CSDE-news Bulletin

November 13, 2007

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CSDE WEEKLY SEMINAR: David Nolin, UW Anthropology and CSDE Fellow -- Modeling a Food-Sharing Network in an Indonesian Whaling Village
CSDE ANNOUNCEMENTS: CSDE Biodemography Core workshop -- Biomarkers of Nutrition
CSDE AFFILIATE & FELLOW NEWS: Becky Pettit -- Arts & Sciences Leadership Fellow this quarter
CAMPUS SEMINARS & EVENTS OF INTEREST: Environmental Anthropology Forum -- Devon Pena; WCPC Seminar Series on Poverty and Public Policy -- Rachel Kleit & Andria Lazaga; Center for Statistics and the Social Sciences Seminar -- Richard Startz; IGERT Program in Evolutionary Modeling (IPEM) -- Kevin Laland; Documentary on the Cuban healthcare and medical education system
FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES: Sloan Work-Family Career Development Grant Program; Gates Foundation announces a $100 M fund to inspire unorthodox approaches to global health; NIH Loan Repayment Program
TRAINING & EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES: Grant Budget Basics: Q & A Session; Faculty Position in Maternal and Child Health -- University of California Berkeley; Postdoctoral Positions -- Carolina Population Center, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; Postdoctoral Research Program -- The National Center for Health Statistics
OTHER NEWS OF INTEREST: Congressional bill would increase NIH budget; The Institute For Health Metrics and Evaluation -- Ken Stuart; The Institute For Health Metrics and Evaluation -- Ryan T. Moore; World Bank Publications Announcement; UNESCO launches a tool to put social science research at the service of public policy-making

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CSDE WEEKLY SEMINAR

David Nolin, UW Anthropology and CSDE Fellow -- Modeling a Food-Sharing Network in an Indonesian Whaling Village
Friday, November 16
12:03 - 2:00 PM
Parrington Hall Commons

CSDE ANNOUNCEMENTS

CSDE Biodemography Core workshop -- Biomarkers of Nutrition

The CSDE Biodemography Core is offering a new workshop this quarter:
Biomarkers of Nutrition

Thursday, November 15th
3:30 - 4:30 PM
Raitt 114 (CSDE library)

Over-nutrition and under-nutrition are the leading contributors to illness, disability, and death worldwide. Rapidly changing patterns of poor nutrition have increased demand for methods to assess nutritional status in research settings. We'll introduce nutrition biomarkers relevant to population research, including a few methods newly available in the Biodemography Lab, and discuss some recent population-level studies using biomarkers to improve understanding of the relationship between nutrition and health, and the growing potential for exchange between nutrition and social science research.

To register, visit the CSDE workshop registration page

CSDE AFFILIATE & FELLOW NEWS

Becky Pettit -- Arts & Sciences Leadership Fellow this quarter

Becky Pettit, Associate Professor Sociology and CSDE Research Affiliate, is serving as the Arts & Sciences Leadership Fellow. Each quarter, a senior faculty member joins the Arts & Sciences Dean's Office staff as a Leadership Fellow. During the quarter of the appointment, the Fellow participates in the Dean's Office executive staff meetings and monthly divisional chairs and directors meetings and attends selected university meetings with divisional deans.

CAMPUS SEMINARS & EVENTS OF INTEREST

Environmental Anthropology Forum -- Devon Pena

Devon Pena, Professor, UW Anthropology
Managing the Commons: Design Principles for La Sierra Culebra, a Collaborative Planning Project in Progress

Wednesday, November 14
3:30 - 5:00 PM
Denny Hall, 401

More information about this presentation, and the Environmental Anthropology Forum, is at: http://depts.washington.edu/anthweb/news_events/EAForum.php

WCPC Seminar Series on Poverty and Public Policy -- Rachel Kleit & Andria Lazaga

Rachel Kleit, Associate Professor Evans School of Public Affairs and CSDE Research Affiliate, and Andria Lazaga, Asset Management Coordinator, Seattle Housing Authority
Housing the Poor: What We Know and How it Matters for Public Housing Policy

Monday, November 19
3:00 PM
Parrington Hall Commons

Center for Statistics and the Social Sciences Seminar -- Richard Startz

Richard Startz, Professor, UW Economics
"Are Consumers Forward-looking?"

