Qian Cai is director of the Demographics & Workforce Group at the University of Virginia’s Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service. Her research focuses on population estimates methodology and migration, and she has published in both areas. She is the 2005 winner of the E. Walter Terrie Award for her scholarly contribution to state and local demography. In 2007, Qian was appointed by Governor Kaine to represent Virginia in the Census Bureau’s Local Update of Census Addresses program for the 2010 Census. She was also awarded a federal contract to help the Census Bureau refine its estimates methodology and further improve the census estimates. Qian served on the Steering Committee of the Census Bureau’s Federal-State Cooperative Program for Population Estimates 2006-08, and currently is a member of the Committee on Applied Demography of the Population Association of America.

Prior to coming to Virginia, Qian was an associate professor at the Portland State University’s Population Research Center, directing population estimates and research for the state of Oregon. A native of China, Qian received a bachelor’s degree in economics in 1991 and a master’s degree in demography in 1994, both from Peking University. She received a Ph.D. in sociology from Brown University in 2000.