ICPSR appoints two new senior staffers

George Alter has been appointed associate director of the Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), the world's largest social science data archive and a unit of the Institute for Social Research (ISR).

Alter's appointment, effective this month, was announced by ICPSR Director Myron Gutmann, who also said Michigan State University political scientist William Jacoby has been named director of the ICPSR Summer Program in Quantitative Methods of Social Research. The program attracts more than 800 students every year from colleges, universities and other organizations around the world.

"These appointments are pivotal as ICPSR evolves to archive new types of digital content, manage them efficiently and develop innovative ways to disseminate the holdings," says Gutmann, who also is a professor of history.

As associate director of ICPSR, Alter will oversee the organization's collection development unit, which coordinates archival activities. He will contribute senior leadership and be involved in securing new grants and contracts, while continuing his own research on the demographic and economic history of 19th- and 20th-century Europe.

Alter's research interests include historical demography, family history, economic history and modern Europe. He is principal investigator on the cross-national Early Life Conditions research project, funded by the National Institute on Aging, and designed to determine how childhood experiences affect health and mortality in old age.

Jacoby, professor of political science at Michigan State University, will serve as director of the ICPSR Summer Program. He will provide overall guidance and leadership to the program's faculty and staff, with primary tasks involving faculty recruitment and retention, curriculum design, student counseling, budget and fundraising, and high-level management of the Summer Program staff.

In addition, Jacoby has long-established ties to ICPSR and the Summer Program, having taught in the program since the mid-1980s, and serves on the Summer Program Advisory Committee. "He brings those experiences as well as a reservoir of innovative ideas that we'll see play out in our dynamic Summer Program in the coming years," Gutmann says.

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