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CSDE Computational Demography Working Group (CDWG) Hosts Lizzy Pelletier on Using Tools from Data Science to Enhance Administrative Records (5/10/2023)

On May 10 from 3-4pm Lizzy Pelletier, a PhD candidate at the Evans School of Public Policy and Governance and CSDE T32 Fellow (UW) will join CDWG to discuss the use of administrative data for demography and policy research and describe her work-in-progress on making administrative records more useful for researchers. She will describe her work assessing different methods of imputing demographic characteristics in Washington merged administrative records, her early work on converting residential address histories into household groupings, and concluding with some thoughts on the implications of this work for policy-relevant research.

 

Isabelle Cohen Took Up CSDE’s Offer of a Mock Review Panel to Help Strengthen a Grant Application!

If you’re en route to a full draft of an application — to NIH, or NSF, or beyond — and you think a mock panel review could help you out, contact Development Core director Steve Goodreau (goodreau@uw.edu).  Recently, CSDE Affiliate Isabelle Cohen (Assistant Professor, Evans School) took advantage of a mock review panels for an NIH R21 proposal examining the long-term and indirect effects of a highly successful intervention to delay adolescent marriage in Northern Nigeria. Contributing their extensive insights to the review were Susan Graham (UW Global Health), Jennifer Glick (Penn State), and Joelle Abramowitz (Michigan). Says Dr. Cohen, “The panel was an exceptional opportunity for feedback. I’m grateful to all the panelists for their constructive comments and to CSDE for impeccable organization and facilitation. I’d recommend the process to anyone looking to strengthen an application.”

CSDE Computational Demography Working Group (CDWG) Hosts Lizzy Pelletier on Using Tools from Data Science to Enhance Administrative Records (5/10/2023)

On May 10 from 3-4pm Lizzy Pelletier, a PhD candidate at the Evans School of Public Policy and Governance and CSDE T32 Fellow (UW) will join CDWG to discuss the use of administrative data for demography and policy research and describe her work-in-progress on making administrative records more useful for researchers. She will describe her work assessing different methods of imputing demographic characteristics in Washington merged administrative records, her early work on converting residential address histories into household groupings, and concluding with some thoughts on the implications of this work for policy-relevant research.

 

Martin Wins 2023 Michael Little Early Career Award for Human Biology

CSDE Affiliate Melanie Martin (Anthropology) has just won the Michael Little Early Career Award from the Human Biology Association. The award is only made to one early career scholar per year and Martin’s groundbreaking work on reproductive health and maternal health in the lab and the field has set her apart from the rest of her peers in the field.  Melanie’s current work is very broad reaching and includes scientific investigations in the area of human biology and population health, including biomarker-based studies of trauma from early life war exposure in Vietnam on later life health and aging; sleep health among people experiencing homelessness in Seattle; and health and aging within a longitudinal cohort of former Seattle elementary school students from the 1980s. Melanie is a highly productive and creative scholar and we’re so lucky she is in our midst and setting the pace for the field! Read about the award here. Congratulations Melanie!

Washington State Labor Research Grant (WSLRG) (Due 5/22/23)

Each year, the Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies seeks proposals for policy-oriented research on aspects of labor directly relevant to policymakers in Washington State. All University of Washington faculty,  full-time and lecturer, and UW graduate students  sponsored by a faculty member are eligible to apply.

Up to $15,000 is available for each grant. The full amount is sufficient to cover the salary and benefits cost of a quarterly R.A. appointment. Funding includes a tuition waiver for graduate employees. Proposals requesting funding for student salaries will be given priority.

We also ask researchers to consider and address the following in their proposals, as appropriate: 

  • Please address how your project will use ethical research methods, including identifying the relationships you have with the population(s) you’re proposing to study and your own positionality in relation to the research process and research project.

  • If applicable, will research participants and participating organizations provide input on your proposed methods before the study begins? Will they review the findings before they are publicly available? Will contributors, including interviewees, be compensated?

