CPC Faculty Fellow Paul Voss honored with the Robert J. Lapham Award from the Population Association of America
Paul R. Voss received the prestigious Robert J. Lapham Award from the Population Association of America on April 12th at its Annual Meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana. The Robert J. Lapham Award “recognizes members of PAA who contributed to the population profession through the application of demographic knowledge to policy issues.”
The award committee was chaired by Dennis Hogan, Professor of Sociology at Brown University. In a letter to PAA President Christine Bachrach, Hogan wrote: “Voss has made signal contributions to the population studies profession and to population policies through his exemplary career as an applied demographer. Voss is widely recognized among demographic practitioners as an exceptionally gifted and innovative applied demography scholar, bringing fresh insights specifically to the demographic dynamics of small geographic areas.”
Voss’ major contributions fall in four broad categories: small area population dynamics, internal migration, population environment interactions, and applied demography.
Voss has provided expertise to the US Department of Commerce and the US Bureau of the Census and was Chair of the National Academy of Sciences’ Panel on Statistical Methods for Measuring the Group Quarters Population in the American Community Survey. He has written more than 150 publications.
He is a Carolina Population Center Faculty Fellow, a UNC-Chapel Hill Research Professor of Sociology, and a Senior Spatial Analyst at UNC’s Odum Institute for Research in Social Science. Voss served as interim director of CPC from 2011-12. He received his Ph.D. in Sociology (Demography) from the University of Michigan.
With Voss’ guidance, the Carolina Population Center is developing an applied demography program that will provide expert assistance to cities, counties, and other organizations in North Carolina. It will help planning agencies predict and plan for population changes in the future. The program may also serve schools, hospitals, and transportation agencies.
The Lapham selection committee praised Voss’ contributions: “His creative and innovative intellectual contributions and his sensitivity to, and quick understanding of, the needs of those who seek his counsel for data or methodological advice are widely recognized and appreciated.”
The Robert J. Lapham Award was first granted in 1989 and is awarded every two years.
About Robert J. Lapham: Robert J. Lapham contributed to the population profession in numerous ways. His original research and his direction of the Demographic and Health Surveys Project advanced our knowledge of population processes. He helped formulate population policy through his work at the Population Council and with the National Academy of Sciences’ Committee on Population. He strengthened the profession through his service as Secretary-Treasurer of the PAA. In recognition of these contributions and as a way of promoting his professional interests, the Lapham family established the Robert J. Lapham Award to recognize others who have made similar contributions.
Read more about the Robert J. Lapham Award and see a list of past recipients on the PAA website.