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Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology

*New* ICONICS Webinar on Launching the Scenario Evolution Process (02/12/26)

The International Committee On New Integrated Climate Change Assessment Scenarios (ICONICS)  invites you to join a webinar on 12 February 2026, Launching the Scenario Evolution Process. This webinar will introduce the Scenario Evolution Process (SEP) and provide information on how to engage with the development of the next generation of community scenarios.  The webinar will be recorded for those unable to attend and posted to the ICONICS website. An additional Q&A session will also be held the first week of March.

To register for the webinar and hear more about options of staying engaged in the evolution process going forward use this link.

Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) have provided a widely adopted foundation for climate-centric research, yet their design limits applicability in the context of today’s interconnected global challenges. To address these limitations, the ICONICS has initiated SEP: a community-led initiative to critically reassess, adapt, and potentially transform the SSPs to a more fit-for-purpose framework that supports research on resilient, equitable, and sustainable development and develop socioeconomic scenarios that have applicability beyond the climate change domain.  
Speakers will provide detail on the motivation, vision and process for SEP, with information on several concordant activities:
  •  A multi-stage survey to both scenario producers, as well as users of scenario-based information. This engagement aims to broaden perspectives, incorporate feedback from a broad audience, and reduce Global North bias.  
  • An academic literature exchange, incorporating recommendations towards an updated scenario framework.  
  • A series of workshops and conference sessions to engage with a diverse range of communities   

 

Global Call for Ideas: Templeton World Charity Foundation (02/13/26)

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.
Recognizing that these discoveries may come from diverse sources we seek ideas that might illuminate and point to discoveries in three of our core areas of interest:
  1. the fundamental processes, structures and constituents of the natural world
  2. what it is to be human, as well as the various ways human beings can progress spiritually through their understanding and pursuit of virtues such as love, creativity, gratitude, forgiveness, spirituality, connection, and other positive concepts.
  3. the nature of transcendent divinity and human responses to it.
Central to TWCF’s mission is our commitment to meaning, purpose, and truth as realities that can be known and pursued. TWCF can fund curiosity-driven research on big questions that expand the horizons of humanity’s perspectives, without necessarily expecting definitive answers. We welcome bold ideas that have potential to generate new insights, even if those ideas may be seen as too risky or contrarian by other funders.
As well as discovery-focused research, we are also open to ideas for more applied programs in specific topics (see Core Funding Areas) that will lead to long-term future benefits for humanity.
Our current priorities and funded projects exemplify, but do not limit, the range and types of topics that we are interested in. A full description of the scope of our work can also be found in the descriptions of our Core Funding Areas (see section below). We invite ideas from a wide range of disciplines, spanning the natural and social sciences, as well as humanities like philosophy and theology. Interdisciplinary ideas that integrate insights from different perspectives through open-minded inquiry are strongly encouraged.
Eligibility:
Faculty & PIs

Call for Contributions: The ‘Good Life’ Data Challenge (02/15/26)

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.  The deadline for submissions is February 15, 2026.

We invite researchers from across the social sciences to submit a theory-driven proposal (600-800 words) by February 15, 2026, using the online form provided in the call. Proposals may use any variables from the 1999-2025 waves of the SHP to predict responses to three new items that are currently fielded in the 2025 wave (data will only become available in 2026), in which respondents provide retrospective assessments of happiness, meaning, and psychological richness.

Selected teams will:

  • Be invited in spring 2026 to preregister their analysis plans and subsequently conduct their analyses once the 2025 SHP data are released in summer 2026.
  • Co-author a collective publication coordinated by the LIVES Centre, to be submitted to a leading international journal.
  • Receive CHF 1,000 per team upon submission of the final report.

Please consult the call for the timeline, selection criteria, and links to SHP documentation. 

Hajat Quoted on Health Effects of Air Pollution in The South Seattle Emerald

CSDE Affiliate Anjum Hajat (Epidemiology, CSDE Development Core Director) was quoted by The South Seattle Emerald on an article concerning air pollution in the Duwamish Valley. Community organizers are opposing a newly approved permit that allows a South End cement manufacturing plant to burn more tires for fuel.  Hajat discussed the health risks of air pollution and noted that residents of the Duwamish Valley, where 65% of residents are people of color and household incomes are among the lowest in the city, face multiple sources of air pollution.

Occupations, Careers, and Opportunity: A Structural Approach to Studying Economic Mobility over the Life Course – Michael Schultz

We are looking forward to hosting Michael Schultz from the University of Washington on Friday, February 6th in Parrington Hall 360 and on Zoom. This seminar is co-sponsored by the Population Health Initiative and the Evans School of Public Policy & Governance

A person’s work life is a major feature of the middle of the life course. A sociological approach focuses on how wages and other job rewards are tied to workers obtaining discrete positions. Consequently, the movement of workers between jobs and the work contexts of those jobs are primary explanations for inequality over the life course. The large number of possible transitions between jobs presents theoretical and methodological challenges. In this talk, I draw on several of my recent and ongoing research projects that use the 500 Census occupations to identify structural positions in the labor market and analyze occupational and wage mobility over the life course. Occupations are a meso-level unit of analysis that facilitates studying institutional job ladders, career continuity/discontinuity across job transitions, and changes in the availability and access to jobs associated with opportunity.

Michael Schultz is a Senior Research Scientist at the University of Washington’s Evans School of Public Policy & Governance. Schultz is a quantitative sociologist and social demographer who studies economic mobility, social policy, and workers’ careers. He uses a structural inequality approach that focuses on how institutions, like education systems, job ladders, and welfare state programs shape worker mobility by race, gender, and class. Schultz specializes in telling stories with data to provide insight into how workers and households navigate opportunities and constraints to advance their careers and gain economic security. Schultz is the PI on an NSF grant studying the job ladders in the STEM Skilled Technical Workforce and on a Strada Foundation grant investigating the occupational and wage outcomes of WA postsecondary school leavers. To date, his research is published in American Sociological Review, the Russell Sage Foundation Journal for the Social Sciences, Social Science Research, and Equitable Growth’s working paper series.

CSDE Winter 2026 Lightning Talks & Poster Session

When: March 6, 2025, 12:30 – 1:30pm PT

Where: 221 Raitt Hall

Please join us on March 6 for CSDE’s Winter 2026 Lightning Talk and Poster Session from 12:30 – 1:30 PST! The poster session and talk will take place in Raitt Hall Room 221 at the University of Washington. We will provide light snacks and refreshments. Please find more information on the event here!

Rocha Beardall Named Associate Editor of Youth & Society and a Finalist for the William T. Grant Scholars Class of 2031

 CSDE Affiliate Theresa Rocha Beardall’s (Sociology) contributions to her field were recently recognized in two ways. First, Rocha Beardall was selected to serve as an Associate Editor for Youth & Society, a multidisciplinary peer-reviewed journal that focuses on issues related to the 10-24 year old population. Second,Rocha Beardall was selected as one of eleven finalists for the William T. Grant Scholars Class of 2031. The Scholars Program began in 1982 and has a rich history of supporting the development of early-career researchers in the social, behavioral, and health sciences. Applicants for the Scholars Program propose five-year research and mentoring plans  that expand their expertise with new methods and content areas.