On Friday, June 6th, CSDE celebrated its many graduate students for their accomplishments. We enjoyed snacks, sharing updates, and celebrating! If you’d like to see all those updates, view the slide presentation or read below.

Thank you to all who attended and presented at CSDE’s spring series. CSDE will be pausing its seminar series until Autumn 2025. Stay tuned for upcoming events.  Thank you to our seminar series team – Professor Rawan Arar, Maddie Farris, Jessica Godwin, Jill Fulmore, and Will von Geldern! Thank you to the Evans School for hosting us in Parrington Hall and supporting Will.

In the meantime, keep sending us your news. CSDE E-news will be shifting to a biweekly schedule over the summer.

CSDE is sad to announce that Pete Guest past away last month. Pete was an important scholar and made very impactful contributions to UW and CSDE. Many of the alum who returned for our 75th anniversary last month made impassioned reference to Pete Guest and his impactful contributions. Charlie Hirschman wrote about Pete in a recently produced history of CSDE and noted: "Pete’s primary research interests were in urban sociology and human ecology, but he published prodigiously on a wide range of topics, including family, political attitudes, race and ethnicity, demographic methods, social stratification, and demographic history….Pete Guest was the faculty member were served the longest and left the deepest legacy on CSDE graduate students and its institutional culture. Pete Guest served four decades on the faculty, including multiple stints in important administrative roles in the Department of Sociology and in CSDE (Director, 1995-97), editor of the flagship journal, Demography (1991-93), PI on many grants from NSF and NICHD, and mentor of dozens of graduate students.”  To read and share more about Pete please visit the obituary available here.

In response to hazards and disasters in some locations, inhabitants are replaced by wealthier residents in a distinct form of gentrification. In a recent report published in the International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, a team of scholars including CSDE External Affiliate Ethan Sharygin (Portland State University) and Affiliate Sameer Shah (Environmental and Forest Sciences) define this phenomenon as “hazard gentrification” and discuss the implications and trade-offs for municipalities, environmental sustainability, and housing equity. This project was partially supported by the CSDE Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development research infrastructure grant (P2C HD042828) and originated through the 2024 D4 Hack Week: Disasters, Demography, Disparities, and Decisions workshop supported by CSDE, the National Science Foundation AI Institute for Research on Trustworthy AI in Weather, Climate, and Coastal Oceanography (AI2ES), and the UW eScience Institute. Read the report here.

The United States has a long history of genocide against Native Peoples which is still felt today. One critical aspect of this violence is the forced removal of Native children to federal Indian boarding schools and the use of assimilationist land policies to fracture essential Indigenous kinship networks. In a recent article published in Genealogy, CSDE Affiliate Theresa Rocha Beardall (Sociology) critiques the colonial apparatus of contemporary state child welfare institutions and conceptualizes a “Third Space” in an effort to prevent the continued obscuring of Indigenous governance in the effort to build collective futures. Read the full article here.

While some research has shown that racial disparities in childhood vaccination persist in both Canada and the U.S., data limitations prevent a comprehensive analysis of these inequities. In a recent study published in Vaccine, CSDE Affiliates Carmen Gonzalez (Communication) and Ali Mokdad (Health Metrics Sciences, Epidemiology) with lead author and Population Health Initiative Research Scientist Frances Gellert use mixed methods including vaccine coverage data review, ecological analysis, and informant interviews to examine resilient interventions that promote racial equity in vaccine uptake across both Canada and the United States. Results suggest that effective interventions focused on building trust, reducing barriers, engaging communities, and strengthening data systems, and highlight the need for collaborative and culturally relevant approaches. Read the full article here.

