Kathleen Harris
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Kathleen Mullan Harris (born October 13, 1950) is a distinguished professor of sociology from the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC, UNC–Chapel Hill, or simply Carolina) is a public university, public research university in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States. Chartered in 1789, the university first began enrolli ...
and a faculty fellow at the
Carolina Population Center The Carolina Population Center (CPC) is an interdisciplinary research center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. CPC was established in 1966. The primary goals of the center are to conduct research on population, health, aging, an ...
.


Education and career

She received a bachelor's degree in computer science at
Pennsylvania State University The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a Public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related Land-grant university, land-grant research university with campuses and facilities throughout Pennsyl ...
in 1972. Then, she went on to receive a masters of arts and a doctorate in demography from the
University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...
in 1979 and 1988 respectively. Through her career as a sociologist, she specialized in research on social inequality based on family, poverty, and health. One important highlight upon her research include the 1996 Welfare Reform Act to support the low-income workforce population. Harris became the director and principal investigator of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) where she led a team to follow the lives of 20,000 teens till adulthood to determine correlations between social inequality and health. Due to her work offering a greater insight on the effects of nature and nurture on the social development of teenagers using the life course perspective, Harris was elected to become a member of the
U.S. National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Natio ...
in 2014.


Awards and honors

Harris was awarded the Clifford C. Clogg award for early career achievement in population studies and demography from the
Population Association of America The Population Association of America (PAA) is a non-profit scientific professional association dedicated to the study of issues related to population and demography. The PAA was established by Henry Pratt Fairchild and Frederick Osborn, with fun ...
and Research Institute of Pennsylvania State University in 2004. Harris later became the elected president of the Population Association of America in 2008. Afterwards, Harris received the Warren E. Miller award for meritorious service to the social sciences, which she was recognized for her work's impact to the field of social science in 2013. Shortly after, Harris was elected as a member of the
U.S. National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Natio ...
in 2014. Harris received the Golden Goose award from the US Congress in 2016. She was an American Academy of Arts and Sciences fellow of 2019.


References


External links


Faculty profile
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Harris, Kathleen 1950 births Living people University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill faculty Pennsylvania State University alumni American sociologists American women sociologists Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences American women social scientists American demographers 21st-century American women