Irma Elo, PhD, MPA is a Tamsen and Michael Brown Presidential Professor in the Sociology department at Penn’s School of Arts and Sciences. Dr. Elo’s main research interests center on health, socioeconomic and geographic inequalities in mortality, race/ethnic differences in infant and adult mortality, immigrant health and mortality early life and life course influences on later life health outcomes, and data quality and estimation of mortality at oldest ages. Dr. Elo’s published research has appeared in edited volumes on health and mortality and in leading peer-reviewed journals in demography, sociology, epidemiology, and public health, including Demography, Population Studies, Population and Development Review, Population Research and Policy Review, Social Science and Medicine, Epidemiology, Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, and the American Journal of Public Health.
Dr. Elo has extensive administrative experience and interdisciplinary research collaborations. She has served as the Chair of the Department of Sociology and as the Director of both the Population Aging Research Center and the Population Studies Center and the Chair of the Graduate Group in Demography at Penn. Dr. Elo has been a member and/or chair of several national committees, including the Chair of the Board of Scientific Counselors of the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), a member of the Census Bureau’s Scientific Advisory Committee (CSAC), a member and chair of the section on the sociology of population for the American Sociological Association (ASA), member of the Population Association of America (PAA) board of directors, and a member and chair of the PAA’s Committee on Population Statistics. This year, Dr. Elo was elected as the President-Elect of the PAA for a 3-year term.
Dr. Elo received a PhD in Public Affairs and Demography as well as a Master’s degree in Public Affairs at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs.