Many students completed their Graduate Certificate in Demographic Methods, including Omolara Akingba (PhD Candidate, Epidemiology), Emma Anastasi (PhD Student, Anthropology), Haley Birdoes (MPH Student, Epidemiology), Sarah Kilpatrick, (MS Student, Data Science), Keith Leung (PhD Candidate, Urban Design & Planning), Mingze Li (PhD Student, Sociology), Tom Lindman (PhD Candidate, Public Policy & Management), Sidnee Moyer (PhD Student, Sociology), Mark Nepf (PhD Student, Public Policy & Management), Todd Nobles, (PhD Candidate, Sociology), Larisa Ozeryansky, (PhD Candidate, Individual PhD), Adam Visokay, (PhD Student, Sociology), Jiayuan Wang, (PhD Student, Public Policy & Management), and Yuying Xie (PhD Candidate, Geography). The certificate equips these students with valuable skills and we are excited to keep working with them throughout their graduate training and beyond.

A few CSDE Trainees and fellows are also graduating and moving onto exciting positions! Jane Dai (PhD, Health Services) will be starting a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Food Systems Planning, University at Buffalo. Tom Lindman (PhD, Public Policy & Management) will be starting a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies. Larisa Ozeryansky (PhD, Individual PhD) will be finishing her Fulbright at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health. We are so impressed with all that these graduates have accomplished, and we hope to stay in touch with them as they continue their journey.

Many students also completed their master’s degrees, including Haley Birdoes (Epidemiology), Adrian Andronicos (Sociology), Sarah Kilpatrick (Data Science), and Jiayuan Wang (Public Policy & Management).

CSDE has always been proud to offer several fellowships, including the NIH T32 DSDT Fellowship and the IMPRS-PHD Fellowship (International Max Planck Research School, Population Health Data Science). This year, we celebrate the students who are completing their NIH T32 Fellowships, including David Coomes, Jane Dai, and Tom Lindman. Continuing in the NIH T32 Fellowship is Courtney Allen, Elizabeth Nova, and Katie Paulson. Adam Visokay is completing the IMPRS-PHD Fellowship. As part of their fellowships, all of these students have received valuable mentorship from CSDE Affiliates.

CSDE is thrilled to announce the inaugural Charles and Josephine Hirschman Award for student research.  The Charles and Josephine Hirschman Award supports research costs for CSDE graduate students. This award is made possible by former CSDE Director and Professor Emeritus in the Department of Sociology, Charles Hirschman, and his wife, Josephine. This year the award went to Todd Nobles (PhD Candidate, Sociology), and Aryaa Rajouria (PhD Candidate, Sociology).

CSDE hosted a 75th & Counting Anniversary Celebration in May and celebrated more than 75 years of demographic research and training at the UW! We were joined by alumni, colleagues, faculty, friends, staff, and students for two days of community building, learning, and refreshments to share reflections and insights about CSDE’S histories, CSDE’s impact on research and training, and CSDE’s future contributions in the next 75 years. CSDE Trainees and Fellows were invited to share their research during a Poster Session and with presentations by Tom Lindman, Adam Visokay, Mark Nepf, David Coomes, Courtney Allen, Aryaa Rajouria, Lauren Woyczynski, Sarah Kilpatrick, Crystal Yu, Jane Dai, Aidan Andronicos, and Ihsan Kahveci. CSDE trainees, affiliates and alumni voted on the posters with Courtney Allen taking 3^rd Place, Mark Nepf receiving 2^nd Place and Aryaa Rajouria being awarded 1^st Place.

In 2025, CSDE will co-sponsor the Applied Research Fellowship Program, alongside The Population Health Initiative, Seattle & King County Public Health, and King County Parks. This program involves a multidisciplinary team of undergraduate and graduate students to tackle population health challenges. Participating students include Sarah Desai, Nupur Gorkar, Xinyuan Hao, Mark Nepf, and Annie Xu.  They will be working on a project to identify and map the array of park accessibility concerns across the city and county.

Members of our CSDE community had an impactful presence at population health events throughout the year! At the 2025 PAA (Population Association of America) meeting, trainees and fellows were selected for oral presentations, including Courtney Allen, David Coomes, Elizabeth Nova, Katie Paulson, Crystal Yu, Adam Visokay, Jessica Warren, and Zoe Pleasure. Several also attended as poster presenters, including Hana Brown, David Coomes, Ihsan Kahveci, and Aryaa Rajouria.

