On 1 October 2019, the University of Vienna has opened a new Department of Demography in the Faculty of Social Sciences. Headed by Wolfgang Lutz, this new department will be a strong university-based pillar of the Wittgenstein Centre for Demography and Global Human Capital, which also includes IIASA’s World Population Program and the Vienna Institute of Demography (VID) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. In 2020 it plans to start the Vienna Doctoral School in Demography and in due course an English language Masters program with a focus on population and sustainable development.
Over the coming months 2-3 professorships and several post-doc and prae-doc positions will be announced, beginning with the announcement for two University Assistants (prae-doc) at the Department of Demography (see link below).
Deadline: 11/11/2019
CUHK Shenzhen and Princeton University Postdoctoral Fellowship Program:
Within the framework of their Memorandum of Understanding, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen and Princeton University have established a Postdoctoral Fellowship Program: CUHK Shenzhen-Princeton Postdoctoral Program (CPPP), aiming at training highly-qualified, early-career postdoctoral researchers in studies of contemporary China so that they are positioned to become leaders in their respective academic fields. Princeton University and CUHK Shenzhen invite applications for a postdoctoral research associate in studies of contemporary China.
The fellowship is expected to be awarded for up to two years: the first 12 consecutive months at CUHK Shenzhen, and the next 12 consecutive months at Princeton University with a visiting appointment at CUHK Shenzhen, with renewal after the first year contingent on satisfactory performance. Preferred start date is September 1, 2019. The position is open to early-career scholars who would be in residence and participate in the host organization’s activities, including student-faculty seminars, workshops, and public lectures. The position is primarily open to data science-relevant disciplines, but it can be open to any discipline, as long as the fellow conducts research on contemporary China under the guidance of faculty at both Universities. The candidate’s research must be supervised by a faculty member at each University and, as such, must receive the endorsement of a faculty member at each institution in order to apply.
To apply for a postdoctoral position, please see listing D-19-PII-00008 in Princeton’s Academic Listings here: https://puwebp.princeton.edu/AcadHire/apply/application.xhtml?listingId=….
Application deadline: May 1, 2019 by 11:59 pm EST.
If the applicant has any questions about the process and documentation, please refer to the program FAQs, here: https://ccc.princeton.edu/postdocfaq
The Department of Policy Analysis & Management (PAM) at Cornell University invites applications for a Postdoctoral Associate position in Big Data/Data Science. The position starts in July/August 2020 and will continue for two years, subject to a satisfactory first-year evaluation. Successful candidates will have demonstrated strengths in applying data science or computational approaches to applied questions in economics, demography, sociology, or policy, with expertise in areas such as machine learning, digital trace data collection, text analysis, or other techniques.
The postdoctoral position will include considerable time to develop independent research and to form collaborative research projects with faculty in PAM and throughout Cornell. In addition, the Postdoctoral Associate will be expected to assist in the development and instruction (once per year) of an undergraduate introduction to data science for social science majors, along with faculty from the Department of Policy Analysis and Management. The Postdoctoral Associate will also be expected to be actively involved with department and associated-center activities and events, including workshops on data science techniques and other programming for graduate training in the social sciences.
The Postdoctoral Associate will have access to university resources and receive a competitive annual salary plus benefits and a research/travel allowance. Applicants must have completed a Ph.D. in demography, economics, public policy, sociology, or a related social science discipline, by the starting date. Screening of applications begins December 2, 2019, and will continue until the position is filled.
Applications must include: (a) letter of application; (b) curriculum vita; (c) a statement describing expertise in data science, including research applications and training experience; (d) examples of written work; (e) diversity statement and (f) three letters of recommendation. These materials must be submitted online via Academic Jobs Online, https://academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/15116. For questions, please contact Matt Hall (mhall@cornell.edu ) or Maria Fitzpatrick (maria.d.fitzpatrick@cornell.edu), co-chairs of the search committee.
CU Population Center (CUPC) at the University of Colorado Boulder is currently recruiting two postdoctoral fellows with expertise in population-environment research, to start August 2020. The initial term of appointment is one year, but reappointment for a second year is possible, subject to performance evaluation.
CUPC, housed in the Institute of Behavioral Science, is a national leader in demographic research on population health, environmental demography and migration patterns and processes. This postdoctoral research position builds on CUPC’s strengths in environmental demography, and within that area, candidates should have research expertise in migration-climate-health linkages, rural demography, social vulnerability and natural hazards, and/or urbanization processes and their effects on the environment and health.
