Theodore P. Gerber

Candidate for Vice President / President Elect

Theodore P. Gerber is the Director of the Center for Russia, East Europe, and Central Asia and Professor of Sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He received a B.A. (with High Honors) in Comparative Literature and Social Science from the University of Michigan (1987), and an M.A (1991) and Ph.D. (1995) in Sociology from the University of California, Berkeley. Prior to Wisconsin, he was an Assistant Professor at the University of Oregon from 1995-1999 and Assistant Professor and Associate Professor at the University of Arizona from 1999-2003. 

Gerber served on the Davis Center Book Prize selection committee in 2008 and 2009.  He recently completed a major evaluation of the state of Russian studies at American universities for ASEEES, the results of which will be released in summer 2015.  He has also served on the Selection Committee of the Social Science Research Council Eurasia Program, January 2006-2010, the Board of Directors of the National Council for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Research since 2010, and the Faculty Advisory Board for the Department of Political Science and Sociology at European University of St. Petersburg, since 2012.

Gerber’s research examines social inequality, economic change, public opinion, migration, and family processes in contemporary Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, and other former Soviet countries.  He has authored or co-authored 45 articles on these topics that have appeared in peer-reviewed journals, including six in the top two sociology journals (American Sociological Review and American Journal of Sociology), four in a highly regarded generalist journal (Social Forces), and many pieces in the foremost specialty-area venues within his field such as Demography, Population and Development Review, Sociology of Education, Research in Social Stratification and Mobility, and Law and Society Review. Moreover, his work has extended beyond the discipline of sociology: he has published in prominent Political Science journals (Foreign Affairs, International Security, Political Science Quarterly, and the Washington Quarterly), the top journal in the History of Science (Social Studies of Science), high quality inter-disciplinary publications (e.g. International Migration Review and Social Science Research), and journals specializing in the former Soviet Union (Post Soviet Affairs, Europe-Asia Studies, Problems of Post-Communism). He has also published numerous book chapters, op-eds, policy memos, evaluation reports, and magazine articles.  His publications have received 692 citations in the Social Science Citation Index, 2030 in Google Scholar, and he has a Google Scholar “h-index” score of 23.  

Gerber has received over $4 million in competitively award grant money from the NSF, the Minerva Initiative, and other US government sources to support his research.  He has conducted over 30 original surveys in Russia, Ukraine, Estonia other former Soviet countries, Iraq, the Philippines, and the United States. He received a Kellet Mid-Career Award, a Marrett Letters and Science Faculty Fellowship, Vilas Associate Award, and an Honored Instructor Award from the University of Wisconsin. He is invited member of the Sociological Research Association (an honorary society that inducts approximately five new members a year) and the Program on New Approaches to Research and Security in Eurasia.  He has served on the editorial boards of the American Sociological Review (two terms), the American Journal of Sociology, Post-Soviet Affairs, Research in Stratification and Social Mobility, and Sociological Research.  He has been invited on more than 30 occasions to brief officials in the US State Department, Congress, USAID, and the Department of Energy, as well as officials in the governments of Estonia, France, and Sweden.