Dr. Nam has founded and generously contributed funds to a $5000 annual scholarship to a promising student in the MS Demography program. It is his hope that the Charles B. Nam Scholarship Fund will continue to grow and thereby encourage deserving students of Demography by helping defer the costs of graduate school.
Charles B. Nam, Ph.D., is Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus of Sociology and Research Associate of the Center for Demography and Population Health at Florida State University, where he has been a faculty member since 1964. He has devoted his career to fostering integration of the social sciences through population studies. He is esteemed for his substantial contributions as a scholar, teacher, administrator, and professional leader. He is known for generating seminal ideas that create new pathways for research and then engaging colleagues and students to work with him in elaborating those ideas.
Chief among Charlie’s administrative contributions was his effort to organize the Center for Demography and Population Health at FSU, where he served as Director for fifteen years and continues to maintain an affiliation.
The Charles B. Nam Professorship in the Sociology of Population
In 2003, the Charles B. Nam Professorship in the Sociology of Population was established through contributions by and in honor of our colleague, founding Director of CDPH and Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus Dr. Charles B. Nam, to establish an endowed Professorship on the topic of his career-long interest and area of major professional contributions.
In 1964, Charles B. Nam left the U.S. Census Bureau to join the Florida State University faculty. He founded the Population and Manpower Research Center, now the Center for Demography and Population Health, in 1967 and served as its Director until 1981. Author or editor of a dozen academic books and more than 80 articles or chapters, Charlie’s demographic publications have spanned many topics – fertility, mortality, internal and international migration, age structure, and population distribution. His sociological publications cover the sociology of education, social stratification, and the social consequences of population change. Charlie also has a distinguished record of academic service, including President of the Population Association of America and Representative for the Social, Economic, and Political Sciences to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, to which he was elected a Fellow in 2001. The Nam Professorship is currently occupied by Mathew Hauer, Ph.D., the Associate Director of CDPH.
The Charles B. Nam Lecture Series
The Charles B. Nam Lecture Series was also created in 2003 and brings in speakers every year to coincide with Charlie’s birthday in March. Past presenters include:
2023 – Jennie E. Brand (University of California at Los Angeles) – Sociology of Population: Uncovering College Effect Heterogeneity
2022 – Elwood Carlson (Florida State University) – Demographic Foundations of Society
2021 – Sara Curran (University of Washington) – Investigating Migration Dynamics: Bridging the Theory and Evidence Gap
2019 – Daniel Lichter (Cornell University) – The Integration of Immigrants into Multicultural Societies
2017 – Lynne Cossman (West Virginia University) – Spatial Disparities in Mortality: Where We’ve Been and Where We’re Headed
2016 – Dudley Poston (Texas A&M University) – China’s Changing Demography Is Changing China and the World
2015 – Wendy D. Manning (Bowling Green State University) – Same-Sex Relationships and Well-Being
2014 – Francesco Billari (University of Oxford) – A New Family and Fertility Regime?
2013 – Megan Sweeney (University of California at Los Angeles) – Reconsidering the Course and Consequences of the U.S. Contraceptive Revolution
2012 – Ted Mouw (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) – New Data for Demographers: Two Examples
2011 – Scott Lynch (Princeton University) – Selective Mortality in Life Course Research
2010 – Jan Mutchler (University of Massachusetts at Boston) – Antecedents and Consequences of Grandparent-Grandchild Co-residence
2009 – Valerie King (Pennsylvania State University) – Family Structure, Father Involvement and Child Well-Being
2008 – Jason Boardman (University of Colorado at Boulder) – Social Demographic Perspectives on Behavioral Genetics
2007 – Gillian Stevens (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne) – Trajectories of Change: Non-English Language Speakers in the U.S.
2006 – William Axinn (University of Michigan at Ann Arbor) – Social Change, Population and the Environment
2004 – Robert Hummer (University of Texas at Austin) – Religious Involvement and Adult Mortality Risk in the United States
2003 – Elwood Carlson (Florida State University) – Charles B. Nam and Population Studies at Florida State University