SPS academic honoured with prestigious British Society for Population Studies award
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School of Social and Political (SPS) academic Dr Laura Sochas has received the British Society for Population Studies (BSPS) Early Career Award for her quantitative and feminist approach to research on health inequalities.
BSPS’ Early Career Award aims to highlight the achievements of academics towards the start of their careers, who have the potential to make a significant contribution to population studies.
The 2023 winner, Dr Sochas, is an interdisciplinary researcher working at the intersections of social policy, public health, sociology, and demography. Her work broadly focuses on how power, institutions, and social policies shape health inequalities, at the intersection of multiple disciplines. Her most recent project analyses how social policies in Europe shape reproductive injustice, and how this has knock-on effects on parents’ health and inequalities between groups.
The BSPS said: ‘In an outstanding field, the judges were impressed by the innovation and cross-disciplinarity of Laura's research agenda, and particularly the way that her work brings together quantitative and critical/feminist approaches. They felt that this has the potential both to disrupt the discipline of demography in a constructive way, and also to improve dialogue between demography and other disciplines.’
Laura said: “I’m so honoured to receive the award and really thrilled that the Society for Population Studies is rewarding critical approaches to demography.”
Earlier this year, Dr Sochas was the recipient of a Chancellor’s Fellowship at SPS, a five-year tenure track that invests in researchers delivering cutting-edge interdisciplinary research and innovation. She will begin working within the Social Policy subject area in SPS in September.
BSPS, based at the London School of Economics, is a non-profitable society for those with a scientific interest in the study of human populations. Its main objectives are to further the scientific study of biological, economic, historical, medical, social and other disciplines connected with human populations and to contribute to the public awareness of them