Skip to content
Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology

*New* CSDE Computational Demography Working Group (CDWG): Lauren Woyczynski and Jessica Godwin (11/12/25)

When: November 12, 2025 from 10 – 11 am

Where: Raitt 223 and on Zoom

On November 12, CSDE’s Computational Demography Working Group will host CSDE Trainee Lauren Woyczynski (Sociology) and CSDE Staff Jessica Godwin (Statistical Demographer & Training Director).

The University of Washington Elections Database (UWED) project, led by CSDE Affiliate Scott Allard (Public Policy & Management) and CSDE External Affiliate Jake Grumbach (Berkeley), offers publicly available data on ballots, registered voters, and voting-age population at the precinct level in Washington from with differing temporal availability from 2007-2024. Funded by the state legislature, the UWED team standardizes these data across time and data type and adds enhancements using address geocoding and estimates of racial demographics using BISG. In this talk, CSDE Research Scientist Jessica Godwin and CSDE Trainee Lauren Woyczynski (Sociology) will discuss the data processing pipeline developed to address several pain points in the processing of UWED data, many of which are common to large-scale and heterogenous administrative data.

Lauren Woyczynski is a PhD student in the Sociology Department at the University of Washington. She also holds a Masters’ in Public Health from UW focused on Health Metrics and Evaluation. She has worked as a Data Scientist on the UW Elections Database since 2023. Her research interests span social demography, structural determinants of health, and computational methods. Her current research focuses on health disparities related to mass incarceration in the United States.

Jessica Godwin is a Statistical Demographer and the Training Director for the Demographic Methods Certificate Program with CSDE. In her role as a Statistical Demographer, she will support the research of CSDE Affiliates and Trainees via consulting and the organization and facilitation of CSDE Workshops. Dr. Godwin received her PhD in Statistics from the University of Washington in 2021 and also completed CSDE’s Graduate Certificate in Demographic Methods. She was also the recipient of two CSDE fellowships, one from NICHD and one from the Shanahan Endowment. Her dissertation work examined how to best estimate child mortality from various sources and to improve upon national and subnational estimates in places with sparse data. As part of that effort, she led a study with CSDE Affiliate Jon Wakefield published in Statistics in Medicine that developed space-time modeling techniques for subnational child mortality estimates in low and middle-income countries. Subnational estimations of child mortality for 22 countries developed in collaboration with UN IGME can be found at https://childmortality.org/. Her broad research interests are demography, Bayesian spatiotemporal methods, survey statistics, and the places where all of those things overlap. She was born and raised in Alabama and received her M.S. in Statistics at Auburn University. Her thesis, titled “Group lasso for functional logistic regression”, was advised by Nedret Billor. She also received a B.S. in Actuarial Science. To read more about Dr. Godwin, visit her website: https://jlgodwin.github.io/.

Dutch Demography Day 2026: Call for Papers (11/12/25)

The Netherlands Demographic Society (NVD) invites you to join the 18th edition of the Dutch Demography Day on Wednesday, February 4, 2026 in the Academy Building of Utrecht University (Domplein).

At the conference, the most recent findings in the field of population studies will be presented, including family and fertility, migrants and migration, health, mortality and longevity, population ageing, population growth and decline, and urbanization. The scientific programme comprises a Keynote Address, several rounds of parallel sessions and a poster session. All are in English.

Call for Abstracts/Proposals

Abstracts from a wide variety of disciplines, including sociology, economics, health, history and planning, are invited. Abstracts (max 300 words) can be submitted here until Wednesday November 12, 2025. Authors will be informed in December whether their abstract has been accepted for presentation in one of the parallel sessions or for the poster session. Authors who wish to only present and pitch a poster, instead of having an oral presentation in a parallel session, can indicate this preference when submitting an abstract.

You are also invited to come with a proposal for a session, workshop, panel discussion or else. Write us (demografiedag@gmail.com) if you have a proposal (300 words) for a 60- or 90-minute time slot (3 or 4 presentations).

