CENTER FOR DEMOGRAPHY AND POPULATION HEALTH
Information for Graduate Students
COLLEGE OF SOCIAL SCIENCES & PUBLIC POLICY
Center for Demography and Population Health Website
Director: Sociology: John Reynolds; Professors: Sociology: Brewster, Burdette, Davis, Sanyal, Taylor, Tillman; Associate Professors: Sociology: Hauer, Homan, McFarland; Assistant Professors: Economics: Moorthy; Geography: DeJohn; Sociology: Brooks, Cannon, Evans; Urban and Regional Planning: McSorley; Assistant Teaching Professors: Urban and Regional Planning: Felkner; Professors Emeriti: Economics: Schmertmann; Sociology: Carlson, Eberstein, Nam
The Center for Demography and Population Health comprises faculty and graduate students whose research concerns demographic processes and health disparities. Center members represent the disciplinary perspectives of sociologists, planners, economists, geographers, and other social scientists, as well as behavioral, public health, and medical scientists. The Center's research and training programs are supported by grants and contracts from private and public entities concerned with the health and well-being of human populations. The Center offers a master's degree in demography and, in association with the Department of Urban and Regional Planning, a joint graduate pathway for both a planning and a demography master's degree. The Center also cooperates in the graduate programs of departments in the College of Social Sciences and Public Policy, wherein candidates for doctoral degrees may elect demography as an area of concentration. Graduate students and faculty in other colleges and schools within the University are also welcome to participate in the Center's research and training activities.
Center faculty members maintain active research programs and serve as consultants to national and international agencies and as officers or directors of professional organizations in demography and allied fields. As part of the Center's training mission, faculty members often invite students to participate in research projects. Students affiliated with the Center have access to workspace equipped with desktop computers and statistical software, and to the Center's data and document archives. Each Fall, the Serow Scholarship, Nam Scholarship, Taylor Scholarship and Hawkie Mraz Demography Graduate Award are awarded to students to help cover tuition in the Master of Science in Demography program. Each Spring, the Center awards the William J. Serow Prize to an outstanding student in the degree program.
Combined BA/BS and MS-Demography Pathway
Qualified students in any undergraduate major may count up to twelve graduate-level credit hours toward both their bachelor's and a master's in Demography. Students in a combined bachelor's/master's pathway have the advantage of being able to apply undergraduate tuition assistance (e.g., Bright Futures, Florida Pre-Paid) to graduate courses and to explore graduate coursework as an undergraduate student, easing the transition to graduate school. Students accepted into the master's degree program who have completed the twelve credit hours of required coursework as undergraduates may finish the degree with just fifteen hours of additional coursework and satisfactory completion of a three-credit hour Master's Research Paper.
Candidates must have: ninety credit hours of completed coursework (Honors Program students need just sixty credit hours; transfer students must have completed at least twenty-four credit hours at FSU) and an earned grade point average (GPA) of 3.5 or higher or a GPA of 3.0 and scores of at least 152 on the Verbal Reasoning and Quantitative Reasoning sections of the Graduate Record Exam (GRE). Students must have completed SYA 4400 or STA 2122 with a grade of “B” or higher and completed SYD 3020 or ECP 3113 with a grade of “B” or higher. Interested students should meet with an advisor in the College of Social Sciences and Public Policy to determine their eligibility for graduate coursework as an undergraduate.