At CSDE we center graduate training as an essential pairing for accomplishing successful research. With support from UW College of Arts & Sciences our certificate program is thriving. Support from the Population Dynamics Branch at NICHD and NIH’s Office of Behavioral and Social Science Research, as well as a Shanahan Endowment, provides additional advanced data analytics training through a T32 fellowship or a Max Planck Fellowship. However, some of the most important resources for graduate students are the professional development ones, such as support for travel and research funding. These are only possible through individual donations to our gift funds. As you think about your end-of-year giving, please consider a gift to CSDE’s graduate training - it’s an important investment in the future of demography and CSDE.

Another valuable component of our research and training program is CSDE’s weekly seminar. This winter’s seminar series will include talks featuring Andrew Messamore (UW, Sociology), Karin Martin (UW, Public Policy), Avanti Adhia (UW, Nursing),  Sarah Komisarow (Duke, Public Policy & Economics), Michael Schultz (UW, Public Policy), Bussarawan (Puk) Teerawichitchainan (National University of Singapore, Sociology), Kristin Perkins (Georgetown University, Sociology), Gabriella Levy (UW, Political Science), Robert Crosnoe (The University of Texas at Austin, Sociology), and Jake Watson (UC San Diego, Sociology)

Join us in 2026 on Fridays at 12:30 pm in 360 Parrington Hall!

CSDE Affiliates Nicole Eisenberg (Social Development Research Group; The Center for Communities That Care),  Leo Morales (Latino Center for Health; General Internal Medicine), Griselda Martinez (Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences), Katarina Guttmannova (Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences) and co-authors recently published an article titled, “A Window Into the Lives of Rural Latinx Young Adults: A Qualitative Study of Adult Roles and Transitions” in the Journal of Community Psychology. Rural Latinx young adults identified milestones typical of young adults and diverse pathways into adulthood. They expressed positive and challenging sentiments regarding transitions, but mostly optimism about their futures. Researchers observed heterogeneity within and between ages, sexes, and generational statuses. Increasing work and educational opportunities for Latinx young adults in rural communities can help them navigate this transition.

Research by CSDE Affiliate Joan Casey (Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences) and CSDE Trainee Lauren Wilner on how the 2025 Los Angeles fires affected people’s health and how people navigated the health care system during an emergency was recently highlighted by UW Today. The underlying article was published in JAMA Health Forum. Casey, Wilner, and coauthors found that there were 8,032 excess outpatient respiratory visits and 3,375 excess virtual cardiovascular and respiratory visits, representing 27% to 44% higher than expected visits among the highly and moderately exposed groups exposed over the week following the LA fires’ ignition. Outpatient and virtual cardiovascular, injury, and neuropsychiatric visits were also elevated at the same time.

CSDE Affiliate Gregory Bratman (Environmental and Forest Sciences) recently published an article titled, “Why Nature Contact is Good for Us” in Trends in Cognitive Science. Bratman and his co-author James Gross (Stanford) summarize evidence that nature contact has impacts on negative and positive affective functioning, and discuss recent insights into explanatory pathways, including emotion regulation, psychoneuroimmunology, microbiome, sleep, and physical activity. The authors propose that nature contact is linked to affective functioning via these five interacting pathways at a variety of levels and argue that these pathways are not mutually exclusive.

A new blog from EPAR, which is led by CSDE Affiliate Leigh Anderson, introduces a new web-based tool for exploring agricultural, geospatial, and climate data from sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Developed by EPAR Postdoctoral Scholar Joaquin Mayorga and Research Assistant Professor Didier Alia under the Center on Risk and Inclusion in Food Systems (CRIFS), the Ag GeoSpatial Data Explorer (AgGeo) processes public data on-demand and delivers results through a web interface. AgGeo currently offers three layers that help researchers and policymakers understand climate variability and its agricultural implications at the national and sub-national levels: rainfall volumes, dry days, and agro-ecological zones. The teams will continue working to expand AgGeo with additional countries and data layers, enabling broader geographic coverage.

