Welcome to the Center for Demography and Ecology (CDE) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison

CDE is a multi-disciplinary faculty research cooperative for social scientific demographic research whose membership includes sociologists, rural sociologists, economists, epidemiologists, and statisticians. CDE is one of the leading centers of social science research in the world, as indicated by the scholarly productivity of its faculty, the level of extramural funding secured by researchers, the production and distribution of high quality demographic data, and the quality of its graduate training program. The intellectual and collegial environment of the Center makes it an exciting and stimulating place in which to conduct research.

Many CDE members have overlapping memberships in cooperating research and training units, which include the Institute on Aging, the Institute for Research on Poverty, the LaFollette Insitute for Public Affairs, the Applied Population Research Laboratory, the population and health program in the Department of Population Health Sciences, the University of Wisconsin Survey Center, and the Social Systems Research Institute and a variety of academic departments.

The existence of a Center, as opposed to merely a collection of individual researchers and projects, permits a level and quality of research activity that would otherwise not be possible. The Center cores, each of which is staffed by highly seasoned professionals, offer essential services to Center research projects.

CDE has been and plans to remain a leader in efficient management and analysis of large, complex demographic data files, as well as to provide highly effective research support for a broad variety of approaches to demographic research. This is made possible with core support from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) and continuing supplemental support from the National Institute on Aging, in addition to financial support from the University of Wisconsin and other sources.