Skip to content
Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology

Join CSDE and eScience Institute for NICHD Decoding Maternal Morbidity Data Challenge

NICHD has just launched the Decoding Maternal Morbidity Data Challenge. This challenge invites teams of scholars to work together using the Nulliparous Pregnancy Outcomes Study: Monitoring Mothers-to-be (nuMoM2b) to design innovative approaches to improving maternal outcomes.  A full description of the challenge is below.  There is a $50,000 prize for each of 7 teams and for others up to $10,000 – prizes will be awarded by NICHD. CSDE and the eScience Institute have teamed up to support teams comprised of UW faculty and students (along with others outside of UW) who plan on participating in the challenge.  
  • If you are a UW faculty/student/staff interested in being on a team, but don’t yet have a team, please register here by July 31 and we’ll try to help you find/create a team.  Our form will ask you for your name, faculty/staff/student status, your department, your website, and your applicable skills and experiences for this data challenge.
  • If you have a team, register your team with CSDE by August 15 and let us know who is on your team (name & institution/unit & faculty/student/staff status) and whether you are looking for other people to join your team. All teams should have at least one UW faculty member. 
  • Registered teams that submit draft proposals to CSDE by September 24:
    • Will receive timely, expert reviews and feedback by October 1. This feedback should enhance every team’s competitiveness in the NICHD challenge.
    • Will be eligible for up to $5,000 in research funds from CSDE (these awards will be available to each of three highly qualified proposals).
CSDE’s scientific staff and faculty are available for consultation and discussion at any point in the process, email Tyler McCormick (tylermc@uw.edu) or csde_consult@uw.edu with inquiries. Don’t hesitate to reach out!  

Attend CSDE and DemSemx Panel Session on Academic Midlife!

CSDE is co-sponsoring panel talks on Academic Midlife with DemSemX, a coalition of population centers from across the U.S. This will be an exciting opportunity to learn about the career paths of eminent scholars after they received tenure. Within academia, there is a lot of focus and advice around getting tenure—understandably, as it represents a singular evaluation hurdle within tenure-granting institutions. Yet, academic careers can be long, and there are many decisions to be made after tenure about how to invest one’s time and energy. In the upcoming session on July 30th at 11am PT/2pm ET, Adam Gamoran (William T. Grant Foundation), Jennifer Glass (UT Austin), and Zhencaho Qian (Brown University) will discuss midlife in academia and how they have approached choices within their careers. The Zoom link for the event is here.

Irons and Raftery Publish New Findings On COVID-19 Prevalence in the United States

UW Statistics Doctoral Student Nicholas Irons and CSDE Affiliate Adrian Raftery recently published new research in PNAS  estimating the ‘true prevalence’ of COVID-19 in the US. Among other contributions, they introduce a statistical framework that incorporates key COVID-19 data from multiple sources to model the true prevalence of this disease in the United States and individual states. Their approach projects that in the U.S. as many as 60% of COVID-19 cases went undetected as of March 7, 2021, the last date for which the dataset they employed is available. To read more about the research, please see the article.

Fyall and Fowle in Seattle Times for Research on Housing Insecurity During Pandemic

CSDE Affiliate Rachel Fyall and CSDE Trainee Matt Fowle recently completed a report on COVID-19 impacts on low income tenants’ housing security in Washington State (report available here). Their report was highlighted on the front page of the Seattle Times on July 21, 2021. With funding from the UW’s West Coast Poverty Center and the Population Health Initiative, Fyall and Fowle find that the pandemic led to downward residential mobility, increased rental debt, and poorer housing quality for low-income households. The pandemic has exacerbated the negative impact of housing insecurity on health as tenants are spending more time in substandard housing that is harmful to their physical and mental health. Overall, households of color have been disproportionately affected by this worsening housing security, in particular Black and Latinx tenants. The eviction moratorium has likely been successful in preventing a surge in formal evictions during the pandemic. However, methods of informal evictions and forced moves, such as landlords changing door locks and refusing to renew leases, have significantly increased. Their study employed a mixed methods approach in partnership with the Tenants Union of Washington State, draws on semi-structured interviews (n=25) and a survey (n=410) with low-income tenants to examine the extent to which the COVID-19 pandemic and eviction moratoria have impacted housing security in Washington State.

Yuan Hsiao Defends Dissertation on Social Media and Political Action!

