Karl Ulrich Mayer
Visiting Professor of Social Science and Public Policy
Affiliation: Visiting
Education: PhD University of Constance
Research Areas: Life chances; Education; Training; Labor markets
Karl Ulrich Mayer is a sociologist, Director Emeritus of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin and Stanley B. Resor Emeritus Professor of Sociology at Yale University. He is Chair of the Board of Trustees of the University of Mannheim and Honorary Senator of the University of Tübingen. From 2010 to 2014 he served as the President of the Leibniz-Association, an umbrella organization for 90 German non-university research institutes covering all fields from microorganisms to galaxies — roughly similar to the Smithsonian in the U.S. From 1979 to 2010 he was the P.I. of the German Life History Study and from 1988 to 2005 the Co-P.I.of the Berlin Aging Study. Currently, he serves as the Chair of the Scientific Advisory Boards of the German National Educational Panel and the German Federal Report on Career Opportunities of Young Academics.
His research interests focus on social stratification and mobility, life course and aging, the sociology of science, as well as quantitative methods of social research. He is currently working on articles about life courses and social inequality, social history with microdata, and historical changes in working lives.