Biography of Dr. Dudley Poston

Dudley L. Poston, Jr. is Professor Emeritus of Sociology, and the George T. and Gladys H. Abell Professor of Liberal Arts, at Texas A&M University. He also heldthe positions of Adjunct Professor of Demography at People’s University, Beijing, China; Adjunct Professor of Sociology at Fuzhou University, Fuzhou, China; and Adjunct Professor of Demography at Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, China.

Dr. Poston joined the faculty of Texas A&M University in 1992, and served as the Head of the Department of Sociology from 1992 to 1997. He previously served on the Rural Sociology and Sociology faculties, respectively, of Cornell University (1988-1992), and The University of Texas at Austin (1970-1988), where he was also affiliated with the Population Research Center (University of Texas) and the Population and Development Program and the East Asia Studies Program (Cornell University). He was Chair of the Department of Rural Sociology at Cornell University from 1989 to 1992, and he was Director of the Population Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin from 1981 to 1986. His research interests include demography and human ecology, with special attention to the populations of China, Taiwan, and Korea. In his more than four decades as a professor, he served as the Chair of over 60 doctoral student committees, including over 40 at Texas A&M University. In his career as a professor he taught demography, statistics and sociology classes to over 4,500 undergraduate and graduate students.

Dr. Poston was a founding member of the Southern Demographic Association (SDA) and served  as SDA President during 1975-1977. He served as President (2004-2005) of the Southwestern Social Science Association. He served (1995-1998) as the President of Research Committee 41 (Sociology of Population) of the International Sociological Association. He served (1995-1997) as President of the North American Chinese Sociologists Association. He served as President of the Southwestern Sociological Association in 1983-1984. He has been elected to membership in Alpha Kappa Delta (1964), Gamma Sigma Delta (1991), Phi Beta Delta (1993), Phi Kappa Phi (1999), and the Sociological Research Association (1984).

Dr. Poston has co-authored/edited seventeen books. His most recent books are Handbook of Population (co-edited with Micklin, 2005), Fertility, Family Planning, and Population Policy in China (co-edited with Chang, McKibben and Walther, 2006), Healthy Longevity in China (co-edited with Zeng and others, 2008), Same-Sex Partners: The Social Demography of Sexual Orientation (with Baumle and Compton, 2009), Gender Policy and HIV in China (co-edited with Tucker and others, 2009), and The Family and Social Change in Chinese Societies (co-edited with Yang and Farris, 2014). With Leon F. Bouvier he wrote Population and Society: An Introduction to Demography (2010) for which he is now writing a 2nd edition. He has also published over 310 refereed journal articles, chapters and reports on various sociological and demographic topics.

He has been the principal/co-principal investigator of research grants awarded by the National Science Foundation (1976-78; 1979-80), the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (1979-80; 1981-82; 1981-84; 1982-84; 1986-88; 1989-93), the Office of Adolescent Pregnancy (1983-87); the Social Science Research Council (1987-88), the Ford Foundation (1989-90), the Rockefeller Foundation (1989-91), the New York Lung Association (1990-92), and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (2009-2012).

Dr. Poston was born in San Francisco, California on November 29, 1940. He attended a Catholic seminary in his first few years of high school, and then transferred to St. Ignatius High School (in San Francisco) from where he graduated in 1958. He graduated from the University of San Francisco in 1963 with a B.A. degree in Sociology, from San Francisco State College in 1967 with an M.A. degree in Sociology, and from the University of Oregon (in Eugene, Oregon) in 1968 with a Ph.D. degree in Sociology and Demography. He served on active duty in the U.S. Army as a First Lieutenant and as a Captain from 1968 to 1970, including a tour of nearly one full year in 1969-1970 in South Vietnam. Among his military honors and awards are the Bronze Star Medal, and the Army Commendation Medal (with one Oak Leaf cluster), both awarded to him in 1970 for his military service in Vietnam.

Dr. Poston married Patricia Mary Joyce Poston (also a native San Franciscan) in San Francisco, California in 1963. They have two children, Nancy Kathleen Poston Espey of San Antonio (born in San Francisco in 1964), and Dudley L. Poston III of London, England (born in San Francisco in 1966). Their family also includes their son-in-law Richard W. Espey (born in Texas in 1962), and three grandchildren, David L. Espey (born in Texas in 1991), Kara Margaret Espey (born in Texas in 1994), and Daniel Lee Espey (born in South Korea in 2001).