It is with great sadness that we announce the death of Dr Malcolm Brynin, Reader at ISER and our longest-serving member of staff.
Dr Brynin was a leading expert on pay gaps and inequalities, and had a long and distinguished career as a sociologist. His most recent work for the Equality and Human Rights Commission was influential in the Government’s response to addressing inequalities.
Professor Nick Buck, former Director of ISER, paid tribute to his outstanding contribution to ISER’s work over three decades.
‘Malcolm arrived at ISER near the very start in October 1989, and has been an excellent colleague throughout that time, contributing substantially to the academic and social life of the Institute. He came to work on the British Household Panel Survey where he had a significant impact on the study design and the questionnaire.
He went on to undertake innovative work on the impact of new household communication technologies on daily lives including survey projects funded by BT and a cross-national comparative project funded by the EU. This was at the stage when these technologies were still quite novel.
Over his time at ISER Malcolm made a major contribution to maintaining the strength of sociological research in ISER. He has published significant work in recent years contributing to the understanding of gender and ethnicity inequalities in the labour market as well as inequalities in outcomes from participation in higher education.’
Professor Heather Laurie, former Director of ISER, said: ‘Malcolm was one of the founder members of ISER and an accomplished quantitative sociologist. His life-long interest was in understanding social stratification and social inequalities and the impact these had on people’s life chances. In particular he produced influential work on inequalities of gender, ethnicity and religion, social divisions which are today more relevant than ever before. Malcolm had a dry sense of humour and was well liked by colleagues and the many students he supervised to successful PhDs over the years. His sociological imagination will be missed at ISER.’
Current ISER Director, Professor Emily Grundy, said: ‘Malcolm was a friend as well as a colleague to generations of ISER staff and students. He will be much missed and our thoughts are with his wife Terri, his family and his many friends at this sad time.’
Professor Marco Francesconi, Professor of Economics at the University of Essex, said: ‘I was lucky to share nine years with Malcolm at ISER. He was an excellent colleague, a true scholar full of knowledge of his research areas and curious to expand them constantly. Discussions with Malcolm did not stop with sociology or economics; he had an amazing familiarity with English theatre of all ages and a fine knowledge of classical music. Endless, witty, entertaining discussions on vegetarianism, Marlowe and Ibsen, Janacek and Birtwistle. He was a friend and will be sorely missed.’
We have opened an online book of condolences and memories for Malcolm’s past students, colleagues, collaborators and all who enjoyed working with him -please feel free to share your thoughts here