Research

A list of papers is also on Google Scholar.

Peer-reviewed publications

Badolato, L., Decter-Frain, A., Irons, N.J., Miranda, M.L., Walk, E., Zhalieva, E., Alexander, M., Basellini, U. and Zagheni, E., 2026. The Limits of Predicting Individual-Level Longevity: Insights From the US Health and Retirement Study. Demography, doi: 10.1215/00703370-12464628.
Potter, A. L., Schlüter, B. S., Alexander, M., Yang, C. F. J., & Kiang, M. V. ‘Youths Experiencing Parental Death Due to Cancer.’ JAMA Network Open, 8(7), 2025. doi: e2519106-e2519106.
Cresswell, J.A., Alexander, M., Chong, M.Y., Link, H.M., Pejchinovska, M., Gazeley, U., et al., ‘Global and regional causes of maternal deaths 2009–20: a WHO systematic analysis.’ The Lancet Global Health, 2025. doi: 10.1016/S2214-109X(24)00560-6
Dharamshi, A., Alexander, M., Winant, C. and Barbieri, M. ‘Jointly Estimating Subnational Mortality for Multiple Populations’. Demographic Research, 2025. doi: 10.4054/DemRes.2025.52.3.
Chong, M. Y., Pejchinovska, M., & Alexander, M. ‘Estimating causes of maternal death in data‐sparse contexts’. Statistics in Medicine., 2024. doi: https://doi.org/10.1002/sim.10199
Alexander, M. and Raftery, A.E., ‘Developing and implementing the UN’s probabilistic population projections as a milestone for Bayesian demography: An interview with Adrian Raftery.’ Demographic Research, 2024. 51, pp.1-16.
Kiang M.V., Alexander M.J.. ‘Invited commentary: Motivating better methods — and better data collection — for measuring prevalence of drug misuse’, American Journal of Epidemiology. 2024. doi: 10.1093/aje/kwae156.
Schlüter, B. S., Alburez-Gutierrez, D., Bibbins-Domingo, K., Alexander, M. J., and Kiang, M. V. ‘Youth experiencing parental death due to drug poisoning and firearm violence in the US, 1999-2020’. JAMA, 2024.
Chong, M.Y.C., and Alexander, M.. ‘Estimating the timing of stillbirths in countries worldwide using a Bayesian hierarchical penalized splines regression model’. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series C, 2024. qlae017.
Katz, L., Chong, M., and Alexander, M.. ‘Measuring short-term mobility patterns in North America using Facebook Advertising data, with an application to adjusting Covid-19 mortality rates’. Demographic Research, 2024: 50(10), 291-394.
Yeung, J., Alexander, M., and Riffe, T. ‘Bayesian implementation of Rogers-Castro model migration schedules: An alternative technique for parameter estimation’. Demographic Research, 2023: 49(42), 1201-1228.
Alexander, M., and Alkema, L., ‘A Bayesian cohort component projection model to estimate adult populations at the subnational level in data-sparse settings’, Demography, 2022: 59(5), 1713-1737.
Maheu-Giroux, M., Sardinha, L., Stockl, H., Meyer, S., Godin, A., Alexander, M., and Garcia-Moreno, C. ‘A framework to model global, regional, and national estimates of intimate partner violence’, BMC Medical Research Methodology, 2022: 22(1), 1-17.
Susmann, H., Alexander, M., and Alkema, L., Temporal models for demographic and global health outcomes in multiple populations: Introducing a new framework to review and standardize documentation of model assumptions and facilitate model comparison, International Statistical Review, 2022: 90(3), 437-467.
Alexander, M. and Root, L. ‘Competing effects on the average age of infant death’. Demography, 2022: 59(2), 587-605.
Kiang, M.V., Tsai A.C., Alexander M., Rehkopf D.H., Basu S. ‘Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Opioid-Related Mortality in the USA, 1999–2019: the Extreme Case of Washington DC.’ Journal of Urban Health, 2021: 98(6), 589.
Wilson, T., Grossman, I., Alexander, M., Rees, P., and Temple, J. ‘Methods for small area population forecasts: state-of-the-art and research needs’, Population Research and Policy Review, 2021: 41, 865-898.
Kiang M.V., Chen J.T., Krieger N., Buckee C.O., Alexander, M., Baker J.T., Buckner R.L., Coombs III G., Rich-Edwards J.W., Carlson K.W., and Onnela J-P. ‘Sociodemographic characteristics of missing data in digital phenotyping’. Scientific Reports, 2021: 11(1),15408.
Alexander, M., Polimis, K., and Zagheni, E., ‘Combining social media and survey data to nowcast migrant stocks in the United States’, Population Research and Policy Review, 2020: 41, 1-28.
Alexander, M., Polimis, K., and Zagheni, E., ‘The impact of Hurricane Maria on out-migration from Puerto Rico: Evidence from Facebook data’, Population and Development Review, 2019: 45(3), 617-630.
Hug, L., Alexander, M., You, D., and Alkema, L. ‘National, regional, and global levels and trends in neonatal mortality between 1990 and 2017, with scenario-based projections to 2030: a systematic analysis by the United Nations Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation’, Lancet Global Health, 2019, 7(6): 710-720.
Kiang, M.V., Basu S., Chen J., and Alexander, M. ‘Assessment of Changes in the Geographical Distribution of Opioid-Related Mortality Across the United States by Opioid Type, 1999-2016’. JAMA Network Open. 2019, 2(2):e190040.
Gemmill, A., Kiang, M.V., and Alexander, M., ‘Trends in pregnancy-associated mortality involving opioids in the United States, 2007–2016’, American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, 2019, 220(1): 115-116.
Alexander, M., Kiang, M.V., and Barbieri M., ‘Trends in Black and White Opioid Mortality in the United States, 1979–2015’, Epidemiology, 2018, 29(5): 707–715.
Alexander, M., and Alkema, L., ‘Global Estimation of Neonatal Mortality using a Bayesian Hierarchical Splines Regression Model’, Demographic Research, 2018, 38(15): 335–372.
Alexander, M., Zagheni, E., and Barbieri, M., ‘A Flexible Bayesian Model for Estimating Subnational Mortality’, Demography, 2017, 54(6): 2025–2041.
Howlett, M., Gray, M., and Hunter, B., ‘Wages, government payments and other income of Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians’, Australian Journal of Labour Economics, 2016, 19(2): 53–76.
Hunter, B., Howlett, M., and Gray, M., ‘The Economic Impact of the Mining Boom on Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Australians’, Asia & the Pacific Policy Studies, 2015, 2(3): 517–530.
Gray, M., Howlett, M., and Hunter, B., ‘Labour Market Outcomes for Indigenous Australians’, The Economic and Labour Relations Review, 2014, 25(3): 497–517.
Biddle, N., Howlett, M., Hunter, B., and Paradies, Y., ‘Labour Market and Other Discrimination Facing Indigenous Australians’, Australian Journal of Labour Economics, 2013, 16(1): 91–113.