Proposals on the following topics will receive priority:

  • Race and/or gender as they pertain to labor and workforce issues.
  • Impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on workers in Washington State.
  • Aspects of labor force employment, wages, conditions (including health and pension benefits), and/or unionization.
  • Local policies to address the impacts of trade, outsourcing, off-shoring subcontracting, automation, or technology.
  • Policies of unions and professional organizations to expand or preserve marketable skills and quality production.
  • Problems facing contingent, casual or gig workers, and employment-related aspects of poverty and/or discrimination.
  • Historical work that has direct impact upon contemporary policy.
  • International case studies and/or comparative research relevant to Washington State.

A subcommittee of the Standing Committee and staff of the Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies will select the Washington State Labor Research Grant recipients, who will be  announced at the Bridges Center’s annual awards celebration.

Join the Bridges Center Next Thursday (May 11th) to Learn More About the Washington State Labor Research Grant (WSLRG) (Due 5/22/23)

Please join the Bridges Center next Thursday (May 11th) to learn more about the Washington State Labor Research Grant (WSLRG). WSLRG application materials are due Monday, May 22nd. The meeting will include space for questions about the application process, examples of past WSLRG recipients’ projects, and more! If you have questions or want to discuss the WSLRG further and are not available next Thursday at 3:30 pm to join, please reach out to me to schedule a time to talk. The required registration link is here.

 

 

Raftery and Co-Authors Publish New Book on Model-Based Clustering!

CSDE Affiliate Adrian Raftery and co-authors have published their new book “Model-Based Clustering, Classification, and Density Estimation Using mclust in R” by Chapman & Hall. The book provides a systematic statistical approach to clustering, classification, and density estimation via mixture modeling. The model-based framework allows the problems of choosing or developing an appropriate clustering or classification method to be understood within the context of statistical modeling. The mclust package for the statistical environment R is a widely adopted platform implementing these model-based strategies. The package includes both summary and visual functionality, complementing procedures for estimating and choosing models.

CSDE Seminar: A Panel on Global & Interdisciplinary Insights on Gender and Empowerment

Join CSDE this week for a panel on Global & Interdisciplinary Insights on Gender and Empowerment with Isabelle Cohen (Evans School of Public Policy and Governance), Arjee Restar (Epidemiology and Health Systems and Population Health), Emma Riley (Economics).

For this panel, three CSDE Affiliates and UW faculty offer their perspectives on how they frame their research agendas to understand better gender and empowerment in different contexts around the globe.  Arjee Restar will discuss conceptual frameworks for understanding health disparities among transgender and nonbinary people in the US and Asia.  Emma Riley will discuss research in Kenya experimentally addressing economic and psychological constraints to women’s empowerment. Isabelle Cohen will discuss an experimental evaluation of a bundled, community-focused intervention on child marriage in Nigeria.

CSDE Seminar: A Panel on Global & Interdisciplinary Insights on Gender and Empowerment

Join CSDE this week for a panel on Global & Interdisciplinary Insights on Gender and Empowerment with Isabelle Cohen (Evans School of Public Policy and Governance), Arjee Restar (Epidemiology and Health Systems and Population Health), Emma Riley (Economics).

For this panel, three CSDE Affiliates and UW faculty offer their perspectives on how they frame their research agendas to understand better gender and empowerment in different contexts around the globe.  Arjee Restar will discuss conceptual frameworks for understanding health disparities among transgender and nonbinary people in the US and Asia.  Emma Riley will discuss research in Kenya experimentally addressing economic and psychological constraints to women’s empowerment. Isabelle Cohen will discuss an experimental evaluation of a bundled, community-focused intervention on child marriage in Nigeria.

Hill Receives Funding to Support New Study on Paid Family and Medical Leave

CSDE Affiliate Heather Hill received a budget proviso from the WA State Employment Security Department (ESD) to support a study at the Evans School to examine job protection for users of the Paid Family and Medical Leave (PFML) program.  Professor Hill will be the primary investigator of the study, which will involve administrative data analysis and interviews with workers across the state. This is another extension of work