Christine A. Bachrach, Ph.D.

Christine A. Bachrach, Ph.D., is Research Professor in the Department of Sociology and the Maryland Population Research Center at the University of Maryland, College Park and co-Director of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Health & Society Scholars program. She served as Acting Associate Director for Behavioral and Social Sciences Research at the National Institutes of Health during 2008-2010, and as Chief of the Demographic and Behavioral Sciences Branch at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development during the years 1992-2008. She currently serves as Board member and Managing Director of the Interdisciplinary Association for Population Health Science, a new scientific association dedicated to advancing an integrative understanding of the multiple pathways – from the biological to the behavioral to the societal – that interact to produce health. Bachrach was President of the Population Association of America in 2013 and has served on numerous boards and committees for scientific organizations and programs in the health and population fields.

Dr. Bachrach received her PhD in Population Dynamics from Johns Hopkins University in 1979. A social demographer, her scientific interests that have spanned the areas of fertility, family formation, marriage and divorce, adoption, sexual behavior, contraceptive practice, population health, and survey methodology. Her current research activities focus on the contributions of cognitive science to understanding culture and demographic behaviors. Current projects focus on a social-cognitive theory of fertility intentions and qualitative analysis of parenting schemas among low-income women. A co-authored volume, Understanding Family Change and Variation: Towards a Theory of Conjunctural Action (http://www.springer.com/social+sciences/population+studies/book/978-94-007-1944-6) was published in 2011.