CSDE Trainee, Ihsan Kahveci along with UW faculty Nathalie Williams, Paul Hebert, Amy Hagopian, Zack Almquist, and from Berkeley, Tim Thomas really stood out when it came to PAA’s poster awards. They were awarded the PAA Best Poster Award in the Neighborhoods, Environment, Spatial Demography, and Data and Methods Category for their poster titled: The Relationship Between Eviction, Substance Use, and Health Among People Experiencing Homelessness in King County, WA.

Last but not least, we are grateful for all who participated in this year’s autumn and winter Lightning talks, organized by Desiree Salais. Isaac Sederbaum was the autumn winner for his research, “'I deadnamed myself until my documents matched' Trans People & the Psychological Costs of Accessing the Safety Net." David Coomes was the winter winner for his research, “The Role of Migration in the Rural-Mortality Penalty”. Lightning talks are always a fun opportunity to bring our CSDE community together around the enlightening research of CSDE trainees. We are excited for all the years to come of this event!

The Population Association of America (PAA) has updated the form used to collect details, on an ongoing basis, from members who have been adversely affected by actions taken by the Administration, including federal grant terminations and data restrictions. The revised form provides guidance and encourages individuals to share their stories, which will be featured in a regular newsletter designed to educate policymakers and the public about the consequences of these federal actions.

Please feel free to share this form with your colleagues.

Recently, the Office of Research sponsored a panel and discussion on the challenges surrounding the loss of data, including data that is removed from publicly available sites, national surveys that are canceled, and standard survey measures or data changed for non-scientific reasons. In addition, the UW Libraries has been actively engaged in helping researchers find and preserve data. This survey, created jointly by the UW Faculty Council on Research (FCR), the UW Libraries, and the Office of Research, seeks to learn more about your research needs in this domain of concerns and challenges. FCR, the Office of Research, and the UW Libraries will summarize the results from this survey over the summer and present to the Faculty Senate in AUT 2025. We will use the survey results to inform efforts to safeguard data needed for research and to educate the UW community on alternative locations for accessing and securely storing data.

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Dewey Data is a research platform that provides access to third-party datasets across a variety of data categories including foot traffic, construction permits, healthcare, workforce, consumer behavior, and transportation.

University of Washington faculty, students, and researchers are eligible for access and must register an individual account. Follow this link to learn about how to register.

The challenges of data access during federal administrative transitions can happen every four years. What follows are some resources that might be useful. We will continue to update this blog post with new information. If you have any links that could be helpful, please send csde@uw.edu your updated and helpful information. We know that what follows may not provide you with the exact data you need, so let us know what you need and what’s missing and we can try to find where it is located.

The research community is facing a period of rapid change and uncertainty in the federal funding landscape. The university is closely monitoring changes and their potential impacts to the UW research enterprise. Information on the Office of Research’s Guidance on Federal Administration Research Policy page is updated frequently. If you are a researcher and interested in receiving updates, please subscribe to PI Federal communications (you’ll need UWNETID). The Provost’s office is also maintaining a site for all Federal Policy Updates.

CSDE is a member of the Association of Population Centers, and through them can offer you or your colleagues the opportunity to have new or forthcoming research that you want to share with policymakers, journalists, educators, or other non-academic audiences. The Population Reference Bureau (PRB), in collaboration with APC, is working to improve the dissemination of population and reproductive health findings. If you have peer-reviewed research on population dynamics, population health, or reproductive health that you would like to share with a broader audience in an easily digestible format, APC and PRB may be able to help.  To learn how, visit their website and take a look at recent research policy briefs.

