Former CSDE Director and Editor of Demgraphy – Pete Guest Passes Away

Posted: 6/5/2025 ()

CSDE is sad to announce that Pete Guest past away last month. Pete was an important scholar and made very impactful contributions to UW and CSDE. Many of the alum who returned for our 75th anniversary last month made impassioned reference to Pete Guest and his impactful contributions. Charlie Hirschman wrote about Pete in a recently produced history of CSDE and noted: “Pete’s primary research interests were in urban sociology and human ecology, but he published prodigiously on a wide range of topics, including family, political attitudes, race and ethnicity, demographic methods, social stratification, and demographic history….Pete Guest was the faculty member were served the longest and left the deepest legacy on CSDE graduate students and its institutional culture. Pete Guest served four decades on the faculty, including multiple stints in important administrative roles in the Department of Sociology and in CSDE (Director, 1995-97), editor of the flagship journal, Demography (1991-93), PI on many grants from NSF and NICHD, and mentor of dozens of graduate students.”  To read and share more about Pete please visit the obituary available here.