Candidates must have experience in quantitative methods, the use of computational, statistical or data scientific approaches applied to social science or interdisciplinary research settings as well as data integration that involves spatial and non-spatial data. They are expected to bring particular interest in interdisciplinary research and will be expected to participate in, and develop, projects collaborative with Earth Lab Boulder, an initiative harmonizing the wealth of Earth observation data to facilitate innovative scholarship using combinations of satellite, survey, and field data at various spatial and temporal scales.
Application Deadline: December 31, 2019
Job posting: https://jobs.colorado.edu/jobs/JobDetail/CUPC-PostDoctoral-Associate/15689
Application Details: Marisa.Seitz@colorado.edu
Position Details: Lori.Hunter@colorado.edu; Stefan.Leyk@colorado.edu
IUSSP Expert Group Meeting on Population Data for the 21st century: Advances in data collection methodologies
UNFPA Headquarters New York City, 4-6 December 2019
The IUSSP and UNFPA, with support from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, UNFPA and the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), will hold an Expert Group meeting on Population Data for the 21st century: Advances in data collection methodologies at UNFPA headquarters in New York from 4 to 6 December 2019. This meeting will bring together key researchers, practitioners and institutions innovating in data collection methodologies, to present their work and, when possible, to critically confront alternative approaches and underlying hypotheses, validate innovations, refine estimators, and seek consensus on the lessons learned. In addition, the meeting seeks to inform the larger research and data practitioner communities about advances in this area and of recommended best practices.
A provisional program is available here.
The meeting will be live-streamed and a video recording will be accessible from the home page of the IUSSP website. More details on how to follow the streamed sessions will sent to members before the meeting and will be posted on the IUSSP home page.
Please note that those invited as observers are expected to cover their travel and accommodation to attend this meeting. No travel support will be provided. Places are limited and registrations are subject to validation by the organizing committee. The organizers will give preference to those who are in the New York City area.
The eScience Institute will host a limited-registration Research in the Cloud hands-on event November 18,19, and 20 at the WRF Data Science Studio (6th floor PAB). This is running three days as we will focus on AWS, Azure and Google in sequence. Morning session 9:30-noon is hands-on Cloud 101: Basic interaction (VMs, storage), cost estimation, cost management, reliability, security. Lunch provided, and then 1:00 – 2:30 the program will move on to Cloud 102: Machine Learning, Computing at Scale, and/or other topics as time and interest permit. Click the links below for registration and more information:
Monday, November 18: Amazon Web Services
Tuesday, November 19: Azure
Wednesday, November 20: Google Cloud
In an October 14, 2019 article in the New York Times’s Upshot, CSDE Affiliate and Professor of Public Policy Jacob Vigdor is quoted regarding the linkage between immigration and urban economic vitality and revitalization. While the current administration’s policy approach gives both topics distinctly separate and high priority, the New York Times essay argues that the issues are inevitably interrelated and so are the political solutions. The article quotes Vigdor, writing “there’s a symbiotic relationship that immigrants need cities in order to acclimate to a new society, and cities need new immigrants”. The article draws upon Vigdor’s research published in 2017 in the Cato Journal. “Immigration, Housing Markets, and Community Vitality” in which he finds that immigrants spur population growth in cities where a population has been declining.
It is a well known fact that pregnancy and childbirth affects women’s physiology and hormones, before and immediately following pregnancy. Less well understood is how pregnancy and childbirth affects the aging process. CSDE Affiliate and Associate Professor of Anthropology Dan Eisenberg pioneering research in this area was featured in The Washington Post in a recent article “Do pregnancy and childbirth accelerate aging in women? Maybe.” The Post’s article discusses Eisenberg and co-authors’ findings, published in Scientific Reports (July 2018), showing how human reproduction can lead to shorter telomeres and acceleration of epigenetic aging among young women. According to the article and Eisenberg’s paper, shorter telomeres and accelerated epigenetic aging are linked with accelerated aging and earlier death.
The Washington Post story also highlights Eisenberg’s involvement in a new study, together with recently graduated CSDE fellow Tiffany Pan, that focuses on microchimerism. Microchimerism is a phenomenon where cells are transferred back and forth across the placenta and some colonize long-term. Fetal cells found in the mother might have long term impacts on their health and aging.
The metaphor of “lynching” is repeatedly used by politicians in recent American history. This Mother Jones essay explores how the metaphor came about in American politics considering the violent racial history of the term “lynching”. The author quotes CSDE Affiliate and Professor of Sociology Amy Bailey about her research examining race and inequality. Bailey discusses the historical roots of lynching and racial violence drawing on her co-authored book with CSDE Affiliate Stew Tolnay, Lynching: The Victims of Southern Mob Violence. Bailey argues that powerful politicians who use this metaphor ultimately contribute to a “false narrative” of this part of US history—diminishing the meaning of the term “lynching” for those who were actual victims of the historical violence.