Wednesday, November 14
12:30 - 1:20 PM
Denny 401

IGERT Program in Evolutionary Modeling (IPEM) -- Kevin Laland

Kevin Laland, (U of St. Andrews, Biology)
Exploring gene-culture interactions: Insights from case studies

Wednesday, November 14
3:30 – 5:00 PM
Kane 019 (UW) - Live videoconference participation at UW in Kane 019
Fall seminars originate from WSU-Pullman

Documentary on the Cuban healthcare and medical education system

World Health Cinema and the School of Medicine International Health Group brings you a screening of the documentary on the Cuban healthcare and medical education system, "Salud!"

Wednesday, November 14
6:00 PM
Genome Sciences Building, Foege Auditorium (S060)

Learn about how Cuba has managed to overcome its lack of resources to provide universal health care and helped other developing nations to do the same. Salud!, a 93 minute documentary that spans three continents to look at the philosophy and health professionals placing Cuba on the map in the worldwide movement to make health care a global birthright.

FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES

Sloan Work-Family Career Development Grant Program

Kathleen Christensen, Program Director

The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation is pleased to announce the availability of Work-Family Career Development Grants. This program will award grants to up to five (5) junior faculty members who are investigating important work and family questions. The level of support for 2008 is $45,000 per grant recipient.More information about these grants, including information about eligibility requirements, nomination deadlines, and application procedures can be obtained by clicking on the links below.

Sloan Work-Family Career Development Grants Brochure

Call for Proposals - Sloan Work-Family Career Development Grants

Application Form & Checklist

Letter of Recommendation Guidelines

Additional inquires can be sent via email to work-family-grant@sas.upenn.edu

Gates Foundation announces a $100 M fund to inspire unorthodox approaches to global health

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced a $100 M fund to inspire unorthodox approaches to global health. The Grand Challenges Explorations program reaches out to scientists in Africa and Asia, though it will be open to researchers based anywhere. The foundation will issue a request for proposals early next year, encouraging scientists from developing nations to apply. The program will use a shorter application form, and the review will take a few months. Grantees whose concepts prove promising can later apply for additional funding. As a secondary goal, these grants will encourage scientists in developing countries to stay home rather than emigrate. The Foundation so far has granted $13.7 billion, much of it going to global programs addressing AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and vaccines.

NIH Loan Repayment Program

NIH is inviting health professionals engaged in biomedical and behavioral research to apply online for a loan repayment award. The loan repayment programs (LRPs) are a vital component of our nation’s efforts to recruit and retain highly qualified professionals to careers in research.

NIH annually awards loan repayment contracts to approximately 1,600 health professionals with an average award of $52,000. More than 50% of the awards are made to individuals less than 5 years out of school. Approximately 40% of all new applicants are funded and 70% of renewals are funded.

The LRP application cycle is open through December 1. NIH will repay up to $35,000 annually of qualified educational debt for health professionals pursuing careers in one of the five Loan Repayment Programs (LRPs). The programs also provide coverage for Federal and state tax liabilities.

To qualify, applicants must possess a doctoral-level degree, devote an average of 20 hours per week or more to research funded by a non-profit organization, university, or government entity (NIH grant support is not required). Applicants must also have outstanding educational loan debt equal to at least 20% of their institutional base salary and be U.S. citizen or permanent resident.

Please share this e-mail with the researchers in your organization who may benefit from LRP participation.

All applications for 2008 awards must be submitted online by 8:00 p.m. EST, December 1, 2007.

To access the online application or for program information, please visit the LRP Web site at www.lrp.nih.gov. For assistance call the Helpline at 866.849.4047 or send email inquiries to lrp@nih.gov.

TRAINING & EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES

Grant Budget Basics: Q & A Session

Grant$ for Lunch

Tuesday, November 20
12:00 - 1:00 PM
South Campus Center, Room 316R

Guest Speakers:
Mary Beth Cunningham, Administrator, School of Dentistry Office of Research
Monica Fawthrop, Administrator, Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine

Do you have grant budgets on the brain? Are you preoccupied with thoughts such as "How much money should I request in my grant proposal—and how do I know if it’s appropriate?" or "How do I figure out what categories particular expenses go in?" If you find that you’re asking yourself these or other budget questions, come get them answered at this informative Q & A session. No registration necessary.

