The Johns Hopkins School of Public Health is seeking a Sr. Research Program Coordinator to work within the department of Health Behavior & Society. The incumbent will be responsible for developing and implementing qualitative data collection protocols (ethnography, in-depth interviews, focus groups). The Sr. Research Program Coordinator will also be responsible for overseeing data collection and analysis for several research projects working with vulnerable populations (sex workers, injection drug users). Projects include cross-sectional and longitudinal studies on sex work, substance use and HIV/STI risk. The Sr. Research Program Coordinator will work closely with the Principle Investigator(s) and Study Management (e.g. Study Directors and Post-doctoral Fellows).
Assistant Professor, Sociology (Criminology, Corrections, Punishment)
Tenure-track position in Sociology, at the rank of assistant professor, with expertise in criminology, corrections, punishment, and/or crime. These topics may be stand-alone areas of inquiry, or they may be highlighted substantially in conversation with other areas of inquiry such as public health, demography, race and social inequalities. Qualified applicants will also have expertise in quantitative methods. Desirable candidates will also have a demonstrated desire to connect with local organizations for community-based research and/or teaching. Effective August 2020. Ph.D. required.
Jacob Vigdor Comments on Seattle’s Entry-Level Workforce Shortage for The Seattle Times
The real story behind Seattle’s labor shortage, CSDE Affiliate and Professor at the Evans School Jacob Vigdor weighs in, “all boils down to what happens to housing.” This Monday, The Seattle Times published a story on the city’s high demand for entry-level workforce and employers’ difficulty in filling in positions such as in-home care providers. In spite of recent wage hikes and attractive benefits, Seattle is simply too expensive for entry-level workers. According to Vigdor, the city’s earlier booms labor shortages were less severe because lower-skill workers from outside the area could more easily move to town and fill the vacancies. By contrast, today’s boom appeals disproportionately to higher-skill newcomers who can afford the housing costs, and whose earnings keep the costs so high.
Research Data Analyst, Homelessness and Health
The UCSF Center for Vulnerable Populations (CVP) at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital (ZSFG) is seeking an experienced Research Data Analyst. The Research Data Analyst will apply statistical and data science methodologies to original research projects that focus on homelessness and its effects on health. The successful candidate will have the ability to work with a variety of data sources, including administrative and longitudinal survey data and will be able to clean, manage, and analyze these sources. He or she will be passionate about using data to find innovative solutions to the problems facing vulnerable populations. This position requires the individual to work as a part of several research teams. The employee will be expected to be able to conduct analyses and data management on multiple projects concurrently.
Project Coordinator/Research Assistant,
The Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy is seeking a highly motivated, organized professional individual to serve as Project Coordinator / Research Assistant for Faculty Director David Deming. The role involves high-level research, administrative, planning and logistical support on a number of projects and initiatives broadly related to economics, social policy and/or mobility.
Anna Zamora-Kapoor Reviews Obesity Risk Factors for American Indians and Alaska Natives
CSDE Affiliate Anna Zamora-Kapoor, Assistant Research Professor at the Initiative for Research and Education to Advance Community Health (IREACH), Washington State University, conducted a systematic review of the literature on obesity risk factors for American Indians and Alaska Natives, soon to be published in Public Health.
Zamora-Kapoor searched PubMed titles and abstracts with combinations of relevant terms, limiting the review to articles with empirically testable claims about a variable associated with obesity, measuring obesity as a dependent variable, and providing data specific to American Indians and Alaska Natives. The final sample included 31 articles and showed that risk factors varied by age. In infants, low birth weight, early termination of breastfeeding, and high maternal body mass index and maternal diabetes increased the risk of childhood obesity. In children and adolescents, parental obesity, sedentary behaviors, and limited access to fruits and vegetables were associated with obesity. In adulthood, sedentary behaviors, diets high in fats and carbohydrates, stress, verbal abuse in childhood, and the belief that health cannot be controlled were associated with obesity.
Zamora-Kapoor found three limitations in extant studies: they do not apply a life course perspective, they lack nationally representative data and have limited knowledge of the resilience, resistance and resourcefulness of American Indians and Alaska Natives. She defends that future studies avoiding these shortcomings are necessary to inform interventions to reduce the prevalence of obesity in American Indians and Alaska Natives across the life course.
Inside the Velvet Sweatshop: Paradigms and Paradoxes of High-Tech Labor, Margaret O’Mara (Labor Workshare Series, 5/29/2019)
Margaret O’Mara, Professor, UW History
ABSTRACT: From the working conditions at Amazon warehouses to the white-collar pushback of the #GoogleWalkout, conditions of high-tech labor have seized headlines and triggered broader discussion about the inequities and insecurities of the modern workplace. Margaret O’Mara discusses the longer history behind Big Tech’s company culture and employment practices, and why current worker activism has the potential to alter the trajectory of where tech goes next.
