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Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology

CSDE Welcomes Four More Faculty and Regional Affiliates!

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

  • Teresa Ward– Professor and Chair, Department of Child, Family, and Population Health Nursing, UW School of Nursing. Ward’s research focuses on sleep health, symptom science, and health outcomes in children with and without chronic health conditions and their caregivers. Currently, she is the Co-Director of the Center for Innovation in Sleep Self-Management funded by NIH, and is involved in several studies that integrate community based participatory approaches that integrate technology to improve sleep health in parent-child dyads living with a chronic health condition. Ward joins as a CSDE affiliate.
  • Cameron Whitley– Assistant Professor, Sociology, Western Washington University. Whitley studies issues concerning the environment (climate change, new energy development, sustainability) and wellbeing, science and technology (geoengineering, hydraulic fracturing debates), human-animal relationships (impacts on mental health, etc.), and gender and sexuality (political engagement and environmentalism). He is currently working on a project with National Geographic Society affiliated photographers evaluating how their images influence emotional responses and how different individuals (based on demographic characteristics) respond to distinctive images. Whitley joins CSDE as a regional affiliate.
  • Dafeng Xu – Assistant Professor, Evans School of Public Policy & Governance. Xu specializes in data science, and his areas of research include urban and regional policy, immigration policy, and the social and economic history of the United States. His ongoing research is focused on developing and employing data science tools to link individual records between census, administrative, and survey data. Xu joins CSDE as a faculty affiliate.
  • Batool Zaidi– Assistant Professor of Sociology, Western Washington University. Zaidi’s research addresses gender inequality in the global South through the analysis of health outcomes, cultural norms, and development projects. She is currently developing a South-South comparative study on violence against women in South Asia and Latin America, through the categories of honor killings and femicidios, respectively. Zaidi 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.

New Article Published by CSDE Affiliate Almquist and Regional Affiliate Ha

CSDE Affiliate Zack Almquist and Regional Affiliate Jasmin Ha with colleagues Guy Abel and Jack Dewaard have just published ‘The Form and Evolution of International Migrant Networks, 1995-2015’ in Population, Space, and Place. They draw upon research techniques on community detection methods to introduce and apply the Information Theoretic Community Detection Algorithm for identifying and studying the geographic boundaries of migration networks. Using a new set of estimates of country-to-country migration flows every 5 years from 1990 to 1995 to 2010-2015, the authors trace the form and evolution of international migration networks over the past 25 years. Consistent with the concept of dynamic stability, they show that the number, size and internal country compositions of international migration networks have been remarkably stable over time; however, they also document many short- term fluctuations. They conclude by reflecting on the spirit of their work in this paper, which is to promote consensus around tools and best practices for identifying and studying international migration networks. To read the article, click here.

CSDE Affiliate Lee and CSDE Alumna Larimore Co-author Study on Black Health Outcomes

CSDE Affiliate Hedwig Lee and CSDE Alumna Savannah Larimore, along with co-authors, recently published an article in Population Research and Policy Review. Employing logistic regression analyses, they examine differences in low birth weight, preterm birth, gestational hypertension, and gestational diabetes by nativity (i.e., US- or foreign-born), region of origin (e.g., Sub-Saharan Africa, the Caribbean), and current US division of residence (e.g., Middle Atlantic, South Atlantic) within the Black population. Using national birth records data from 2013 to 2016 data, their study finds that foreign-born Blacks are at a lower risk for low birth weight, preterm birth, and gestational hypertension, but at an elevated risk for gestational diabetes compared to US-born Blacks. Moreover, the authors find substantial variation in this general pattern across region of origin and division of residence in the US. These findings demonstrate the potential role of migration, context, and selectivity in the health of foreign-born Blacks and demonstrate that national averages mask geographic variation, limiting our understanding of the contributions of these and other social processes to the health of racialized groups in the US. To read the article click here. 

Partition Theorem in Populations and its Role in Determining the Stationary Status of a Population

At the CSDE seminar on February 19th, Dr. Arni Rao will present “Partition Theorem in Populations and its Role in Determining the Stationary Status of a Population”. CSDE Regional Affiliate David Swanson will moderate the discussion. Dr. Rao will discuss the importance of the Net Reproductive Rate (NRR) for understanding population change in a timely manner that can inform policy and planning decisions, as well as the importance of understanding variation in groups that are and are not experiencing population growth over time. Dr. Rao is a Professor and Director of the Laboratory for Theory and Mathematical Modeling in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the Medical College of Georgia.

Register for Dr. Rao’s Zoom seminar here. This quarter, CSDE is recording the seminar series and posting the links on its website. Visit our site here.

After the seminar, UW Sociology PhD student Neal Marquez will facilitate a graduate student discussion with Dr. Rao. RSVP by emailing him at nmarquez@uw.edu.

Interested in Learning About SSPs and RCPs When it Comes to Climate Assessment Scenarios?

The University of Washington is hosting a series of webinars on behalf of the International Committee on New Integrated Climate Change Assessment Scenarios (ICONICS) to share recent work on the Climate Change Scenarios Framework. The first webinar will take place on Monday 22 February 2021, at 9:00 EST. The series will kick off with a tutorial on the SSPs and RCPs followed by a Q&A session with Kristie Ebi (UW), Brian O’Neill (JCGRI), and Bas van Ruijven (IIASA). Participants will learn about the SSP-RCP scenario framework and the matrix architecture, SSP regional and sectoral extensions and available resources for learning about and working with the SSPs. You can register for the webinar here. The second webinar is scheduled for 6 April (9:00 EST), and will discuss plans forward for the SSPs and RCPs based on the Achievements and Needs of the  Scenarios Framework.  For more information about ICONICS and the SSPs, click here.