In memoriam: Jennifer Buher Kane (1979–2019)

At the time we were wrapping up this special issue, we received the sad news that one of the contributing authors, Jennifer (Jenn) Buher Kane, aged 40, died on August 14, 2019.

Jenn earned her Ph.D. in Sociology and Demography from the Pennsylvania State University in 2011. On graduation, she went on to a postdoctoral fellowship, spending four years at the Carolina Population Center at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. In 2015, Jenn was appointed as an assistant professor of Sociology at the University of California, Irvine, where she was a faculty affiliate in the Center for Demographic and Social Analysis and held a courtesy appointment in the Program in Public Health. She was promoted to associate professor in 2019.

Jenn was a prolific¹ scholar with research focusing on questions at the intersection of health, family, and social inequality, in particular on maternal life course origins and infant health. She published frequently in the leading journals of sociology, demography, and public health and in her short career secured over $1 million in grant funding. In 2018, in recognition of her grant successes, distinguished publication record, and the influence of her work as an early career scientist, Jenn was named a Kavli Fellow by the United States National Academy of Sciences. Jenn was also generous with her time and dedicated to teaching and mentoring students, particularly those in the Demographic and Social Analysis master’s program at the University of California, Irvine.

Jenn is survived by her husband John and their three young boys, Liam, Brendan, and Declan.

In her article in Mathematical Population Studies, co-authored with Ehsan Farshchi, Jenn investigates how neighborhood affluence is associated antenatal smoking using spatial multiple membership models.

Notes

¹ Color versions of one or more of the figures in the article can be found online at www.tandfonline.com/gmps.