Clinical Professor of Global Public Health, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Geography, Director of the International Population Center
John R. Weeks is Distinguished Professor of Geography and Director of the International Population Center at San Diego State University, Clinical Professor of Global Public Health at the University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine, and a Senior Fellow of the California Council on Science and Technology. He holds a doctorate in Demography from the University of California, Berkeley. His textbook, Population: An Introduction to Concepts and Issues (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Publishing, 2011) is now in its 11th edition and has been the best-selling text in the field since it first came out in 1978. He has also published more than 130 papers and chapters in peer-reviewed journals and books. He is on the editorial boards of the Annals of the Association of American Geography, GeoJournal, and the Journal of Minority Health, and is the Historian of the Population Association of America. Weeks is a Clinical Professor of Global Public Health in the School of Medicine at the University of California, San Diego, and a Research Fellow of the Broom Center for Demography at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He was awarded a “Lifetime Achievement Award” by the Population Specialty Group of the American Association of Geographers.
During a 40-year academic career, John R. Weeks, Ph.D., Distinguished Professor of Geography, has achieved a notable record in teaching, research and service. He literally wrote the book on demography, authoring the leading college-level text on the subject. A respected professor and graduate mentor, Weeks is also a prolific author, with more than 135 articles and book chapters, and nearly 40 research reports to his credit. The importance of his scholarship is reflected in the stature of agencies funding his research. They include the U.S. Office of Maternal and Child Health, the U.S. Administration on Aging, the Andrew Mellon Foundation and the National Science Foundation, and the National Institutes of Health. Weeks also serves as director of SDSU’s International Population Center, which studies issues ranging from a census of Muslims in the U.S. to reproductive health among immigrants. His current research focuses on spatial inequalities in health in sub-Saharan Africa.
He has three times been the recipient of the “Most Influential Professor” award at SDSU and twice the recipient of the Meritorious Professional Performance and Promise Award (1985, 1990). In 2011 he was the recipient of the Albert W. Johnson Research Award and Distinguished Professorship. He is a regular consultant as a demographic and statistical expert in trials throughout southern California and appears frequently in the media as an expert on demographics and immigration. In addition to many professional memberships, including the Population Association of American, International Union for the Scientific Study of Population (IUSSP) and the Association of American Geographers (AAG), he has served on committees for the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the National Research Council. He was appointed a CCST Fellow in 2008.