CSDE is a member of the Association of Population Centers and through them can offer you and your colleagues access to their preprint publishing platform. Research Scientists, Postdoctoral affiliates and faculty are invited to submit to the APCA Working Paper Series which gathers and disseminates original population science research papers. These working papers are authored or coauthored by scholars who are faculty or postdoctoral affiliates of the Association of Population Centers (APC) population centers.

The notion that every person living amidst the relative affluence has a right to a minimum income enabling social participation, be it frugally and soberly, holds as a fundamental matter of social justice to most people. Many of these issues still have open questions. Is there a viable way forward towards minimum income provisions that protect against poverty? What can the role be of public services and in-kind benefits? What can we expect from the breathtaking advances in timely administrative data, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) in terms of reducing non-take-up and expediting benefit payments? What is the (remaining) role for social workers and how much discretionary power should they have? What is the impact of migration on minimum income schemes and political support for such schemes?

ESPAnet (European Network for Social Policy Analysis) and AIPRIL (the Antwerp Interdisciplinary Platform for Research into Inequality) are organizing a workshop to take stock where we stand in the field of minimum income support across the globe and how we can move forward. To apply, send an abstract of up to 500 words by 15 June 2025 to ninke.mussche@uantwerpen.be, mentioning ‘Espanet/ AIPRIL Workshop’ as the subject.

The journal Prevention Science is inviting letters of intent proposing manuscripts for potential publication in a forthcoming special issue, “Leveraging Partnerships with Governmental Agencies to Advance Prevention Science, Policy, and Practice.” This special issue will bring together original papers from scholars, practitioners, and policymakers in the prevention science field to highlight exemplary partnership models between researchers and governmental agencies that have produced empirical research with impacts on prevention practice and policy decisions. Read the full call for proposals here.

The Center for Aging, Climate, and Health (CACHE) recently announced seed funding for projects integrating social and environmental data to examine the intersections of aging, climate, and health. CACHE anticipates making 2-3 awards of $20,000 and several smaller awards at $7,500. The deadline to apply is June 20, 2025. Learn more and apply here.

The Population Division and Statistics Division of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA) would like your help to assess the potential impact of termination of the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS). If you use, or have used, DHS data, please complete this brief survey. The survey collects information about the aspects of the DHS that you have used and examples of research using DHS data. Your response will help inform the direction and key elements of future demographic and health data collection and dissemination, supporting alignment with user needs and priorities. All responses will be treated confidentially and presented only in aggregate form.

The Gates Foundation recently announced a Grand Challenges request for proposals for a Randomized Controlled Trial on Sexual Transmitted Infections (STIs) and Reproductive Tract Sequelae in Non-Pregnant Women. The goal is to support rigorous clinical research to evaluate the prevention, diagnosis, and management of STIs and their long-term reproductive consequences, such as pelvic inflammatory disease. The submission deadline is Monday, July 7, at 11:30 AM Pacific Daylight Time.

The Northwest Climate Adaptation Science Center is now accepting applications for its 2026 Faculty Fellowship Program, which supports research related to climate adaptation in Northwest natural and cultural resource management as well as training in the principles and practices of co-producing decision-relevant science. This is a “last-mile” program that funds activities aimed at enhancing the usability of existing research for natural resource managers.

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The Kaiser Permanente Center for Gun Violence Research and Education is pursuing a world free of gun violence, where impacted communities drive the meaningful change needed for a healthy and safe society. Coordinated in collaboration with Health Alliance for Violence Intervention (HAVI), the Center endeavors to transform the gun violence research and education field.

The Center seeks to meet these needs by broadening the field of research to include more researchers and organizations that focus explicitly on healthcare approaches to addressing gun violence and work closely with communities affected by gun violence.

The Bradley Foundation is a private grantmaking foundation that honors the principles and example of its namesakes, Lynde and Harry Bradley, by pursuing a mission to restore, strengthen, and protect the principles and institutions of American exceptionalism. The foundation has a rolling proposal process around grants for its Constitutional Order and Informed Citizens initiatives. Projects should have budgets between $25,000 and $200,000.