Two new professors join CLS

CLS is delighted to welcome two new colleagues. Professor John McDonald and Professor Robert Michael.

CLS is delighted to welcome two new colleagues.

Professor John McDonald has been appointed as Professor of Longitudinal Social Statistics and will act as Director of Methodology at CLS. He has previously worked at the University of Southampton and the University of Washington. John’s research interests focus on demographic and bio-statistic research. He will act as as Editor in Chief of the CLS Working Papers and support the methodological development of the cohort studies.

Professor Robert Michael, a distinguished American scholar from the University of Chicago, joined CLS on 1 September under the World Scholar Scheme. Bob’s career and interest span longitudinal survey research, economics, demography, education and public policy studies. From the mid-1980s he directed the first (1979) National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY), now in its 22nd wave, and from 1996-1998, the second NLSY (1997), now in its 10th wave.  He was instrumental in raising, in collaboration with Professor John Bynner, funding from the US National Institute for Child Health and Development for a replication of the cognitive and socio-emotional tests that had been given to the US children. This facilitated comparisons across the two nations, using specially adapted assessments with the UK National Child Development Study (NCDS). Over the next three years, Bob will spend the autumn terms at CLS.