Jane Menken, professor of sociology and director of the Institute of Behavioral Science at the University of Colorado at Boulder, today received the prestigious title of distinguished professor from the CU Board of Regents.
She joins only 18 other CU-Boulder faculty members who currently hold the title of distinguished professor.
According to Regents' laws, the designation of distinguished professor is bestowed on members of the university's faculty "who have distinguished themselves as exemplary teachers, scholars and public servants, and who are individuals having extraordinary international importance and recognition."
Menken is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She has received numerous prestigious awards and is a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellow and a Fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences.
Menken is recognized worldwide as a scholar in social science and demography. As chair of the NAS Committee on Population, Menken is examining how the world will deal with the increasing longevity and aging of the global population. The committee also is working on ways to more accurately forecast future population size and characteristics.
She has conducted two decades of groundbreaking work on women and fertility in Bangladesh, and both undergraduate and graduate CU-Boulder students are active participants in her work. She earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Pennsylvania, a master's degree from the Harvard School of Public Health and a doctoral degree from Princeton University.