PRB

On May 1, PRB welcomed our new President and CEO, Jennifer D. Sciubba, Ph.D.

An internationally recognized expert in political demography, Jennifer has worked throughout her career to educate the broader public about the importance of population trends. In particular, she argues that a deeper understanding of fertility, mortality, and migration trends points us toward the investments we need to make today to shape the future we want tomorrow.

That’s an argument all of us at PRB can get behind! It aligns with PRB’s work to use the power of population data to inform and advance solutions to pressing challenges of today like population aging, climate adaptation, and racial and ethnic disparities in health.

This shared perspective is how PRB and Jennifer came together to begin with. She joined our Board of Trustees in 2019 and starts her tenure as president and CEO already familiar with our strategic aims and areas of work.

Like PRB’s focus on making sure data and research are communicated clearly to those who can use it, Jennifer has translated research for readers of The Atlantic, Harvard Business Review, The Washington Post, and on the TED stage, among other places (like her book 8 Billion and Counting: How Sex, Death, and Migration Shape Our World). She’s also published policy-relevant research in numerous scholarly articles and books.

As a Global Fellow at the Wilson Center, she’s worked closely with two programs: the Environmental Change and Security Program and the Maternal Health Initiative. Both programs align with two of PRB’s priority areas: environment and gender. Through her role at the Wilson Center, plus her affiliation with the Center for Strategic and International Studies and her membership in the Council on Foreign Relations, Jennifer has led many congressional briefings and educated executives in the public and private sectors on demographic trends and implications.

What is she most excited about as she steps into PRB’s top leadership role?

“I am looking forward to working even more closely with staff I’ve long admired. We already start from similar mindsets, a belief that data and evidence about population and health-related issues is more useful than alarmism and political posturing,” she said. As for how she sees her value-add, she said: “I’ve spent a long time building a robust network and I’m planning to draw on that to amplify the good work PRB is already doing, which doesn’t receive as much attention as it should. There’s a real need for thought leadership around population globally, and PRB is perfectly positioned to take that role. I want everyone to see PRB as an agenda-setter, an innovator, a problem-solver.”

Follow Jennifer Sciubba on LinkedIn.

Photo credits: Gilberto Tadday / TED