Jerald (Jerry) Bachman passed away on October 31, 2025. He had just celebrated his 89th birthday.

Jerry was one of the founding members and principal investigator of the Youth in Transition study (YIT), which preceded Monitoring the Future. Youth in Transition surveyed male students entering the 10th grade from 1966 through 1974, studying the major causes and consequences of dropping out of high school. Jerry and fellow YIT co-founder Lloyd Johnston later developed a more elaborate survey, following multiple cohorts in addition to surveying women. This survey became Monitoring the Future (MTF).

Jerry remained as a principal investigator with MTF until January 2020, when he fully retired from the University of Michigan. His other scholarly works included publications on youth and social issues, dovetailing with his research interests concerning drug use and attitudes about drugs, values, attitudes, and behaviors of youth in America, military plans and experience, and public opinion on a number of other social issues. His legacy at ISR lives on through the Jerald and Virginia Bachman Research Fellowship on Change in American Youth, which supports graduate students and early faculty members in using the MTF data.