Pope Francis appoints Lady Margaret Archer head of Pontifical Academy
April 12, 2014: On Saturday, Pope Francis appointed Lady Margaret Archer president
of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences. Margaret Scotford Archer (born 20
January 1943) is a professor at l'Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland.
Previously she was for many years Professor of Sociology University of Warwick, UK.
She studied at the University of London, graduating B.Sc. in 1964 and Ph.D. in
1967 with a thesis on The Educational Aspirations of English Working Class Parents.
She was a lecturer at the University of Reading from 1966 to 1973. She is one of the
most influential theorists in the critical realist tradition. At the 12th World
Congress of Sociology, she was elected as the first woman President of the International
Sociological Association, is a founder member of both the Pontifical Academy of Social
Sciences and the Academy of Learned Societies in the Social Sciences. She is a Trustee
of the Centre for Critical Realism.