Margaret O’Mara is the Howard & Frances Keller Professor of History at the University of Washington. She writes and teaches about the history of U.S. politics, the growth of the high-tech economy, and the connections between the two. She is the author of Cities of Knowledge (Princeton, 2005), Pivotal Tuesdays (Penn Press, 2015), and The Code: Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America (Penguin Press, 2019). O’Mara is a Distinguished Lecturer of the Organization of American Historians and a past fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the National Forum on the Future of Liberal Education. She received her MA/PhD from the University of Pennsylvania and her BA from Northwestern University. Prior to her academic career, she worked in the Clinton White House and served as a contributing researcher at the Brookings Institution. She lives in the Seattle area with her husband Jeff and their two daughters.
FORMAT: The presenter’s paper will be circulated to registered attendees a week in advance of the workshare. Participants are expected to read the paper before the meeting and be prepared for a discussion. Please feel free to bring your lunch. Coffee and cookies will be served.
RSVP: To register for the workshare and receive the paper, please e-mail hbcls@uw.edu .
The Governance of Public Pension Funds, Riddhi Mehta-Neugebauer (Labor Workshare Series, 6/7/2019)
Riddhi Mehta-Neugebauer, PhD Candidate, UW Political Science
ABSTRACT: Traditionally, scholars have investigated the privatization of retirement security through the lens of pension reform, austerity measures, and the decline of defined benefit plans and the rise of defined contribution in countries across the world. However, few scholars have investigated the privatization of public pension fund investment. The privatization of investment, through both board governance and investment allocation in alternative assets, has a significant impact on the capacity of the state to fulfill its retirement obligations.
This paper investigates the relationship between board composition and pension investment privatization through a mixed effects longitudinal model of 111 state-level public pension funds from 2001 to 2017. I find that rather than board structure, board composition has a more significant impact on the likelihood of pension investment privatization. More specifically, the increase in state and plan-participant appointments on the board are associated with an increase in pension investment privatization. Similarly, pension funds that have an increase in the number of board members with financial experience are more likely to invest in pension privatization. Whereas, an increase in public sector union membership is correlated with a decrease in investment privatization.
Riddhi Mehta-Neugebauer is a Ph.D. student in Political Science whose research focuses on labor unions and the management of public pension funds. . Prior to coming to UW, she worked with a labor union on domestic and international corporate research campaigns. She has also spent time in rural India conducting livelihood research with grassroots organizations. Her previous academic background is in city and regional planning, with a bachelors from UC Berkeley and a Masters from UC Irvine.
FORMAT: The presenter’s paper will be circulated to registered attendees a week in advance of the workshare. Participants are expected to read the paper before the meeting and be prepared for a discussion. Please feel free to bring your lunch. Coffee will be served.
RSVP: To register for the workshare and receive the paper, please e-mail hbcls@uw.edu .
Rewriting Violence: Risk Effects and the Targeting of Journalists in Mexico’s Criminal Conflict, Cassy Dorff (CSSS Seminar, 5/29/2019)
Rewriting Violence: Risk Effects and the Targeting of Journalists in Mexico’s Criminal Conflict
Cassy Dorff
Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, and Faculty Affiliate, Data Science Institute, Vanderbilt University, http://cassydorff.com/
Over the last 12 years, Mexico has become a dangerous place to be a journalist. Increasingly, journalists are targeted and killed for reporting on the causes and consequences of violence tied to organized crime. In this paper, we seek to understand how this risk-environment influences the content and strategies of reporting at one of Mexico’s most well known national newspapers, Reforma. Our study utilizes two novel sources of data. The first capture attacks on journalists during the drug war period, while the second uses natural language processing techniques to measure changes in reporting on victimization and violence at Reforma. In this paper, we present preliminary evidence demonstrating the link between violence against journalists and changes in news content over time.
Call for Papers: Harnessing Africa’s Population for Sustainable Development: 25 Years after Cairo and Beyond, 8th African Population Conference (Entebbe, Uganda, 11/18-11/22/2019)
Entebbe – Uganda, 18-22 November 2019
“Harnessing Africa’s Population for Sustainable Development: 25 Years after Cairo and Beyond.”
Hosted by the Government of Uganda and the Union for African Population Studies
Deadline for submitting papers or abstracts: 30 June 2019
Every four years, The Union for African Population Studies (UAPS) organizes a general conference on the African population. The aim of this conference is to share and disseminate research evidence on population and development issues and explore ways for applying the research evidence to improve policies and programs aimed at uplifting the well-being of people in Africa. The conference provides an opportunity for networking and knowledge sharing among researchers, policy makers, program managers, international development partners, and other key stakeholders in the population field. The conference includes various capacity building activities targeted at young scholars.
UAPS invites submissions for research papers, assessments of best practices, proposals for workshops, posters and exhibitions under the sessions grouped across the 16 sub-themes and sessions listed in the attached call for papers.
All submission must be made online on the 8th African Population Conference Website, http://uaps2019.popconf.org/.
All authors are asked to submit both: a) a short (150 word) abstract; and b) either an extended abstract (2-4 pages, including tables) or a completed paper to be uploaded to the website following instructions available online. Authors may modify their submission online at any time until 30 June 2019.
For more details please read the full Call for Papers attached.
If you have any questions, please contact: uaps@uaps-uepa.org