Early History of CSDE by Charles Hirschman – May 2025
CSDE is distinguished both by a long institutional tradition at this University, and by recent changes that have consolidated its strengths and established a basis for innovative future research. Demography and population studies began at the University of Washington in the 1920’s, when Roderick McKenzie and William F. Ogburn served on the faculty. The first center for regional population studies was established by Calvin Schmid in 1947 as the Office of Population Research in the Department of Sociology. This became the CSDE in 1967 under the leadership of Stanley Lieberson. CSDE prospered over the next thirty years with a series of distinguished directors: Samuel Preston, Thomas Pullum, Charles Hirschman and Avery Guest. The development of CSDE has been marked by research of increasingly national and international scope, a growing multi-disciplinary focus, and increased external funding for research, center support, and training.
Under the direction of Robert Plotnick (1997-2002), CSDE became an independent unit within the College of Arts and Sciences in July 2000. In 2002, CSDE first received federal funding under the Eunice Kennedy Shriver NICHD (EKSNICHD) population infrastructure program. Martina Morris, director from 2002 to 2006, was responsible for overseeing the increase in staffing and the dramatic expansion of CSDE’s core research support services that followed. Under the leadership of Shelly Lundberg (2006-2010), the Center started a development program to stimulate research projects, added GIS to the roster of core services, and implemented the expanded CSDE Training Program, increasing the number of trainees from six to more than 20 per year. Under the leadership of Mark Ellis (2010-2016), CSDE formalized its training program with the establishment of a graduate certificate in Demographic Methods and established the Northwest Federal Statistic Research Data Center (NWFSRDC). The NWFSRDC is supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation and institutional commitments from the University of Washington.