PAA Honored Members

Joseph E. Potter

2017 Honored Member

Joseph E. Potter was a professor of sociology and faculty research associate at the Population Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin. He held a BA in Economics from Yale University (1968), an MPA in Economics and Public Affairs from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University (1973) and a PhD in Economics from Princeton University (1975).

Much of Joe’s research over the last three decades addressed fertility and contraceptive practice in Mexico and Brazil—two countries that have experienced dramatic demographic transitions during the last four decades. More recently, Joe’s geographic focus expanded to include the U.S.

Joe had a distinguished record of applying demographic knowledge to policy issues in these contexts. He has designed and led several important and innovative studies that have had a significant impact on debates concerning access to family planning and abortion and the impact of policies on women’s reproductive health.

In 2011, Joe founded the pioneering Texas Policy Evaluation Project (TxPEP), a  comprehensive effort to document and analyze the impact of Texas state legislative measures that severely restricted on abortion access and family planning funding and access in Texas. The project has been exceptional in its contribution to policy and program deliberation, both at the state level and nationally. TxPEP research was central in the June 2016 Supreme Court ruling issued in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt that struck down abortion restrictions in Texas’ House Bill 2 (HB 2). The Court found that lower courts must weigh any potential benefits from a law with the burdens the law would impose on women, demonstrating the importance of scientific evidence of burdens. Few university-based demographers have matched Joe’s engagement during the 2010s with the public policy process. Joe led the project until 2020; he was an exemplar of a scholar who has participated in policy debates without any compromise of scientific standards.  

TxPEP research also played a prominent role in both national and state level debates regarding the consequences of excluding Planned Parenthood from federal and state subsidized family planning programs. It also has been widely used by reproductive health advocates in the state and nationally in their efforts to restore funding for family planning, and to generate public opposition to targeted regulation of abortion provider laws similar to those passed in Texas. Several of TxPEP’s reports and recommendations have been instrumental in the adoption of specific policies by legislators and state officials.

Finally, Joe’s attention to women’s contraceptive preferences, rather than simply their contraceptive use, has led to research findings demonstrating the substantial barriers women face as they seek their preferred methods of contraception.

Before TxPEP, Joe led a project which forms the basis for current efforts to allow the sale of oral contraceptive pills over the counter in the US. From 2006 to 2011, Joe was principal investigator of the NICHD-supported Border Contraceptive Access Project (R01HD047816), a longitudinal study which addressed the “natural experiment” that exists in El Paso, Texas where women may access the oral contraceptive pill either in pharmacies in Mexico without a doctor’s prescription, or through family planning clinics in El Paso. On November 20, 2012, The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists issued a committee opinion recommending that oral contraceptives should be sold over the counter in drugstores without a doctor’s prescription. This opinion drew heavily on the findings from the Border Contraceptive Access Study, and cited nearly all of the published results related to screening for contraindications, perceptions of safety, use of preventive services, and contraceptive continuation.

His past work in Brazil includes two large NICHD-funded studies about that country’s fertility transition and another about high rates of cesarean section and female sterilization. A current project explores the demography of Brazil’s indigenous population.

Joe taught at UT-Austin from 1989, teaching courses on demographic methods and the evaluation of social policies, retiring in 2022, though he continued to mentor students, attend conferences, and write academic papers in his retirement. Before joining the faculty at UT, he held positions at the Harvard School of Public Health (1983-89), the Population Council (1976, 1979-1983), El Colegio de México (1976-1983), Princeton University (1975-1976), and the U.S. Agency for International Development (1970-71).

Outside the office, Joe had many interests, including fly-fishing, traveling, cycling, and golf, spending time at his cabin in Montana, playing board games with his three grandchildren and attending their many performances and sporting events. He was a fun-loving friend with a social network that extended across Latin America and the United States and will be sorely missed.

List of Donors

Abigail Aiken Elizabeth Frankenberg Eduardo Rios-Neto
Ernesto F. L. Amaral Jennifer Glass Nestor Rodriguez
Jacqueline & Ronald Angel Myron Gutmann Richard Rogers
Christine Bachrach Erin Hamilton Tricia Ryan
Candeloro Francesco Billari Mark Hayward Carl Schmertmann
Jason D. Boardman C. Emily Hendrick Paul Schultz
Steve Boren Sabine Henning Harel Shapira
Kathleen Broussard Kristine Hopkins Patricio Soli­s
Susan L. Brown CHL Chandler Stolp
John Casterline Robert A. Hummer Steve Trejo
Suzana Cavenaghi Julie Maslowsky Jenny Trinitapoli
Diane Coffey Ryan Masters Debra Umberson
Kate Coleman-Minahan Paula Miranda-Ribeiro Alex Weinreb
Robert Crosnoe & Shannon Cavanagh Ann M. Moore Kari White
Claudio Dias Santiago S. Philip Morgan Robert Wilson
Cecilia Dean Marc & Mary Rose Musick Hyeyoung Woo
Barbara Entwisle Luciano Nakabashi Sara Yeatman
Reanne Frank Kelly Raley