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Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology

*New* West Coast Poverty Center’s (WCPC) Economic Security Roundtable: Daniel Schneider on New Evidence on Labor Standards Compliance and the Complaints They Generate (05/21/26)

Join the West Coast Poverty Center’s (WCPC) next Economic Security Roundtable meeting, on May 21 , from 9:30-11 AM. Dr. Daniel Schneider (Harvard University, Shift Project) will give a presentation titled, “Who Raises Their Voice? New Evidence on Labor Standards Compliance and the Complaints They Generate.” Based on surveys of workers in the food services and retail industries, this research provides data on the incidence of various labor standards violations and the number of complaints filed. The researchers explore what factors might help explain the observed gap between the experience of a violation and making a complaint, including the role of union membership. Dr. Schneider and local respondents will discuss these findings and their potential implications for labor standards enforcement. Register here.

CSDE Announces Charles and Josephine Hirschman Award for Student Research (05/22/26)

CSDE is thrilled to announce the Charles and Josephine Hirschman Award for student research. CSDE students may apply for up to $2,000 in funds to directly support a research project. Funds may support activities such as the cost of conducting fieldwork, data purchases, the hiring of a translator or transcriber, or participant rewards in surveys. Be creative! All funds must be spent during the 2026-27 academic year and may not be used to pay tuition or your own salary. Applications are due Friday, May 22, 2026. Apply here. A faculty advisor must approve of your application via this form.  Click read more to see details on eligibility and review criteria .

Eligibility: Applicants must by UW graduate students who are affiliated with CSDE in at least one of the following ways:

1) are a current or former CSDE T32 fellow,

2) are currently enrolled at the UW and in the Graduate Certificate in Demographic Methods,

3) are currently enrolled at the UW and have completed the Graduate Certificate in Demographic Methods, or

4) are currently enrolled at the UW and have taken at least one of the following courses: of CSDE 513 or CSDE 533.

Each applicant must provide:

  • a 1-2 page research proposal,
  • a budget from the provided template, and
  • their CV.
  • Applications will not be accepted without approval from a faculty mentor.

If awarded, funding is contingent upon proof of IRB approval or proof that the project is deemed not human subjects research.

Review Criteria: The Award Committee will review applications according to the NIH’s review criteria of significance, approach, innovation, investigators, and environment, as well as the impact of the award on your own personal research and professional goals. Our rubric contains more information.

*New* Unrealized Promises: A Conversation with Lauren Olsen on Medical Education and Social Inequality (05/22/26)

Join UW Medicine, Department of Bioethics and Humanities on May 22 from 9-10:30 AM in the Seattle Health Sciences Education Building on or Zoom for a conversation with Lauren D. Olsen, PhD, MA on medical education and social inequality. Olsen’s scholarship examines how medical school curricula and training structures can perpetuate inequities in care. Drawing from her new book, “Curricular Injustice: How U.S. Medical Schools Reproduce Inequalities“ (Columbia University Press, 2024), she will share insights into reforms that shape the future of physician training and healthcare outcomes. Register here to join by Zoom.

Olsen is an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology at Temple University. Her award‑winning research on the sociology of medicine has been
published in leading journals, including Journal of Health and Social Behavior, Social Science & Medicine, and Social Problems. Learn more at laurendolsen.com.

Census Bureau Geography Division Virtual Conference: GeoForum (05/19/26 – 05/20/26)

The U.S. Census Bureau is hosting a free, 2-day virtual conference on the science, technology, and innovation behind Census Bureau geography and geospatial data. Sessions will cover partnership programs, mapping, metadata, Census geography and more; IPUMS USA and IPUMS NHGIS are excited to participate in the program on May 20 as part of a session on accessing census data. View the program and register on the GeoForum webpage.

UW Recognizes Hajat’s Mentorship with Marsha L. Landolt Distinguished Graduate Mentor Award

CSDE Affiliate Anjum Hajat (Epidemiology) has been named a recipient of the 2026 UW Marsha L. Landolt Distinguished Graduate Mentor Award, This award. recognizes a faculty member who excels at the intense one-on-one teaching that is the hallmark of graduate study. First bestowed in 1999, the award honors the memory of Marsha L. Landolt, who served as dean of the Graduate School from 1996 to 2004. Congratulations, Dr. Hajat!

The Promises and Pitfalls of Social Scientific Instruction in U.S. Medical Schools – Lauren D. Olsen

We look forward to welcoming Lauren D. Olsen from Temple University on Friday, May 22 from 12:30 – 1:30 PM, in Parrington Hall 360 and on Zoom (Register Here). This seminar is co-sponsored by the Population Health Initiative and the UW Medicine Department of Bioethics and Humanities. Follow this link to sign up for a 1:1 meeting with Dr. Olsen during their visit on May 22.

Medical schools have increasingly incorporated the humanities and social sciences into their teaching, seeking to make future physicians more empathetic and more concerned with equity. In practice, however, these good intentions have not translated into critical consciousness. Humanities and social sciences education has often not only failed to deliver on its promise but even entrenched the inequalities that the medical profession set out to address.

Lauren D. Olsen examines how U.S. medical school faculty conceived, designed, and implemented their vision of education, tracing the failures of curricular reform. She argues that the way medical students encounter humanities and social sciences material in practice has served to reinforce the status quo by teaching them to individualize systemic problems. Students learn to avoid advocacy, critique, and attention to structural inequalities—while also gathering that it will be up to them to find coping strategies for problems from burnout to systemic racism. Olsen pinpoints the limitations of how clinical faculty understand the humanities and social sciences, arguing that in structuring and teaching courses, they assumed, reinforced, and glorified a white, elite model of the medical profession. Showing how deeply intertwined professional and social identities are in medical education, Curricular Injustice has significant implications for how occupations, organizations, and institutions shape understandings of inequality.

Lauren D. Olsen joined the Department of Sociology within the College of Liberal Arts at Temple University as a faculty member in 2019. Before starting as an Assistant Professor at Temple University, Dr. Olsen completed her PhD in Sociology at the University of California San Diego (UCSD), where she also received her Master’s degree in the same field. Prior to that, she received her Bachelor’s of Arts degree in Religion from Columbia University. As a sociologist of medicine, Dr. Olsen’s award-winning research has been published in flagship journals, like the Journal of Health and Social Behavior, Social Science and Medicine, and Social Problems and has a new book out with Columbia University Press (2024), entitled Curricular Injustice: How U.S. Medical Schools Reproduce Inequalities.

 

Global Health in Context: A Webinar on Linking Census Data to Health Surveys using IPUMS DHS and IHGIS (05/20/26)

We are excited to announce a new feature that enables users to easily link contextual data from the censuses in IPUMS IHGIS to individual-level records in IPUMS DHS. Linking the fine-grained geography of IHGIS with the topical richness of DHS facilitates a wide variety of interdisciplinary research. This webinar will provide overviews of the IPUMS DHS and IHGIS collections, introduce the new linking features, and explore examples of research facilitated by the linkages. Register for Linking with IPUMS DHS and IHGIS webinar on May 20, 2026 at 8 AM PT..

New MDPI Journal Populations: Read Recent Articles and Consider Submitting

MDPI launched a new journal Populations roughly one year ago and invite submissions from CSDE Affiliates and Trainees.  Here is some information about publishing with them. Some recently published articles include: