I received my Ph.D. in sociology and mathematics from
the University of Texas at Austin in 1969. After a year of
postdoctoral study in mathematical statistics at
Columbia University in New York City, I taught there
and was a member of the staff of the Russell Sage
Foundation for three years. I then was successively a
member of the faculties of the University of Illinois at
Urbana Champaign and the University of Texas at Austin
before joining the Duke Sociology Department as
Chairman in 1986. I served as Chair of Sociology from January 1986 to August 1997. My main research interests are
contemporary social trends and quality-of-life measurement, social problems, demography, criminology, organizations, and mathematical and statistical models and methods for the study of social and demographic processes. I have done extensive research in each of
these areas and have been elected a Fellow of the
American Statistical Association (1978), the
Sociological Research Association (1981), the
American Association for the Advancement of Science
(1992), the International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies (1997), and the American Society of Criminology (2004). I teach Contemporary Social Problems (SOCIOL 111), Advanced Methods of Demographic Analysis, and the Demography of Aging Proseminar (SOCIOL 750S). My other interests include tennis, jogging (10
kilometers), and music.