Faculty Position in Maternal and Child Health -- University of California Berkeley

The School of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley, is seeking a new member of the Maternal and Child Health faculty. Candidates must possess strong leadership, teaching, research, and management skills in child or maternal health. The School is particularly interested in candidates who have experience working with students from diverse backgrounds and a demonstrated commitment to improving access to higher education for disadvantaged students. This position is available at the Assistant Professor level beginning Fall 2008.

Applications due: 12/03/2007

For full details click here.

Postdoctoral Positions -- Carolina Population Center, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Applications for CPC traineeships must be received no later than Monday, January 28, 2008

Applicants may arrange for their own financial support through outside sources, or request consideration from a limited number of awards available through the Carolina Population Center (CPC). Given that some sources of support are limited to certain areas of research (e.g. aging, fertility in developing countries), identification of area(s) of interest is essential. The initial term of appointment is one year, but reappointment for a second (final year) is expected. Postdoctoral traineeships funded by CPC begin during the second half of each calendar year. The deadline for receipt of completed applications is January 28, 2008. Please do not submit stapled materials.

For full details click here.

Postdoctoral Research Program -- The National Center for Health Statistics

The National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) is a unique public resource for health information. As the Nation’s principal health statistics agency, NCHS provides the information needed to develop the programs and policies that will improve the health of the American people. NCHS’s mission is to monitor American’s health, and our activities mirror the multifaceted aspects of health and health care.

The objective of the NCHS Postdoctoral Research Program is to provide opportunities for postdoctoral candidates of unusual promise and ability to conduct research in problems of their choosing that are compatible with the interests of NCHS.

Application Deadline: Applications will be accepted throughout the year until positions are filled.

For full details click here.

OTHER NEWS OF INTEREST

Congressional bill would increase NIH budget

A compromise bill unveiled by Congressional leaders includes a $1 billion increase for the National Institutes of Health, the biggest increase for the NIH in 4 years, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.

The Chronicle article is here.

The Institute For Health Metrics and Evaluation -- Ken Stuart

Ken Stuart, Founder, President, and Director of the Seattle Biomedical Research Institute (SBRI)
Global Infectious Diseases: A View From the Bench

Thursday, Nov. 15
4:00 - 5:30 PM
1616 Eastlake Avenue E, Suite 300
We have limited space so please come early

Dr. Stuart is the Founder, President, and Director of the Seattle Biomedical Research Institute (SBRI), the largest non-profit organization in the U.S. focused solely on infectious disease research, and Professor of Pathobiology (Chairman 1996-2004), Microbiology and Global Health at the University of Washington. SBRI's research is designed to lead to the development of vaccines, drugs, and diagnostics for global infectious diseases that include malaria, HIV/AIDS, and TB. These diseases kill 14 million people a year, cause massive suffering, and have far reaching consequences.

The Institute For Health Metrics and Evaluation -- Ryan T. Moore

Friday, November 16
9:15 AM
1616 Eastlake Avenue E, Suite 300
We have limited space so please come early

Ryan T. Moore is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Government at Harvard University. Mr. Moore is a doctoral fellow of the Harvard Inequality and Social Policy program, and a graduate associate of the Institute for Quantitative Social Science (IQSS). His research interests center around American social policy and statistical political methodology. Substantively, he is primarily interested in the intersection of direct democracy, federalism, and the politics of old age pensions and health care. Methodologically, he develops and implements methods for political experiments, ecological data, missing data, and causal inference.

World Bank Publications Announcement

Analyzing Health Equity Using Household Survey Data: A Guide to Techniques and their Implementation
By Owen O'Donnell, Eddy van Doorslaer, Adam Wagstaff, Magnus Lindelow

Have gaps in health outcomes between the poor and better off grown? Are they larger in one country than another? Are health sector subsidies more equally distributed in some countries than others? Are health care payments more progressive in one health care financing system than another? What are catastrophic payments and how can they be measured? How far do health care payments impoverish households?

Answering questions such as these requires quantitative analysis. This in turn depends on a clear understanding of how to measure key variables in the analysis, such as health outcomes, health expenditures, need, and living standards. It also requires set quantitative methods for measuring inequality and inequity, progressivity, catastrophic expenditures, poverty impact, and so on.

