Laurie DeRose

Laurie DeRose is a Research Assistant Professor with the Maryland Population Research Center at the University of Maryland at College Park, where she has served since its inception in 2001. She is the Director of Research for the World Family Map project.

Professor DeRose researches demographic outcomes and decision-making processes in disadvantaged contexts, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. Her research focuses on demographic effects of educational reversals, the meaning of education in underdeveloped settings, and the demography of hunger, expanded to include breastfeeding and related public health issues.

Her work on the demographic effects of declining school enrollment rates in sub-Saharan Africa has touched on issues such as fertility, child mortality, the sexual initiation of young women, and timing of marriage. More recently, she has begun to investigate the relationship between HIV prevalence and declining school enrollments with attention to their independent as well as synergistic effects.