On Thursday, July 22, UW Sociology PhD Candidate Yuan Hsiao successfully defended his dissertation entitled, “How social media affects political action: the effects of digital network structures and motivations on movement participation.” His project was innovative and incisive, drawing on the expertise of an excellent committee that included Steven Pfaff (Chair), Kate Stovel, Emilio Zagheni and Jevin West (iSchool). The project takes on the implications of utilizing social media for political purposes, specifically support for and involvement in protest movements. Although most scholars agree that social media can propel political change,  the mechanisms underlying why social media affects political action remain unclear. Yuan’s dissertation uses micro and meso-level perspectives to examine these mechanisms. Drawing on the cases of the Sunflower [pro-democracy and national self-determination] Movement in Taiwan and Black Lives Matter Sacramento in the US, the dissertation assembles original survey data and digital trace data to unravel the psychological and network processes that underlie the mobilizing power of social media. Hsiao had a very productive experience in the Sociology department, publishing more than a dozen papers in top journals in three fields (sociology, communication, political science) and earning an MS in Statistics. He will be joining the Communication Department at the UW in the fall as an Assistant Professor.

*New* UW Synergistic Pilot AIDS Research Center (SPARC) Awards [Due August 9, 2021]

Applications are open for the UW Behavioral Research Center for HIV (BIRCH) Synergistic Pilot AIDS Research Center (SPARC) Awards. Letters of intent are due Monday, August 9, 2021. This award aims to support searchers to conduct work that examines mental health and associated conditions in the context of HIV. Successful awardees will be included in the SPARC Scholars program which includes monthly fellowships meetings, access to mentors across the UW BIRCH network, and opportunities to collaborate with other SPARC scholars. Some key details (please see the attached RFA for full details)
  • Direct costs: $8,000 per year for up to 2 years ($16,000 maximum for the 2-year duration, no more than $8,000/year)
  • Letter of intent due August 9, 2021
  • Eligibility check due August 9, 2021
  • Consultation with the Methods Core due August 13, 2021
  • Final application due August 22, 2021 at 11:59 PM
  • Notice of award by September 10, 2021
  • Period of performance: September 13, 2021 to August 30, 2023

Director, Research Core, University of Washington Harborview Injury Prevention and Research Center

Overview: The Harborview Injury Prevention and Research Center (HIPRC) is one of nine CDC funded injury control centers, doing impactful injury and violence control work for over 30 years. A dynamic organization, the HIPRC aims to reduce the harm from injury and violence. There is a unique leadership opportunity to lead the HIPRC Research Core.

The Research Core Director oversees respective work aligned with HIPRC mission and vision through research, education, training and outreach, serves on the HIPRC leadership committee, and importantly provide strategic direction to the Research Core. The Research Core Director will be responsible for the overall management and leadership of the Research Core, partnering with the Administrative Core for oversight of the research projects, partnering with the Training Core to strengthen interdisciplinary relationships and practices, partnering with the Outreach Core to translate and disseminate research project findings. The Research Director ensures all projects adhere to regulatory and ethical standards, and evaluates outcomes of the Research Core. The Research Core Director oversees staff and faculty and work products delivered by the Research core. The Research Core Director oversees the work of the HIPRC staff who maintain, assess, and report on basic data regarding Research Core activities, including projects developed, projects funded, success in meeting timelines and deliverables of projects, and academic and community dissemination. The Research Core Director will be a core member of the HIPRC.

The HIPRC Director appoints the HIPRC Research Core Director. Appointments are made for a one-year term and renewed annually based on an annual review. Appointments can be renewed without term limit based on meeting or exceeding expectations as described below.

Eligibility: Have the qualifications (MD, PhD or MD/PhD), expertise and experience to be Research Core Director. The candidate should have strong quantitative methodological skills and demonstrated leadership as well as a strong interest, experience or desire to develop funded research portfolio in injury and violence. The candidate should have excellent communication skills.

Compensation: FTE commensurate with expertise and experience

Duties:

Ø Have a visible and engaged presence at HIPRC

Ø Convene monthly working meetings to advance the work of the research core

Ø Lead development of policies and procedures for the research core

Ø Regularly (average minimum of 50%) participate in weekly work-in progress sessions

Ø Perform annual evaluations of research core staff

Ø Provide oversight of CDC ICRC exploratory projects, and CDC Center grant

Ø Collaborate with Training Core and Outreach Core Directors

If interested, please submit a cover letter and CV to:

Monica S. Vavilala, MD

Director, HIPRC

Email: vavilala@uw.edu