Mr. Thomas Buettner, Assistant Director and Chief of the Population Studies Branch of the Population Division, retired at the end of October 2011. He joined the Population Division in 1992 and worked mostly in the area of population estimates and projections. Mr. Buettner made major contributions to the work of the division. He improved the methods to project mortality and fertility and oversaw the development of major software packages to produce the population estimates and projections, some of which are still the “state-of-the-art” in the field. The module to estimate and project the population impact of HIV/AIDS is one example.

As Assistant Director, Mr. Buettner provided leadership in making major changes in the methodology used to project populations and supported the intergovernmental work of the Division with skill and tact. Mr. Buettner is returning to his home city of Berlin where he hopes to continue contributing to the field of population. 

The following staff members also retired in October:

Indrakanthi Jayawickrema, Staff Assistant, Division for Sustainable Development

Hanna Negatu, Technical Co-operation Assistant, Division for Public Administration and Development Management

Comings 

The following staff members were promoted in October:

Youlia Antonova, Chief of Section, Statistics Division

Maria Corazon De La Rosa,  Administrative Assistant, Capacity Development Office

Astrid Hurley, Social Affairs Officer, Division for Social Policy and Development

Jana Grace Ricasio, Senior Programme Officer, Capacity Development Office

Shouchun Zheng, Statistics Assistant, Statistics Division