Book chapters

Alexander, M. ‘Using social media advertising data to estimate migration trends over time’. In Big Data Applications in Geography and Planning. Edward Elgar Publishing. 2021.

Working papers, projects, and pre-prints

Alexander, M. and Root, L. ‘Racial disparities in fetal and infant outcomes: a multiple-decrement life table approach’.
Alexander, M., ‘Decomposing dimensions of mortality inequality’.
Chong, M., Alburez-Gutierrez, D., Del Fava, E., Alexander, M., & Zagheni, E. (2022). ’Identifying and correcting bias in big crowd-sourced online genealogies.
Alexander, M., and Goldstein, J., ‘Deaths without denominators: using a matched dataset to study mortality patterns in the United States’.

Working papers where there is not so much working happening

Alexander, M., ‘Temporal smoothers for use in demographic estimation and projection’. This paper turned into another paper (Susmann et al., above). I wrote an R package to accompany the paper, which can be found on my GitHub. One day I might translate the models from JAGS to Stan.
Alexander, M., Wildeman, C., Roehrkasse, A., and Rudlang-Perman, K. ‘Forecasting child welfare outcomes in the United States’. Shiny app; Paper presented at PAA 2022.
Alexander, R., and Alexander, M.. ‘The Increased Effect of Elections and Changing Prime Ministers on Topics Discussed in the Australian Federal Parliament between 1901 and 2018’.

Talks

Here are recordings of some talks:

Code and other fun projects

A package to fit Rogers-Castro migration models, rcbayes, is on CRAN.
I am a contributor to the DemoTools R package.
I made a children’s book in R called ‘D is for Demography’.
This repo on my GitHub has various bits and pieces of code, mostly related to mortality, but some other stuff too.