RSF: Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences calls for articles for a special double issue celebrating the 25th Anniversary of the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCWS).  RSF seeks papers that draw on diverse sources of data, including the FFCWS, and other data (surveys, administrative data, qualitative data), and a range of methods to engage with the major themes studied within the FFCWS: how contemporary families are structured and function; how children develop and transition to adulthood; and what family and contextual factors shape their trajectories. RSF is especially interested in work from emerging scholars and on topics at the cutting edge of family, mobility, and the life course. Prospective contributors should submit a CV and an abstract no later than 5 PM EST on January 7, 2026.

The 2026 Natural Hazards Workshop will be held from June 14-17, 2026, at the Omni Interlocken Hotel in Broomfield, Colorado. The workshop will be organized around the theme Stronger Together: Coalitions for Disaster Risk Reduction. The Researchers Meeting Organizing Committee is now accepting submissions for research presentations and roundtable discussion. The Practitioners Meeting Organizing Committee is also accepting submissions for abstracts. Both calls will be open through January 14, 2026.

The goal of this year’s Workshop is to identify how we can unite more people around the cause of disaster risk reduction. Attendees will learn about the pathways to building and sustaining coalitions as well as measurable outcomes that have resulted from these efforts. 

Organization: Society for Research in Child Development

Award amount: $25,000

Sponsor deadline: 01/09/2026

Description: In tribute to Vicki’s role as a guiding light in the early careers of many distinguished scientists, the Victoria S. Levin Award has been established. Its aim is to foster early career success in achieving funding for research that is informed by developmental science to address concerns affecting the early foundations of children’s mental health. The Award will add measurably to Vicki’s dream of a society in which all children are protected from disabling mental health problems by getting the healthiest start in life. (read more)

The call for papers is now open for the upcoming conference “Kinship Structures, Dynamics, and Inequalities,” which will take place on June 8-9, 2026 at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR) in Rostock, Germany. The event is organized by the IUSSP Scientific Panel on Kinship Structures, Dynamics and Inequalities; MPIDR; NYU Abu Dhabi; Pennsylvania State University; and the National University of Singapore. Extended abstracts (maximum two pages, PDF) must be submitted via the conference website by January 12.

The Young Scientist Summer Program (YSSP) at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), is currently accepting applications to its 2026 program. The closing date is January 12, 2026 at midnight CET.

The program, which takes place from June to August, is designed for PhD students (ideally about 2 years prior to receiving their PhD) working on a topic compatible with ongoing research at IIASA and a wish to explore the policy implications of their work.

The Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR) is inviting applications from qualified and highly motivated students for a Summer Research Visit. The goal of the Population and Social Data Science Summer Incubator Program is to enable discovery by bringing together data scientists and population scientists to work on focused, intensive and collaborative projects of broad societal relevance. 

Abstract submissions are now open for the 2026 Data-Intensive Research Conference. The 2026 conference theme is Novel Data Linkages and Innovative Life Course Research. Enriching population data through data linkage creates novel data sources that can shed light on life course processes. Linking across time allows for the examination of transitions and trajectories and linking to contextual information situates the experiences of individuals and populations in their environments. Review the call for proposals and submit an abstract.

• Research Awards – up to $15,000
• Global Learning - Study Abroad/Away - up to $5,000 per year
• Global Learning - Teaching and Curriculum - up to $2,000
• Global Learning - COIL - up to $2,000

Organization: Caplan Foundation for Early Childhood

Award amount: Undisclosed award amount, but past amounts have averaged around $50,000.

Sponsor deadline: 01/31/2026

Description: The Caplan Foundation for Early Childhood is an incubator of promising research and development projects that appear likely to improve the welfare of young children, from infancy through 7 years, in the United States. Welfare is broadly defined to include physical and mental health, safety, nutrition, education, play, familial support, acculturation, societal integration and childcare. (read more)

NextGenPop is an undergraduate program in population research that trains and nurtures the next generation of population scientists. The program includes a 2-week, in-person, on-campus summer experience and subsequent virtual components focused on research and professional development. The University of Minnesota is hosting the summer 2026 program in Minneapolis, MN, from June 7 – 19. Participants receive a $1,000 stipend as well as funds to cover travel and living expenses. For more information, please visit the website and application page.

