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Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology

Rocha Beardall Selected as William T. Grant Scholar Class of 2031

CSDE Affiliate Theresa Rocha Beardall (Sociology) has been named one of seven early career researchers in the newest class of William T. Grant Scholars. In 2025, the Puyallup Tribe signed a memorandum of understanding with thirteen public school districts to guide curriculum development on tribal culture and history, as part of Washington State’s mandated Since Time Immemorial curriculum. Alongside this MOU, the Puyallup Tribal Historic Preservation Department (THPD) is recovering Puyallup children’s boarding school records held by outside institutions for over a century to reclaim tribal authority over their educational narrative.
With the Scholars award, Rocha Beardall will collaborate with THPD in a tribally governed research partnership. The Puyallup Tribe will determine the research priorities and approach, from questions and methods to data infrastructure and dissemination, while Rocha Beardall expands her methodological expertise in supervised machine learning and develops digital infrastructure to analyze boarding school records and support curriculum development. “For too long, others have decided what counts as knowledge about Native communities in public education, often getting it wrong or leaving it out entirely. I’m thrilled to develop skills that support Native nations in reclaiming that authority and ensuring their data, stories, and knowledge systems shape what future generations learn,” Rocha Beardall said.

CSDE Workshop on Introduction to the Northwest Federal Statistical Research Data Center (NWFSRDC): Enabling Access to Confidential Microdata from U.S. Federal Government Agencies (04/22/26)

Join CSDE on Wednesday, April 22 from 12:30 – 1:30 PM  for a Workshop on the Northwest Federal Statistical Research Data Center (NWFSRDC) network is comprised by Census-managed secure computing labs within top educational and research institutions across the country where qualified researchers conduct approved statistical analysis on non-public data. These data are collected by various government agencies (Census Bureau, NCHS, BEA, BLS, SSA, etc.) and made available to local researchers through agreements with federal statistical agencies.

This workshop will give a general introduction to- the data available in the University of Washington’s Northwest FSRDC, some examples of work done with different kinds of data, and the process of requesting access to this data. The workshop will be online only, and a Zoom link for online attendance will be provided upon registration. Click Sign Up on the Trumba event page to register.

*New* CACHE Seminar: Using Flood and Interactive Mobility Data in Exposure Research (04/23/26)

Join CACHE on April 23 at 12 pm PT/3 pm ET for a virtual seminar on “Using Flood and Interactive Mobility Data in Exposure Research,” featuring James Elliott, Rice University, and Alex Priest, University of Alberta. This seminar provides an overview of how one can integrate diverse data sources to find, track, survey, and interview residents on the front lines of “climate retreat” nationwide (many of whom are aging homeowners). It highlights relevant challenges, emergent insights, and translation to web-based interactive tools.
More information can be found here.

Data Science and Demography Training (DSDT): Applications due 04/24/26

CSDE is pleased to announce the availability of 12-month fellowships supported by the NIH Training in Advanced Data Analytics (TADA) T32 fellowship program. These Data Science and Demography Training (DSDT) fellowships begin mid-September 2026. There are three openings for the DSDT fellowship program this year. The fellowship program is available to U.S. Citizens or Permanent Residents.  The goal of the training grant is to provide rigorous training in advanced data science methodologies for the next generation of behavioral, social science and population health researchers or to
provide advanced demographic training for data scientists. More information is available here.   Applications are due Friday, April 24, 2026, by 5:00 PM PT. 

 

CACHE at PAA 2026 Workshop Registration: Measuring Heat for Use in Population Research (05/06/26)

Heat is one of the most frequently examined environmental influences on population health, and a wide variety of data sources exist to measure exposure. This pre-PAA workshop, sponsored by the Center on Aging, Health, and Environment (CACHE), provides an overview of heat measures and examples of two, including hands-on experience with code available via the CACHE website. Participants will generate temperature exposure measures from publicly available data, as well as wet bulb temperatures. The Universal Thermal Climate Index data will also be demonstrated and linked to population data. Learn more and register here. This workshop will take place in St. Louis, Missouri on May 6, 1-5:30 PM CT . Please note you must be registered for PAA in order to attend.

