My name is Jonathan Latner.  I am a social scientist with a PhD in Sociology and a M.A. in Regional Economic and Social Development.  At the broadest level, my research focuses on the relationship between changes in economic growth and job quality, examining their underlying causes, resulting impacts, and potential solutions for their effects on labor market outcomes over time.  I am a United States citizen, but I am a permanent resident of Germany, where I have lived since 2014.

Currently, I am a research associate in the Center for Empirical Methods (KEM) at the Institute for Employment Research (IAB) in Nürnberg, Germany.  My work is part of the AnigeD (Anonymity with integrated and georeferenced data) research cluster, a collaborative research project funded by Gemany's Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) framework on IT security ("Digital. Sicher. Souverän.") and the European Union – NextGenerationEU.  For more information, click here.  Under the direction of Prof. Dr. Jörg Drechsler (PI), our subproject analyzes statistical tools (parametric, machine learning, and deep learning) for generating synthetic data  that minimize the trade-off between data privacy and data utility in order to provide broader access to sensitive data.

Previously, I was a postdoctoral research associate in the SECCOPA project, a European Research Commission (ERC) funded project, directed by Prof. Dr. Michael Gebel (PI), the chair for Methods of Empirical Social Research at Bamberg Universität.  The project examined the social and economic consequences of temporary employment using panel data.  For more information, click here.

Before that, I was a postdoctoral fellow at Bremen International Graduate School of Social Science (BIGSSS) and a DAAD doctoral fellow at Goethe Universität, within the team of Prof. Dr. Markus Gangl.

I received my PhD in Sociology from the University of Wisconsin - Madison, with concentrations in Social Stratification and Urban Sociology.  I also have a MA degree in Regional Economic and Social Development from the University of Massachusetts - Lowell and a BA degree in Sociology and Politics from Brandeis University.

Prior to graduate school, I spent nearly a decade implementing, researching, and evaluating job training programs in Massachusetts. I was a research and evaluation analyst at the Commonwealth Corporation, a quasi-public agency operating underneath the Massachusetts Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development (MA EOLWD). I wrote profiles of statewide industry sectors and presented regional labor market data to workforce development professionals.  The experience provided me a greater understanding of the needs of low-skill adults, employers of high-skill occupations, and organizations that bring these two groups together. 

Before that, I was a researcher at Mt. Auburn Associates, a private economic development consulting firm. I collected and analyzed quantitative data in order to provide a foundation for the qualitative synopsis of regional economies as well as conducted interviews and site visits to evaluate various strategies for economic development. Among other projects, I was a contributing author on the report, Louisiana: Where Culture Means Business, documenting the depth and breadth of Louisiana's cultural economy, and provided the baseline labor market research for Nashua, New Hampshire's Current Economic Development Strategy.

I began my professional career helping to oversee a workforce-training grant at the Metro South/West Regional Employment Board, a regional governing agency, which built a coalition of community-based organizations, vocational training providers, and hospitals to provide unemployed and underemployed individuals access to jobs in the healthcare industry through skill development. As part of that grant, I wrote, Pathways to Success, a manual documenting the numerous careers within the healthcare sector, detailing the necessary training, and cataloging the available training resources.