The INVEST Conference 2026 is accepting abstract submissions through February 9, 2026. The conference theme is “Building equal societies: from scientific findings to societal transformation”. INVEST 2026 will take place May 8-9, 2026 in Turku, Finland.

The INVEST Conference is an interdisciplinary meeting point for researchers who are committed to understanding and reducing social inequalities. We warmly invite researchers from all career stages to submit their work and join us in Turku next spring. 

Organization: Templeton World Charity Foundation

Award amount: $5-20 million overall

Sponsor deadline: 02/13/2026

Description: The Templeton World Charity Foundation is looking for ideas to form the basis of future funding priorities aligned with the Foundation’s purpose. Ideas should be bold and innovative, with the potential to deepen or expand our understanding of ultimate reality and what it means to be human. We seek ideas for rigorous research programs that can impact how we each see the world and our place within it. (read more)

The LIVES Centre (the Swiss Centre of expertise in life course research) is launching the ‘Good Life’ Data Challenge, a large-scale collaboration using the Swiss Household Panel (SHP) to address a key question: What predicts the feeling of having lived a happy, meaningful, and interesting (psychologically rich) life thus far?

The call can be found here and the deadline for submissions is February 15, 2026.

We are inviting you to submit contributions to the Special Collection of Demographic Research on the “De/Re-institutionalization of Asian Families“, organized by Lake Lui, Bussarawan Puk Teerawichitchainan, and Adam Ka-lok Cheung. Submissions to this collection are possible from November 1, 2025 until February 28, 2026. Please find more information on the collection’s description and goals as well as on submission procedures here.

Submit your work for the 2026 Annual IAPHS Conference in Portland, OR!

Theme: Reimagining Population Health Science to Build Trust and Influence​
​Dates: September 29 – October 2, 2026
​Submission window: December 2, 2025 – March 10, 2026

Join us as we explore how rigorous, relevant science can rebuild trust and drive meaningful change.

Award amount: $200,000

Sponsor deadline: 03/11/2026

Description: The Russell Sage Foundation’s (RSF) program on Social, Political, and Economic Inequality supports innovative research on the factors that contribute to social, political, and economic inequalities in the U.S., and the extent to which those inequalities affect social, political, psychological, and economic outcomes such as educational and labor market access and opportunities, social and economic mobility within and across generations, and civic participation and representation. (read more)

Award amount: $100,000

Sponsor deadline: 04/01/2026

Description: The Russell Sage Foundation (RSF), in collaboration with the Criminal Justice program at Arnold Ventures (AV) is pleased to announce its first annual grants competition for early-career scholars. Our goal is to cultivate a pipeline of researchers conducting causal research on the criminal justice system. Criminal justice policies and practices include the work of police, courts, jails, prisons, probation and parole, and immigration detention.  (read more)

CSDE and the UW Libraries partnered on the purchase of Dewey Data which 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. Follow this link to learn about how to register.

Since the start of our campus subscription in June, several new data sets have been added to the platform. NatureQuant provides access to a NatureScore dataset that estimates the amount and quality of nature and associated environmental conditions at any location in the US.

IPUMS released three data updates. NHGIS released its fifth set of GIS boundary files for 1980 census blocks. IPUMS CPS released the September 2025 monthly data. IPUMS CPS is also pleased to announce the availability of an extended time series of the Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM). IPUMS IHGIS has released population censuses for Azerbaijan 2009, Kenya 2019, and Nigeria 2006, and agricultural census data for South Africa 2007.

Are you preparing a renewal, resubmission, or upcoming NIH grant application? Resources are now available from an October 2025 virtual workshop by ICPSR designed to help you navigate the requirements of the NIH’s Data Management and Sharing (DMS) Policy.

The workshop slides cover the essential components of creating an effective DMS Plan and highlight the value of transparent data sharing. You’ll gain insights into the NIH’s data sharing policies, learn how to de-identify and prepare both restricted- and public-use datafiles,