The workshop’s first exercise uses data from two different sources: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) weather-stations and ERA5-Land Reanalysis from the European Union’s Copernicus Project. Both are publicly available. The workshop will review information on acquiring and cleaning daily temperature data for New York City, as an example. Key is that air temperature as well as wet bulb temperature exposure variables are generated, and at varying temporal resolution. On the CACHE website, the code is embedded in an R Markdown pdf file.

The second exercise demonstrates how to construct severe heat measures using the Universal Thermal Climate Index (UTCI, Copernicus ERA5-HEAT). It starts by showing data manipulation from raster (grid data) to a tabular dataset that obtains UTCI values for each municipality in Mexico as an example. Then, the data are mapped and analyzed as linked to population data. Finally, the number of days of severe heat (32°C UTCI and above) are generated. This code, also available on the CACHE website, is part of the demonstration CACHE project “Heat, Disability in older adults and Care” from El Colegio de Mexico.

Lead Instructors:

Dr. Frank Heiland, CUNY Institute for Demographic Research

Dr. Alex Mikulas, CACHE

Dr. Landy Sanchez, El Colegio de Mexico

Organizers: 

Lori Hunter, University of Colorado Boulder, and Deborah Balk, CUNY Institute for Demographic Research

Keep an eye out for an email in the coming weeks with additional details.

*New* CACHE Seminar: Tracking the Mortality Burden Associated with Extreme Weather Events in the United States (05/15/26)

Join CACHE on May 12 at 11 AM PT for a online seminar on, “Tracking the Mortality Burden Associated with Extreme Weather Events in the United States: Implications for Older Adult Health,” featuring Dr. Kai Chen of Yale School of Public Health. Extreme climate-related hazards, such as wildfire smoke, extreme temperatures (both heat and cold), floods, and drought, are increasingly recognized as major threats to human health and well-being in the United States. These events contribute to substantial premature mortality, which in turn imposes significant economic losses on society. However, the public often lacks clear, science-based information that captures the scale of these damages and makes them accessible across different regions. To address this gap, the Climate, Health, and Environment Nexus (CHEN) Lab at the Yale Center on Climate Change and Health recently developed a dashboard that attributes premature mortality in the contiguous United States to these extreme climate events: XToll: eXtreme-weather Toll Tracker. Register here.

Dr. Kai Chen will introduce the XToll dashboard and its underlying research on the national county-level mortality burden of heat, cold, wildfire smoke, floods, and drought. He will also highlight the health effects of non-optimal temperatures and wildfire smoke on older adults’ cardiovascular health, emphasizing the heightened vulnerability of aging populations to these environmental stressors. Extreme climate-related hazards, such as wildfire smoke, extreme temperatures (both heat and cold), floods, and drought, are increasingly recognized as major threats to human health and well-being in the United States. These events contribute to substantial premature mortality, which in turn imposes significant economic losses on society. More information can be found here.

Apply Now to CSDE’s NIH Grant Writing Summer Program (05/15/26)

The CSDE Development Core is once again hosting its annual Grant Writing Summer Program (GWSP) to assist scholars (UW postdocs, researchers, and professors affiliated or planning to affiliate with CSDE, as well as other researchers in the Seattle area) in preparing applications to the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Applications are now open and due May 15! More info here, and application page here. Note that the program is in person and meets once every two weeks, late June – mid Sep, on the UW Seattle campus. Final schedule is set based on the schedules of the selected participants.

Make sure to read all the FAQ’s. Past participants report great success, and lots of support and even fun along the way. Applications are due May 15. Additional questions?  Contact goodreau@uw.edu.

Program eligibility and costs (including one change from previous years):

  • Free: CSDE affiliates (UW and external)
  • Free: UW Faculty and research scientists (planning to affiliate with CSDE)
  • Free: UW-based post-docs writing K awards with one or more CSDE affiliates on their mentoring team
  • $7,500: Other researchers in the Seattle area
  • $7,500: Post-docs who are based outside UW, writing K awards with one or more CSDE affiliates on their mentoring team
  • Current graduate students are not eligible to apply.