University of Minnesota

Minnesota Population Center

The Minnesota Population Center (MPC) is a University-wide research unit established by the Vice President for Research under "New Initiatives in Interdisciplinary Research."  Ten colleges at the University participate in the MPC: College of Liberal Arts (CLA), Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, College of Human Ecology, Law School, Carlson School of Management, School of Public Health, College of Agriculture, College of Science & Engineering, the College of Design, and Medical School.

Members share a commitment to cross-disciplinary research and a focus on the analysis of demographic behavior across time and space. MPC's membership has a strong empirical orientation, and much of MPC's work involves large-scale data analysis and policy-relevant research. MPC's research strengths include historical demography, population geography, labor-force studies, migration and immigration, health behavior, healthcare access and use, life-course studies, education, and family demography.

Pathways into Program

To be eligible for the MPC Graduate training program in Population Studies, students must be admitted to a PhD program of an academic unit affiliated with the MPC through that unit’s regular graduate admissions process. Students may begin the Training Program in Population Studies as an incoming PhD student or after completing one year in their current PhD program.
To apply for a Traineeship, students should contact Rob Warren.

The Population Studies Minor is administered by the Department of Sociology, in consultation with the Minnesota Population Center, and is available to the master's and doctoral level. Students need not formally apply to enroll in the minor; any student currently in good standing in the Graduate School may elect to complete the minor by fulfilling the requirements and filing a program completion form with the Director of Graduate Studies of Population Studies.  
For further information, please contact grumore@umn.edu.
For full information, download the Population Studies Minor handbook.

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Degree Types
Ph.D.
Certificates/Minors
Color ramp animated map of African-American population by county created with Census data from the Minnesota Population Center. National Historical Geographic Information System: Version 2.0. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota 2011
Image Slideshow
  • Steven Ruggles opens the IASSIST 2015 conference with a talk on data.
  • MPC members gather for a summer barbecue.