February 09, 2022 | News | Congratulations

Nicholas Campisi Obtained His Doctorate

© MPIDR

Nicholas Campisi successfully defended his thesis at St Andrews on Monday. The thesis was accepted without corrections, which is unusual.

The primary supervisor of the thesis, Hill Kulu, writes: “The PhD study uses techniques of spatial analysis to investigate factors shaping childbearing trends and patterns in Europe. The examiners, Elizabeth Thomson (Stockholm University) and Katherine Keenan (St Andrews), emphasized the high quality of spatial data used in the study and that theory very much guided data collection and research. The methods were innovative and the study improved our understanding of how socio-cultural and economic factors shape individuals’ childbearing decisions and behaviour. The examiners also highlighted the importance of the study for future research – it showed that central cities and related factors (e.g. housing costs) are critical to understand fertility patterns and trends in high-income countries.“

Nicholas Campisi was part of the International Max Planck Research School for Population, Health and Data Science and is the first PhD student to graduate from this new program.

Nicholas was also the first to receive a St-Andrews-Max Planck PhD Scholarship in 2018 and has conducted his PhD study both at the University of St Andrews and the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research.

His supervising team included Hill Kulu, Júlia Mikolai (St Andrews), Sebastian Klüsener (MPIDR, BiB) and Mikko Myrskylä (MPIDR).

The Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR) in Rostock is one of the leading demographic research centers in the world. It's part of the Max Planck Society, the internationally renowned German research society.