with Vice Chancellor George Breslauer attending. About thirty students, faculty, staff, and alumni of the Department of Demography joined the celebration. To our great distress, Dean Gjerde died not long afterwards.

In July 2009 Ken completed eleven years as Chair of Demography. He was succeded by Mike Hout and then by Josh Goldstein, and briefly by Beth Berry and Jenna Johnson-Hanks. The current Chair is Mara Loveman.

Ken served for six years as Chair and nine years as Member of the National Research Council’s Committee on Population (CPOP) up to October 2008. He was succeeded by Linda Waite. Gene Hammel was CPOP’s first chair.

Research OverviewAs a mathematical demographer and statistician, I study systematic constraints and random influences that shape the structure of human populations. I helped develop methods of computer simulation to understand the rarity of coresident family members in pre-industrial English households. With these methods, I am now forecasting the kin and family support available to new generations of elderly in the Twentyfirst century. Working in “non-linear” demography, I have identified mechanisms that give rise to specific kinds of cycles in fertility and population growth. I am currently interested in patterns of mortality at extreme ages shared between humans and other species, trying to reconcile them with statistical models for long-term processes of evolutionary change.
BibliographyBibtex File in Preparation
SubjectsBiodemography
Formal Demography
Spatial Demography
Tempo Effects
The Future of Demography
Statistical Endocrinology
AIDS and the Elderly
Kinship Forecasting
Census Adjustment
Stochastic Demography
ResourcesThe SOCSIM Program
research

We continue to mourn the death on Thursday, 26 September 2013, of our dear friend George Merriam. Miller Bugliari and Headmaster Nat Conard from the Pingry School attended a Reception for Pingry Alumni hosted by Ken Wachter at the UC Berkeley Faculty Club in January 2017. The soccer teams coached by Miller celebrated his 800th victory and 25th state championship in fall 2014. Miller came to the school first in 1941, Ken in 1958. In June 2007, Ken Wachter received the Alumni Letter-in-Life Award from Pingry and presented the Commencement Address.

A set of Memories of Old Toledo by Bessie Wachter Mandler are found in a letter written in 1954 looking back over the later 1800s and early 1900s in family life in Toledo, Ohio.

The Sidman Family History by Evelyn Sidman Wachter has been posted here in Portable Data Format. The Preface and first four chapters can also be accessed in a shorter PDF file, Chapters 1 to 4. The book and a separate copy of the index. have been processed using software for optical character recognition. Both text and index should now be searchable. Some mistranscriptions may, however, be present in these files, so not all searches will succeed. Three lines of descent from Mayflower pilgrims were approved by the Society of Mayflower Descendants: from the Howland-Tilley family, from Francis Cooke, and from Elder William Brewster. Evelyn Sidman Wachter, Mrs. John H. Wachter, died on Tuesday, 15 April 2008, at age 97. Obituaries are given here.

Ambrose, our standard poodle, born on 21 October 2001, enjoys the garden.Ambrose, our standard poodle
teachingKenneth W. Wachter
               Ph. D Students 1979-2023
Spring 2019Demography 298-Spatial
Spring 2016Demography 260(8)    299  
Spring 2015Demography 260(7)   299  
Spring 2014Demography 260(6)   299  
2012-2013Demography 110    210; 260(5) 299
Spring 2012Demography 299  
2010-2011Demography 110;   210; 260(4) 298
Spring 2010Demography 260(3);   299
2008-2009Demography 110    210 296
Fall 2007Demography 250
Spring 2007Demography 161W
              Recent Ph.D. Recipients
Mallika Snyder  Co-ChairPh.D. 2023 Demography
Donghyun Kim  MemberPh.D. 2021 Mathematics
Kevin O’Neill  MemberPh.D. 2019 Mathematics
Alex Youcis  MemberPh.D. 2019 Mathematics
Gabriel Mendes-Borges  ChairPh.D. 2018 Demography
Monica H. Alexander  MemberPh.D. 2018 Demography
Martina Neumann  MemberPh.D. 2018 Mathematics
Sarah Walchuk Thayer  MemberPh.D. 2017 Demography
Olya Mandelshtam  MemberPh.D. 2016 Mathematics
Amal Harrati  ChairPh.D. 2014 Demography

NEWS

Ken continues as Professor of the Graduate School at UCB and Editorial Board Member for the journal PNAS.

A Working Paper from 1985 on “Homeostasis in Prehistory” with relevance to recent coalescent studies of human population bottlenecks in the mid-Pleistocene has been converted to PDF for posting here.

A paper coauthored with Josh Goldstein and Tom Cassidy on a demographic aspect of COVID vaccination priorities appeared online in PNAS on 25 February 2021, an early posting for the 16 March 2021 issue.

An illustrated history of the “Mansion House”, also known as “Hillcrest”, at 19 Barclay Street, Saugerties, New York by Evelyn Sidman Wachter, written and copyrighted in 1996, is posted here.

Berkeley Demography