Awards

Two awards will be granted at the Dutch Demography Day:

NIDI-NVD Master Thesis Award 2026

This Award honours the best Master Thesis in Population Studies in the Netherlands. Jointly sponsored by the NVD and the Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute (NIDI), the Award carries a certificate and a €500 prize. Master theses can be submitted until October 15, 2025 at demografiedag@gmail.com. The rules of play can be found here.

NVD Seed Grant 2025/26

The NVD offers a “Seed Grant” to young researchers (Master and PhD students), to provide extra financial means that will help them in their research project. The grant can be used for, for example, additional data collection, coding or transcription of qualitative interviews, or visiting a conference or workshop to present a paper. Applications can be submitted until  December 5, 2025. For more information, see here.

Registration

Participation is not possible without registering for the conference.
Registration and payment will be possible between November 1, 2025 and January 9, 2026 through this website

CSDE Science Core – Upcoming Workshops

Each quarter, CSDE offers 3-5 workshops on data sources, statistical and biomarker methodology, introductions to analysis programs, and more, all given by CSDE staff and faculty affiliates. These workshops can include hands-on training in novel methods and programming, lectures on innovative data sources, and discussions of important issues in research and data collection. Over the coming academic year, CSDE will offer a diverse and exciting set of workshops in a remote format. Students, faculty, staff, and our CSDE community members from outside the University of Washington are all welcome to register for our workshops. Zoom links will be provided upon registration.

You can find our workshop website and register for our Autumn 2025 workshops in the links below. We will be filling in our schedule for Winter & Spring workshops soon, so stay tuned!

Please reach out to CSDE, if you have additional workshops you would like to see offered in the future and we will do our best to accommodate those requests.

 

Autumn Workshops

*New* Indigenous Food Ways & Mental Health: Emma Elliott and Michael Spencer (11/13/25)

Please join the UW Consortium for Global Mental Health and the Population Health Initiative for on Thursday, November 13 from 10 – 11 am PST for Indigenous Food Ways & Mental Health—a conversation between CSDE Affiliate Michael Spencer (Ballmer Endowed Dean and Professor, Social Work)  and Dr. Emma Elliott. They will discuss their research and what they’ve learned about the interconnection of indigenous food ways and total wellbeing, within an indigenous knowledge and theoretical framework that holds profound promise for public health. This is a hybrid event, please register, however you plan to attend.
—
Dr. Emma Elliott (Cowichan Tribes) is an assistant professor in the Department of Learning Sciences and Human Development in the College of Education at the University of Washington. She holds both a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology and a Master of Social Work in Children, Youth, and Families. The interdisciplinary intersections of her research include culture, learning, and human development; land-based and Indigenous methodologies; and trauma, prevention, and recovery among Indigenous children and youth. By employing a strengths-based approach to healing, Dr. Elliott rigorously engages youth, families, and communities in the development of integrated educational and behavioral health interventions to address social issues. Her research centers ethical frameworks generated by Indigenous and land-based knowledges and practices to create process-centered approaches that illuminate Indigenous pathways toward collective livelihood. Dr. Elliott is currently partnering with members of the Cowichan Tribes to design programming to strengthen the physical, mental, intellectual, and cultural health of the community.
 
Dr. Michael Spencer, is the first Native Hawaiian Dean at the School of Social Work. Spencer is an elected member of the Washington State Academy of Sciences, and has served as the co-chair for the Grand Challenges for Social Work in both Close the Health Gap and Eliminate Racism. In 2023, he co-authored Social Work and the Grand Challenge to Eliminate Racism, a compilation of perspectives from leading researchers on various forms of racism and its impact on racial groups. His research examines health and wellness among Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders, focusing on interventions that promote health among Native Hawaiians through Indigenous practices and values. His research examines the added benefit of integrating Native Hawaiian traditional healing into primary care in Waimānalo, O’ahu. He also works with colleagues at the University of Hawai’i to promote food security and well-being using backyard aquaponics systems among Native Hawaiians.