This book provides an overview of the key issues that arise in the measurement of health variables and living standards, outlines and explains essential tools and methods for distributional analysis, and, using worked examples, shows how these tools and methods can be applied in the health sector. The book seeks to provide the reader with both a solid grasp of the principles underpinning distributional analysis, while at the same time offering hands-on guidance on how to move from principles to practice.

November 2007. 165 pages. ISBN-13: 978-0-8213-6933-3, SKU: 16933

Increasing Access to Rural Finance in Bangladesh: The Forgotten
Edited by Aline Coudouel, Tara Bedi

Since the mid-1990s, Bangladesh's banking sector has grown considerably. Despite the boom and the government's efforts to increase access in rural areas, rural financial markets have shrunk in relative terms. As a result, access to finance by micro, small, and medium-size enterprises and marginal, small, and medium-size farmers - the "missing middle" - remains limited, which is significant because these groups are the engines of growth in rural Bangladesh in terms of employment, contribution to GDP, and prospects for future growth.

Increasing Access to Rural Finance in Bangladesh examines the legal, regulatory, and institutional constraints faced by state-owned agricultural banks, private banks, and microfinance institutions in providing financial services to the missing middle in Bangladesh. It also analyzes the constraints that traditional, multiperil crop inssurance schemes face when serving marginal, small, and medium-size farmers. Finally, the book offers suggestions to improve rural financial access with innovations and reforms in the banking, microfinance, and insurance sectors, among others.

October 2007.156 pages. ISBN:978-0-8213-7333-0, SKU: 17333

Annual World Bank Conference on Development Economics 2007, Global: Rethinking Infrastructure for Development
Edited by Francois Bourguignon, Boris Pleskovic

This edition of the Annual World Bank Conference on Development Economics presents selected papers from the ABCDE Meetings, held May 29-30, 2006, in Tokyo, Japan. This volume presents papers on Infrastructure for Growth - emerging issues; sustainable development and infrastructure - climate change, clean energy, and energy efficiency; rural infrastructure and agricultural development; and infrastructure and regional cooperation.

October 2007. 288 pages. ISBN: 978-0-8213-6841-1, SKU: 16841

Independent Evaluation of IFC's Development Results 2007 : Lessons and Implications from 10 Years of Experience
By Dan Crabtree, Hiroyuki Hatashima

As part of the World Bank Group, IFC's overriding objective is to help reduce poverty and support sustainable development in developing countries. IFC pursues this mission by supporting the private sector to create jobs and simulate markets. This report, which assesses the impact of IFC toward that mission, appears at a time of unprecedented levels of private investment in the emerging markets.

The report takes a look back at the development results that the IFC-supported projects have achieved in the last 10 years, the main lessons that have emerged at the project level and the strategic implications for IFC going forward, in the context of rapid organizational growth. Going forward, the report highlights major challenges IFC faces to achieving overall development effectiveness.

October 2007. 114 pages. ISBN: 978-0-8213-7264-7, SKU: 17264

To Order:

Online: www.worldbank.org/publications
e-mail: books@worldbank.org
Phone: 703-661-1580 or 1-800-645-7247
Fax: 703-661-1501
Mail: World Bank Publications, P.O. Box 960, Herndon, VA 20172-0960, U.S.A.

UNESCO launches a tool to put social science research at the service of public policy-making

Immediately following UNESCO's 34th General Conference, which re-affirmed the importance of creating the conditions for a genuine dialogue between researchers, policy-makers and the members of civil society in order to address the multiple challenges of the contemporary world, UNESCO is launching a new tool to support policy-making based on research results from international social and human sciences.

Designed and developed under the aegis of the Management of Social Transformations (MOST) Programme, this service will be freely accessible on the website of the Organization from 15 November 2007. It will provide customized access to policy-relevant material (case studies) according to specific locations (city, country, region) and/or themes related to social transformations (urbanization, migration phenomena, human rights, sustainable development, etc.)

The server will first be running on a collection of documents produced within the framework of the UNESCO Forum for Higher Education, Research and Knowledge, and will be gradually enriched by research from around the globe, notably through the network of UNESCO Chairs in social and human sciences.

The tool is currently available in English, French and Spanish, and will soon be extended to the other United Nations official languages.

To access the server: MOST Policy Research Tool