June 2005

Council Veteran Named President

Photo credit: Karen Tweedy-Holmes

Peter J. Donaldson, Ph.D., was appointed the eighth president of the Population Council at the January meeting of its board of trustees. Donaldson, age 60, became acting president when Linda Martin stepped down in July 2004. He had been serving as vice president and director of the International Programs Division, the Council’s largest division, since May 2003.

“Peter has a passion for our mission and has spent his entire professional life advancing it,” says John Bongaarts, vice president of the Council’s Policy Research Division, who served on the search committee. “He has extensive knowledge about the issues and challenges we face, and recognizes the need to adapt to changes in our field. Peter is a proven leader, and he values the Council’s integrity and legacy.”

Donaldson earned his Ph.D. in sociology from Brown University and holds master’s and bachelor’s degrees from Fordham University. His first postdoctoral employment, in 1973, was as a Council staff associate in Bangkok, Thailand, where he evaluated program interventions and developed a management information system for the Ministry of Public Health. Two years later he relocated to Seoul, Korea, managing a Council grant program, conducting research, and writing policy briefs on population and development issues.

He returned to the United States in 1977 to become director of a research program on maternal and child health for Family Health International (FHI) in North Carolina. Subsequently, he established and directed a development and government relations program for FHI. In 1985, the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences offered Donaldson the directorship of the Committee on Population in its Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education. In that position he led an influential policy research program, wrote reports on population and health policy, and published a well-received book on U.S. international population policy. (He is the author, co-author, or editor of five other books and numerous scientific and popular articles on population, development, Asian affairs, and other issues.)

After four years in Washington, Donaldson rejoined the Council and returned to Bangkok, as regional director for South and East Asia, where he managed the region’s six offices and developed strong collaborative relationships with Asian governments and civil society groups. Returning to Washington in 1994, he served as president of the Population Reference Bureau, America’s oldest private sector population organization and a leader in communicating to policymakers, educators, and the public about U.S. and international population issues.

The Council’s new president has spent the last few months meeting representatives of other population, health, and development organizations, federal agencies, and foundations supporting the Council. He has also begun an organization-wide strategic planning process, to delineate priorities in keeping with the Council’s mission and to allocate resources over the next three to five years.

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