Deborah Balk, former lead project scientist for NASA's Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) and former scientist at Columbia University's Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), has assumed the directorship of the Institute for Demographic Research (IDR) at the City University of New York (CUNY). She had served as IDR's associate director since 2006. Balk is also professor of public affairs at the Austin W. Marxe School of Public and International Affairs at Baruch College. She serves on several noteworthy committees, including the National Research Council (NRC) Committee on Population, the U.S. Census Bureau’s Scientific Advisory Committee, and the New York City Panel on Climate Change, for which she is a co-chair. She was an Andrew Carnegie Fellow 2016–2018.
Balk's research focus is urbanization in the developing world, using a spatial framework to explore the demographic implications of climate-change issues. She is currently working with Kytt MacManus, senior systems analyst/GIS developer at CIESIN, and with Gordon McGranahan of the Institute of Development Studies in the United Kingdom, on updates to the low-elevation coastal zone estimates developed in a 2007 study "The rising tide: assessing the risks of climate change and human settlements in low elevation coastal zones." She was lead project scientist for SEDAC, operated by CIESIN, from 1998 to 2006, spearheading the development of many widely-used population-related data products and services. She later served as a member of SEDAC's User Working Group from 2015–2018.