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Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology

Understanding Breast Cancer as a Complex System

At the CSDE seminar on January 22nd, Dr. Robert Hiatt will present “Understanding Breast Cancer as a Complex System”. The talk will discuss the “Paradigm Model”,  an agent-based model of breast cancer that assesses the theoretical impact of population-level policy interventions on obesity, environmental toxins, income redistribution and other factors on breast cancer incidence. Dr. Hiatt is Professor and immediate past Chair of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at UCSF and also the Associate Director of Population Sciences for the Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Register for Dr. Hiatt’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 Epidemiology PhD student Taylor Riley will facilitate a graduate student discussion with Dr. Hiatt. RSVP by emailing her at striley@uw.edu.

CSDE Welcomes Four More Faculty Affiliates!

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

  • Raphael Mondesir– Assistant Professor, Sociology, Seattle Pacific University. Mondesir’s research agenda stands at the crossroads of economic sociology, the sociology of religion, global development studies, and political sociology. He is currently investigating how civic participation affects rural development in the absence of a central state and the role of religion in the structuration of civic networks.
  • Steve Mooney – Acting Assistant Professor, Epidemiology, University of Washington. Mooney’s core expertise is in developing and analyzing contextual influences on health. As a part of his National Library of Medicine funded K99/R00 project, he is currently developing software to automatically compile measures of neighborhood context for any location in the United States.
  • Deborah Nadal – Visiting Postdoctoral Researcher, Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences. Nadal is a cultural and medical anthropologist specialized in South Asia, with extensive fieldwork experience in Jharkhand, Odisha, Rajasthan and Delhi. Currently, she is working on a 3-year post-doctoral project on dog-mediated rabies in rural Gujarat and Maharashtra, India, that draws from medical anthropology, epidemiology and Indology to investigate the social, cultural and religious determinants of this complex public health issue.
  • Lindsay White– Postdoctoral Fellow, Health Sciences, University of Washington. White is a health services researcher focused on quality and costs of care for medically complex patients. She is particularly interested in understanding how features of the health care delivery system and payment policies affect the quality and efficiency of care received by older adults with multimorbidity, with dementia, and people at the end of life.

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.

CSDE Fellow Lee Fiorio and CSDE Regional Affiliate Emilio Zagheni Co-author Study On Measuring Migration With Digital Trace Data

CSDE Fellow and Trainee Lee Fiorio and CSDE Regional Affiliate Emilio Zagheni, along with co-authors, recently published an article in Demography examining the effect of time in migration measurement. The article provides a general framework for converting digital trace data into estimates of migration transitions and for systematically analyzing their variation along a quasi-continuous time scale, analogous to a survival function. The authors develop two hypotheses regarding the behavior of their estimated migration transition functions, and test these using geotagged Tweets and Gowalla check-ins in the United States, and cell-phone call detail records in Senegal. They conclude that the common patterns across their three empirical data sets point to an emergent research agenda using digital trace data to study the specific functional relationship between estimates of migration and time and how this relationship varies by geography and population characteristics. They also conclude that there is a need for evaluating the internal consistency of migration estimates derived from digital trace data before using them in substantive research. To read the article click here.

Call for Applications: CSDE’s Winter 2021 Lightning Talks and Poster Session

CSDE welcomes and encourages graduate students to submit abstracts for the CSDE Lightning Talks and Poster Session! This is a wonderful, low-stakes opportunity to present your research, receive feedback, and practice your presentation skills. Submit a brief abstract and information about yourself and your collaborators here by January 25th. The session will take place on Friday, March 12 on Zoom.  Each presenter will have an opportunity present to the entire group and then share their results in breakout rooms to smaller numbers of participants.

What is the purpose of the session?

This session is a great opportunity to make new connections with faculty and students working in your area, and to improve your presentation and poster-making skills in advance of conferences. Many professional organizations and their associated conferences include space on their programs for posters or lightning talks (sometimes known as flash talks). So, this session is a great opportunity to prep for those upcoming events.

For example, the Population Association of America (PAA) includes space for posters and flash talks and this session is ideal for students who are prepping for a PAA Poster or PAA Flash Talk Session.  Or, many courses require a poster presentation for an end of the quarter requirement for a class, like some Center for Statistics and the Social Sciences (CS&SS) classes. But even if you just want to present a research idea and get feedback, this session can be  valuable!  Faculty attending the poster sessions find it to be one of the most rewarding, because it gives them an opportunity to meet students and talk about research.

What will the session look like?

Obviously, this year will be different (like everything in our lives right now) because everything will take place remotely. As always, the session will be split into two sections: the Lightning Talks and the Poster Session. Each participant will prepare 3 PowerPoint slides: the first 2 slides will be a high-level summary for the lightning talk portion and the 3rd slide will be the “poster” that you’ll present as people circulate through breakout rooms. The session will take place on Zoom. Each presenter will have  2-3 minutes for their lighting talk presentation before we put presenters in breakout rooms and allow attendees to circulate.

Will there be judges?

Yes, there will be a faculty panel that will give all participants feedback on their slides and results and will determine a winner. CSDE will recognize the best poster with an award and prize. Posters will be assessed based on the following criteria:

  • Relevance to demographic research or population health
  • Innovative aspects of the research project
  • Quality and appropriateness of research design and methodology
  • Effectiveness in communicating key aspects of the project
  • Overall design and quality of visuals, images and/or tables

How do I apply to participate?

You only need to submit a brief abstract and information about yourself and your collaborators on the project. Submit your application HERE. The deadline to submit an abstract is MONDAY, JANUARY 25.

We will select up to 7 participants. If your submission is selected, you will be required to email your presentation slides to Maxine Wright no later than FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 19.

The Lightning Talks and Poster Session will be held FRIDAY, MARCH 12 from 12:30-1:30, Zoom link TBA. Please email mkw1208@uw.edu if you have any questions.