PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] – On July 1, the PSTC’s Elizabeth Fussell, associate professor of Population Studies and Environment and Society (Research), assumed editorial leadership of Population and Environment. A peer-reviewed academic journal, the publication showcases interdisciplinary research on social demographic aspects of environmental issues.

“We are delighted to host the journal at the PSTC and Brown University,” said PSTC Director Susan Short. “Beth will be an outstanding editor.  She insists on rigorous demographic approaches and advocates for an integrated scholarship that bridges the social and natural sciences.”

Many of the topics included in Population and Environment mirror the interdisciplinary research conducted by PSTC associates, including:

• Health, wellbeing, and environmental implications of development;
• Migration and natural resource decline;
• Population redistribution and land use change;
• Quality of life and environmental amenities;
• Social stratification and natural hazards;
• Urbanization’s impact on environment and human health.

Fussell is serving a four-year term as editor-in-chief, taking over the position from Lori Hunter, a PSTC alumnae and Brown Sociology PhD, '97. Hunter, now a professor of sociology at the University of Colorado, Boulder, has edited Population and Environment since 2007 and increased its impact as a population studies journal considerably, Fussell said.

“My goal is to continue Hunter’s approach while expanding the geographic representation on the editorial board in order to recruit high quality submissions on innovative topics from leading demographic research centers around the world,” Fussell said. “Population and environment research is a growing field and this journal will be a major outlet for that science."

Population and Environment describes itself as publishing “cutting-edge research that contributes new insights on the complex, reciprocal links between human populations and the natural environment.” It is a quarterly journal published by Springer and was launched in 1978 as the Journal of Population.

- Jo Fisher