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Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology

CSDE Welcome Four More Faculty and Regional Affiliates!

CSDE’s Executive Committee is pleased to introduce four of our new UW Faculty Affiliates:

  • Zack Almquist– Assistant Professor, Sociology, University of Washington, Seattle. Almquist’s research centers on the development and application of mathematical, computational and statistical methodology to problems and theory of social networks, demography, education, homelessness, and environmental action and governance. His research has been published in highly regarded peer-reviewed journals such as the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics, Sociological Methodology, Mathematical Population Studies, American Journal of Human Biology and Political Analysis. Almquist joins CSDE as a faculty affiliate, and currently serves on CSDE’s Executive Committee, and as CSDE’s Core Training Director and co-chair of CSDE’s Primary Research Area – Demographic Measurements and Methods.
  • Nora Kenworthy– Associate Professor, Nursing and Health Studies; Adjunct Associate Professor, Global Health; Adjunct Associate Professor, Anthropology, University of Washington, Bothell. Kenworthy’s research explores the politics of global health governance, the sociopolitical impacts of HIV initiatives in southern Africa, and the changing roles of philanthrocapitalism and corporations in shaping global health programming. She is the author of Mistreated: The Political Consequences of the Fight Against AIDS in Lesotho (2017, Vanderbilt University Press). Kenworthy joins CSDE as a faculty affiliate.
  • Susan Schaffnit – Researcher in Demography, Pennsylvania State University. Schaffnit’s research is interdisciplinary, pulling on methods and theory from evolutionary anthropology, demography, and population health science. She currently conducts research on early marriage, women’s fertility and health in Tanzania, Bangladesh, and India. Schaffnit joins CSDE as a regional affiliate.
  • Yeon Jung Yu– Assistant Professor, Anthropology, Western Washington University.Yu’s research interests lie in social networks, sex work, HIV/AIDS, drug use, and social stigma. Her work is focused on extensive field research on “hidden” rural-to-urban migrant women working in the sex trade in contemporary China. She is currently writing a book based on her dissertation with the working title Enmeshed: Social Networks and the Integration of Female Sex Workers in Post-Socialist China. Yu  joins as a CSDE regional affiliate.

These affiliates bring a wealth of knowledge and unique approaches that enhances our community of demographers and collectively advances population science. We look forward to supporting each of them as they pursue their research. You can learn more about their individual research interests by visiting their affiliate pages, linked above.

If you are interested in becoming an affiliate or you know of someone who should become one, you can invite them to do so by directing them to this page. Affiliate applications are reviewed quarterly, by CSDE’s Executive Committee.

Hirschman and Vignau Loria to speak at 2nd PAA Presidential Webinar [03-05-21]

CSDE Affiliate Charlie Hirschman will be featured in the second of a series of webinar panels featuring three PAA Past Presidents reviewing the main points of their respective PAA Presidential addresses and commenting on how demographic and social changes have evolved since then. Could they give essentially the same address today and have it still be true? Why or why not?  Past president panelists include Reynolds Farley (1988), Anne Pebley (1998), and Charles Hirschman (2005). Following the presentations,  there will be discussions/questions from 3 distinguished graduate students, including CSDE Fellow Maria Vignau Loria. Upon registering (see below), you will get a link to the Zoom event and also a link the PAA YouTube channel that will include  video recording of the event. For more information click here.

*New* Join CSDE’s Family Planning Research Working Group

CSDE aims to convene and host a working group that seeks to bring together an interdisciplinary group of health scientists/practitioners with social scientists to read and discuss current research about family planning, as well as to workshop participants’ research projects (no matter what stage those projects). The purpose of the working group is to broaden and deepen our understanding of family planning decisions and behaviors through integration of social scientific insights, health outcomes, and clinical experiences. The motivation for the working group resides in several observations – family planning adoption has remained stalled in many parts of the world, conceptual challenges remain with regards to ideas of unmet need or discontinuation, and women and their partners have a dynamic and contingent relationship to family planning that is not well-served by current clinical practices or interventions. We welcome participants with similar interests in reading, discussing, and workshopping projects around these ideas.   The working group plan is to meet 2-3 times per quarter for about 90 minutes. Those interested in participating can sign up here.

*Don’t Miss* CSDE’s Winter 2021 Lightning Talks and Poster Session!

Mark your calendars for March 12th, 2021 at 12:30 PM for CSDE’s Winter 2021 Lightning Talks and Poster Session. Seven graduate students from the Evans School of Public Policy and Governance, Economics, Sociology, Epidemiology and the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research are eager to present their research in two-minute lightning talks and discuss their work with you during poster presentations. The session will take place on Zoom.  You are sure to learn something new from the these very interesting presentations, which will cover a wide range of key topics in population science.

Come mingle with colleagues, meet the next generation of population scientists, vote on the best poster, and support CSDE’s trainees!

Join CSDE Workshop on “Agent Based Modeling in R”

CSDE is offering a workshop on  “Agent Based Modeling in R” on March 5th. CSDE Research Scientist Dr. Deven Hamilton will lead the workshop. Students, faculty, and staff are all welcome to register for our workshops and we welcome registrants from outside the University of Washington as well. If you miss a workshop, recordings will be available on our website for 3 months after the workshop. To register, click here.

The workshop will  provide a basic introduction to Agent-Based Modeling (ABM) and will be divided into three sections. The first section will review and discuss the basic elements of ABMs and their application in a variety of fields including demography, sociology, anthropology, political science and public health. The second section of the course will work through examples of an ABM and reproduce the models in R. Finally, the workshop will discuss an example of a complex ABM using the statnet and EpiModel R packages. By the end of the workshop, participants will be able to describe the unique features of ABM that make them distinct from other modeling approaches, write R functions to produce a simple ABM, and be familiar with additional R packages that provide functionality for ABM.

*New* NSF Program Solicitation for Leveraging Deep Learning Expertise

The NSF Directorates MPS, CISE, ENG, and the Social, Behavior, and Economics Division (SBE) will jointly sponsor research collaborations among mathematicians, statisticians, electric engineers, and computer scientists to tackle the most challenging theoretical questions in the general area of the Mathematical and Scientific Foundations of Deep Learning. Deep learning has met with impressive empirical success that has fueled fundamental scientific discoveries and transformed numerous application domains of artificial intelligence. Our incomplete theoretical understanding of the field, however, impedes accessibility to deep learning technology by a wider range of participants. Confronting our incomplete understanding of the mechanisms underlying the success of deep learning should serve to overcome its limitations and expand its applicability. The NSF program solicitation can be found at NSF-21-561. For timely responses to your questions, please direct your email messages to the Program Directors on the MoDL Working Group at modl@nsf.gov
To learn more about it, join a webinar on March 5, 2021, 1-2pm EST. The SCALE MoDL Management Team representing several NSF Divisions, including SBE/SES and SBE/BCS, will host the webinar. Any members of the community who are interested in this funding opportunity are invited to participate in the webinar. The webinar will have an open question and answer period for your questions submitted anonymously through the Zoom webinar Q&A feature. Participants may also submit questions in advance through the registration form or by sending an email to modl@nsf.gov.
Please use this link to register.