Annemette (Mette) Sørensen passed away peacefully after a sudden illness on May 5, 2024. Mette was born in Copenhagen on July 2, 1942, as the first child of Viggo and Inger Kristensen. Growing up she helped in the family flower shop on Tagensvej, Copenhagen, went to gymnasium and then attended the University of Copenhagen. There she was part of the first generation of students to study sociology, a new major at the university, where she met and married fellow sociologist Aage Bøttger Sørensen on January 25, 1964. Their son Jesper was born in 1967.

In 1968 the small family moved to Baltimore, Maryland, so that Aage could study under James Coleman at Johns Hopkins University. Mette and Jesper arrived in Baltimore in February 1968, and Mette's first cultural adjustment was to understand the concept of Valentine's Day, which was not known in Denmark at the time, when the landlady gave Mette a box of chocolates. Soon afterward Martin Luther King was assassinated, and Baltimore broke out into riots. They were far from the quiet of Denmark. But it was also intellectually stimulating to be at Hopkins, and Mette and Aage adapted well. They made lifelong friends in graduate student housing, including Jim and Karen Wyche, Erhard Joeres, and Gudmund and Helga Hernes.

Mette completed her M.Sc. in Sociology from the University of Copenhagen in 1970, while living in Baltimore. While the original plan had been to return to Denmark when Aage finished his degree, in 1971 they instead moved to Madison, WI, where Aage became an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin. This was the first clue to Mette that they might not be going back to Denmark, where professorial opportunities in sociology were very limited, any time soon. They returned to Denmark in 1974-75, where Mette worked at the Royal Library. Upon returning to Madison, she started the sociology PhD program there, having come to terms with the idea that the move to the US was permanent.  Her studies were interrupted by more moves, however, as Aage spent a year at Stanford followed by a year in Oslo, Norway. The year in Norway was the start of a long association with Norwegian sociology, and Mette would return to Oslo and Bergen regularly in later years.

Upon returning to Madison, Mette completed her dissertation, on divorce trends in Denmark, in 1980. She launched her academic career in 1981 as an Assistant Professor of Sociology and Women's Studies. Throughout her career, Mette's research focused on social demography, gender and inequality. She wrote influential papers on women's economic dependency in marriage, as well as gender and social class, gender inequality in the labor market, and the life course. Mette and Aage also published a short book together, on mathematical sociology, in 1977.

In 1985 Mette became an Assistant Professor in Sociology at Harvard. She subsequently served as the Program Director for Sociology at the National Science Foundation from 1991 to 1992, and as a senior scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin from 1992 to 1994. She worked with Karl Ulrich Mayer to write the initial document founding the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, and maintained strong connections to Berlin. But the US was now home. In 1994 she joined the faculty at Boston University, and in 1999 she was appointed the Director of the Murray Research Center at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, and as a Lecturer in Sociology at Harvard. During the course of her career she also held appointments at the University of Bergen, the University of Copenhagen, the Norwegian Institute of Social Research, and Stanford University.

After Aage died in 2001, Mette lived close to Jesper and his family for the rest of her life, first in Boston and then in Palo Alto. She was an integral part of her grandchildren's daily lives, attending countless little league games, concerts and plays. She hosted sleepovers, made more popular by the fact that she owned a Nintendo 64, unlike the kids. Sugary cereals were also allowed. As the kids grew older and more independent, Mette would come and take the dog Bucky for an eagerly awaited walk every day; their favorite haunt was the Arastradero Preserve.

During her time in the US, Mette spent almost every summer in Denmark, first in a small farmhouse in Lille Rørbæk, and since 1984 in their house near the beach in Hornbæk. Mette loved the Hornbæk house for its beautiful, peaceful garden and the long walks along the beach. For many years she spent those summers with her mother, with whom she was very close. Visits from the grandchildren were always a highlight for all involved, with lots of Danish hot dogs, chocolate sandwiches and trips to Sweden to buy the new Harry Potter book. Mette enjoyed making the house in Hornbæk the gathering place for both her and Aage's extended families. After retirement, she saw the world, with her friends Gladys and Sören frequent travel companions, and played many hours of mahjong with Gladys and friends.

Mette touched many lives in her quiet, steady way. She was sharp-witted and kind.  She was not one to draw attention to herself or make demands, but she was always there for you with reassurance, comfort and advice. Mette liked routines and consistency, and the people in her life could count on that consistency from her. Over the years she "adopted" several nieces, nephews, and children of family friends and offered the same support and guidance as she gave her own family. Until the end she was an enthusiastic adopter of technology— she programmed in COBOL in the 1960s and kept pace with mainframes, PCs, laptops, smartphones etc. Her latest thrill was the Apple Watch because it rewarded her for going on her daily walk. Upon her passing, it became clear that she maintained multiple ongoing games of WordFeud with her family members. It was a very Mette way of staying connected, and also demonstrated her quiet but fierce competitive side.

Annemette Sørensen lived a long, adventurous life, but left us too soon. She is survived by her son Jesper, daughter-in-law Patricia Chang, grandchildren Nikolaj, Benjamin and Chloe, sister Lisbeth Helkiær and brother Kim Kristensen, and brothers-in-law Holger Bøttger and Troels Sørensen, as well as friends and family the world over. Her husband Aage and sister Lone predeceased her.