Volunteer Researchers Needed for Community-Based Participatory Research

CSDE Affiliate Melanie Martin is looking for a graduate student collaborator(s) to help with a year-long community-based participatory research project based in a local Lake City elementary school to study the impacts of culturally sustaining and asset-based pedagogical approaches in early education.

Dr. Martin is looking for graduate student collaborators who would benefit from research participation in one or more of the following areas:

(1) Commiting to weekly volunteer work at the school (1 – 3 one hour small group reading sessions per week) and writing up their notes as participant observers

(2) Assisting with project management (overseeing undergraduate volunteers, data management)

(3) Assisting with qualitative analysis of observations collected across participant-observer volunteers

(4) Assisting with quantitative analysis of student reading scores and attendance across the year

 

This is a new project Dr. Martin is embarking on in collaboration with the school principal. Dr. Martin is a parent, regular volunteer, and PTA Advocacy Chair at this school. They are still in the early planning stages, but want to get volunteers registered with SPS as soon as possible, as the registration approval process takes 4-5 weeks (see instructions below).

 

Dr. Martin does not have paid RAships or any kind of funding for this project. However, she would be happy to pursue and support funding opportunities, and any other extensions of this project (publications, continued or expanded research with other schools, next year, etc) that would benefit you. Dr. Martin’s only plans for the results are to present reports to the school, SPS Board of Directors, and SPS central admin.

 

If interested, please reach out! Dr. Martin is happy to answer any questions and discuss anything with you in person or on zoom. Please feel free to forward this to any undergraduate students you’ve worked with, or graduate students in other departments who may be interested. Dr. Martin is basing the volunteer participant-observer structure on a CELE course she teaches, so she is happy to work with anyone committed to the project, regardless of prior research experience.

 

Thanks for your time and for considering!

 

Project Summary

 

John Rogers Elementary (JRE) is a small Title 1 neighborhood K-5 school in the Lake City area of northeast Seattle (2025-2026 projected enrollment 280 students). The student body is diverse with high resource needs: 61% students of color, 42% multilingual learner (MLL) students, 18% special education served, 23% experiencing homelessness, and 56% on free and reduced lunch. The JRE principal (Dr. Casey Dimsey) is implementing several new evidence-based innovations for the 2025-26 school year aimed at improving student academic and emotional-behavioral outcomes. The initiatives are informed by asset-based educational approaches, including culturally and linguistically sustaining pedagogies. The aim of this study, conducted in full collaboration with Dr. Dimsey and JRE teachers, is to leverage qualitative data gathered from volunteers, tutors, and teachers working in 3rd grade classrooms and small study groups to assess the efficacy of these initiatives and their alignment with underlying pedagogical frameworks. In particular, we are interested in assessing how newly implemented multi-tiered system supports help mitigate barriers for MLL students (in alignment with a JRE school-year goal) and students furthest from educational justice (in alignment with SPS district wide governance goals and guardrails).

 

Volunteering at John Rogers Elementary: 

  • Martin will submit all volunteer names to the Volunteer Coordinator (Office Assistant – Alicia Kaneko) and the SPS Volunteer department (via the email). Once those names are collected, we will send prospective volunteers a link to the volunteer application with specific information about their roles and schedules for completing the application.  This application takes 4-5 weeks to process.
  • All volunteers will need to have their identification verified (License, etc) by the John Roger’s Front Office before volunteering starts and this will start the approval process which takes 4-5 weeks.
  • All approved volunteers will be on the “approved” list with the SPS Volunteer department and Office Assistant/Volunteer Liaison – Alicia Kaneko .   In order to volunteer, your name mustbe on that list.

Please refer to the following links for more general information about volunteering with SPS

Data Resource: Dewey Data

Dewey Data is a research platform that provides access to third-party datasets across a variety of data categories including foot traffic, construction permits, healthcare, workforce, consumer behavior, and transportation.

University of Washington faculty, students, and researchers are eligible for access and must register an individual account. Follow this link to learn about how to register.