About Us

The Population and Development Program (Pop/Dev) is dedicated to promoting reproductive rights, economic justice, and social equality for women through education, research, and analysis in women’s health, the environment, and population policy.

Founded in 1986, Pop/Dev brings a global perspective to the study and investigation of population and environmental issues and challenges traditional views of over-population and immigration as primary causes of environmental degradation, political instability, and poverty. Pop/Dev also serves as a documentation and monitoring resource for educators, students, journalists, activists, opinion leaders, and policy makers in the U.S. and abroad.

STAFF

Betsy Hartmann is the Director of the Population and Development Program and Associate Professor of Development Studies at Hampshire College. A longstanding activist in the international women’s health movement, she writes and speaks frequently on the intersection of reproductive rights, population, environment, and security issues. Her books include Reproductive Rights and wrongs, the co-edited anthology Making Threats: Biofears and environmental Anxieties, and the recent political thriller Deadly election. For more on Betsy, visit her website.

Elizabeth Barajas-Roman is the Associate Director of the Population and Development Program. She has been a full-time journalist since 2005 and has worked for the Daily Hampshire Gazette, the New York Times Company through the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, and as a freelancer for several national and regional magazines. Her beat focused on social justice in health, education and politics.

Unique Robinson is the Population and Development Program student worker. She's a 4th year wryter and excyter from Baltimore, MD. She realized she was fully dedicated to reproductive justice in Summer 08, with an internship in Atlanta with SisterSong. Her senior project, "Nobody do that where we grew at: women of color voices seein' thru the soil" will put the lives of queer women of color onstage through theater, poetry, and interviews.