C. Katharina Spieß is the director of the Federal Institute for Population Research (BiB) since October 2021. She is a professor for population economics at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. Before she was the head of the department for education and family at the DIW Berlin and a professor for the economics of family and education at the Freie Universität Berlin. She studied economics and political science at the University of Mannheim, received her doctoral degree from the Ruhr-Universität Bochum and her post-doctoral “habilitation degree” from the Technical University of Berlin. During 1997 to 2000 she worked at the Prognos AG, Basle and Berlin. Since March 2000 she is at the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin). Here she was a member of German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP) for 14 years.

As a guest researcher or guest professor she spent several months at other research institutes, like the Max-Planck-Institute for Human Development, the NIDI (Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute), the Free University Amsterdam, the Syracuse University, the Cornell University and the University of Washington (USA). She is a member of several advisory boards and expert groups, such as the scientific advisory board to the federal ministry for family affairs (BMFSFJ) and the scientific advisory board for the joint agreement between the federal level and the states to assess the performance of the German education system. Her main research interests are in the field of family and education economics.

C. Katharina Spieß joined IZA as a Research Fellow in August 2021.