About us

AYHD is run day-to-day by an executive board. We are always looking for new members!

President: Joris Kok (Radboud University)

Joris Kok is an economic historian and historical demographer with MSc degrees in Economics from the Erasmus University Rotterdam and in Economic History from Lund University. In his PhD research, Joris examined the social mobility and integration of Jews in nineteenth and early-twentieth-century Amsterdam in the life domains of work, marriage, residence, and education. Joris was also involved in the project ‘Female Empowerment and Economic Growth: The Case of Sweden, 1749-2016’ in which he studied the relationship between gender equality, economic growth, and demographic change. As a postdoctoral researcher at Radboud University, he explored the determinants of the historical decline in infectious disease mortality in Amsterdam. Currently, Joris works as Lecturer at the department of Economic, Social and Demographic History at Radboud University.

Vice President: Emma Diduch (University of Cambridge)

Emma Diduch holds a BA in History from the College of William & Mary and a MSc in Economic and Social History from the University of Oxford. In 2021-2, she was an adjunct lecturer for Social Science Statistics at Mary Baldwin University. In 2022 she started a PhD at Cambridge focusing on the role of women’s labour force participation and textile employment in the fertility transition using a linked dataset of censuses, civil registration records, and factory archival sources from Derbyshire, England, 1881-1911.

Board member: Hampton Gaddy (London School of Economics)

Hampton Gaddy is a PhD student in demography and economic history at the London School of Economics. He holds a BA in Human Sciences and a MPhil in Sociology and Demography from the University of Oxford. His work focuses on estimating the mortality and fertility consequences of social and demographic crises. His PhD work focuses specifically on re-estimating the death toll of the 1918 influenza pandemic across the United States, using new methods and data sources.

Board member: Brayden Rothe (University of Minnesota)

Brayden Rothe is a social and demographic historian and social scientist of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, with emphasis on the Transregional United States and North America. He is currently a PhD student at the University of Minnesota and the Institute for Social Research and Data Innovation receiving advanced training in population studies and demography. His work currently revolves around estimating the rapidly changing social and industrial landscape in America’s impact on fertility between 1850 and 1950.

Board member: Serena Vigezzi (University of Southern Denmark)

Serena Vigezzi is postdoc in demography, currently affiliated with CPop at University of Southern Denmark and SUDA at Stockholm University. After completing a Master’s in Sociology, she attended the EDSD (cohort 2019/2020). She then obtained a PhD at the University of Southern Denmark, completing a thesis on mortality inequalities, with a focus on living arrangements and mortality crises. She went on to work on the relationship between mortality and fertility. She is currently working on a project studying the long-term demographic effects of mortality crises in Nordic countries.

Previous board members

  • Mads Villefrance Perner, PR-Officer Website (2022-2025)
  • Mathias Mølbak Ingholt, Secretary (2022-2025)
  • Louise Ludvigsen, President (2022-2024)
  • Elisabeth Mjaaland, Vice President (2022-2023)
  • Tim Riswick, President (2016-2022)
  • Evelien Walhout, Secretary (2018-2022)
  • Michal Raftakis, PR-Officer Website (2018-2022)
  • Sarah Rafferty, PR-Officer Social Media (2019-2022)
  • Ryohei Mogi, Vice-President (2019-2021)
  • Jeanne Cilliers, PR-Officer Newsletter (2016-2020)
  • Stephanie Thiehoff-Klages, PR-Officer Social Media (2016-2018)
  • Benjamin Matuzak, Vice-President (2016-2018)
  • Edward Morgan, PR-Officer Website (2016-2018)
  • Christa Matthys, Secretary (2016-2018)