György Pál Demény, who died on October 18, 2024, was an economist and demographer, an external member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, a professor awarded with the Hungarian Order of St. Stephen since 2018, and a member of our foundation.

György Pál Demény graduated from the reformed high school in Debrecen, then obtained a university degree in economics. From 1955, he was an employee of the population statistics department of the Central Statistical Office (KSH). In 1957, he emigrated to Switzerland, from where he moved to the United States. He received his doctorate in economics from Princeton University, specializing in population studies and demography. Educated at Princeton University, he later became a professor at the University of Hawaii and the founding director of the East-West Population Research Institute in Honolulu.

In 1972, he was the vice-president of the Population Council in New York, and then he was also awarded the position of director of the newly established demographic research institute, the Center for Policy Studies. In 1986, he was elected the first non-North American president of the Population Association of America. After fifteen years, he stepped down from his position as head of the institution, but he continued to work for the company as a senior employee and as editor-in-chief of the professional journal he founded in 1975, the Population and Development Review. He retired in 2012, and soon after that he moved to Budapest with his wife.

In recognition of his work, in 2017 Professor Demény received the Central Cross of the Hungarian Order of Merit with a Star, and in 2018 he was awarded the Hungarian Order of St. Stephen.