CSDE External Affiliate Ethan Raker (University of British Columbia) and co-authors recently published an article in Demography on “Severe Tornadoes and Infant Birth Weight in the United States”. The authors merged 1991 – 2017 county-month data on singleton births with block-group-level monthly data on the paths of severe tornadoes and block-group data on the distribution of the population at risk of a birth, and then estimated difference-in-differences models in which the treatment variable is equal to the percentage of the population at risk of a birth affected by the tornado. Exposure to a tornado during pregnancy reduced birth weight for Black mothers.
The Emergence of Ownership Opacity in Landed Capitalism: Consolidation, Adaption, Evasion – Andrew Messamore
When: Friday, January 9, 2025 at 12:30 pm
Where: 360 Parrington Hall and on Zoom
We are looking forward to hosting CSDE Affiliate Andrew Messamore from the University of Washington for the first seminar of Winter 2026 Quarter on Friday, January 9 in Parrington Hall 360 and on Zoom. This seminar is co-sponsored by the Population Health Initiative. Seminar posters are available here or can be picked up during seminar. You can also subscribe to our Trumba Events to receive regular announcements about CSDE-sponsored events.
Declining sole proprietorship rates among landlords are viewed as indicators of growing corporate control of rental housing. However, declines in sole proprietorship may reflect the popularization of investment vehicles across amateur landlords, causing studies to overestimate the ownership share of firms. Moving beyond political economy, this presentation conceptualizes landed capitalism as a complex and adaptive housing system, and proposes declines in sole proprietorship reflect the emergence of ownership opacity across the landlord population. Evaluating this perspective through an enumeration of landownership in Austin, Texas, results from longitudinal analysis show that the ownership share of small landlords is stable, but that processes of portfolio consolidation, investor adaptation, and regulatory evasion are encouraging opaque ownership structures across landlords of nearly all sizes. These findings suggest ownership opacity is a form of emergent complexity created by population evolution among landlords, and demonstrate the utility of housing systems theory for both the field of comparative landownership studies and policies that aim to address disparities in housing ownership and tenure.
Dr. Andrew Messamore is an Assistant Professor with the Department of Sociology at the University of Washington. Messamore’s research examines the rising popularity and formalization of rental landlording in the United States, as well as how a new generation of urban housing movements are confronting urban inequalities. He has also published widely on the use of quantitative and computational methodologies in social science. You can find his work in Social Problems, Social Networks, Urban Studies, Social Currents, Social Psychology Quarterly, Administration & Society, and Socius. Messamore earned his BA in Sociology form the University of Texas Austin, his MA in Social Sciences from the University of Chicago, his PhD in Philosophy and Sociology from University of Texas at Austin
Assistant or Associate Professor in Genomics, Epigenetics, and Biomes, Anthropology – University of Georgia (01/05/26)
Research Fellow Positions (2), ERC Project POPCLIMA – University of Bologna (01/07/26)
Two Research Fellow Positions (ERC Project POPCLIMA)
We invite applications for two Research Fellow positions within the ERC-funded project POPCLIMA – Population Dynamics under Global Climate Change (Grant Agreement No. 101002973), led by PI Raya Muttarak and hosted at the Department of Statistical Sciences, University of Bologna (Italy).
The project investigates how climate change influences key components of population dynamics — fertility, mortality, and migration — and how these effects shape future population trends . Applicants should hold a Master’s degree or a PhD in demography, economics, statistics, data science, sociology, geography or a related field, with a strong interest in climate–population interactions and health.
For further details on the positions, eligibility criteria, and application procedures, please refer to the official call: https://bandi.unibo.it/ricerca/incarichi-di-ricerca?id_bando=20. The application deadline is 7 January 2026.
PhD Research Intern, Computational Social Science – Microsoft (01/09/26)
Postdoc Position(s) at the Max Planck – University of Helsinki Centre for Social Inequalities in Population Health (01/11/26)
Winter 2026 CSDE Seminar Schedule Now Available
Happy New Year! Winter 2026 CSDE seminars will resume this Friday, January 9, 2026. Seminar posters are available here or can be picked up during seminar. You can also subscribe to our Trumba Events to receive regular announcements about CSDE-sponsored events.
CSDE Affiliate Andrew Messamore (Sociology) will kick off the quarter on January 9 with a talk on “The Emergence of Ownership Opacity in Landed Capitalism: Consolidation, Adaptation, Evasion.” See more below. Then on January 16, a panel on gun violence will feature CSDE Affiliates Avanti Adhia (Child, Family, and Population Health Nursing & Epidemiology) and Ali Rowhani-Rahbar. On January 23, Sarah Komisarow (Public Policy & Economics, Duke University) will present evidence from North Carolina on school-based support for children’s mental health. On January 30, Bussarawan “Puk” Teerawichitchainan (Sociology & Population Studies, National University of Singapore) will present “Aging with Limited Kin: Childlessness and Care Arrangements in Singapore and Thailand.” On February 6, Michael Schultz (Public Policy & Governance) will discuss “Occupations, Careers, and Opportunity: A Structural Approach to Studying Economic Mobility over the Life Course.” On February 13, Kristin Perkins (Sociology & Public Affairs, Georgetown University) will present “The Hidden Private Safety Net: Shared Households and Older Adults’ Housing Costs.” On February 20, CSDE Affiliate Gabriella Levy (Political Science) will speak on “Gendered Dissent and Social Threat: Attitudes Towards Protest Repression in Colombia.” On February 27, Robert Crosnoe (Sociology, University of Texas at Austin) will discuss the journey into adulthood in uncertain times. Jake Watson (UCSD) will deliver the final CSDE seminar of Winter quarter on March 13, speaking on “Infrastructures of Resettlement: How Bureaucratic Legacies Shaped Racial Disparities in Post-Cold War Refugee Selection. In addition, the CSDE Winter 2026 Lightning Talks & Poster Session will take place in Raitt Hall 221 on March 6.