Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology

Call for Papers: International Conference on Food Studies (Taiwan, 10/24–10/25/19)

The National Kaohsiung University of Hospitality and Tourism has announced the Call for Papers for the Ninth International Conference on Food Studies, held 24–25 October 2019 at the National Kaohsiung University of Hospitality and Tourism in Kaohsiung City, Taiwan.

They invite proposals for paper presentations, workshops/interactive sessions, posters/exhibits, colloquia, innovation showcases, virtual posters, or virtual lightning talks. The conference features research addressing the annual themes and the 2019 Special Focus: “Culinary Science: A New Foodway?”

Theme 1: Food Production and Sustainability
Theme 2: Food, Nutrition, and Health
Theme 3: Food Politics, Policies, and Cultures

To submit a proposal, follow this link.

Call for Applications: Transients in Biological Systems Investigative Workshop (Knoxville, 5/29-5/31/19)

The National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis (NIMBioS) is now accepting applications for its Investigative Workshop, “Transients in Biological Systems,” to be held May 29-31, 2019, at NIMBioS.

Objectives: Transients, or non-asymptotic dynamics, cover a wide range of possibilities, from biology to ecology and beyond. A full understanding of transients and their implications for biology requires mathematical and statistical developments as well as attention to biological detail. Transient dynamics have also played a central role in both empirical observations and in models in neuroscience. Yet interaction between ecologists and neuroscientists on this topic has been limited. Although epidemiology could be considered part of population biology, there is also less cross-talk between epidemiology and other areas of population biology than desirable. Transients clearly play a role in disease dynamics. Areas such as immune response require attention to transients as well.

Goals for the workshop:

To spur further research into transients, both from a mathematical standpoint and as a way to understand and analyze biological systems
To develop appropriate statistical questions related to the analysis of biological systems using ideas from transient dynamics
To prepare one or more synthetic documents on the role of transients across biological systems.

Co-Organizers: Alan Hastings, Environmental Science and Policy, Univ. of California, Davis; Carl Boettiger, Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, Univ. of California, Berkeley; Kim Cuddington, Biology, Univ. of Waterloo, Canada; Andrew Morozov, Mathematics, Univ. of Leicester, UK; and Sergei Petrovskii, Mathematics, Univ. of Leicester, UK

Participation in NIMBioS workshops is by application only. Individuals with a strong interest in the topic are encouraged to apply, and successful applicants will be notified within two weeks after the application deadline. If needed, financial support for travel, meals, and lodging is available for workshop attendees.

The National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis (NIMBioS) (http://www.nimbios.org) brings together researchers from around the world to collaborate across disciplinary boundaries to investigate solutions to basic and applied problems in the life sciences. NIMBioS is supported by the National Science Foundation, with additional support from The University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

Call for Applications: Mathematics of Gun Violence Investigative Workshop (Knoxville, 5/1-5/3/19)

The National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis (NIMBioS) is now accepting applications for its Investigative Workshop, “Mathematics of Gun Violence,” to be held May 1-3, 2019, at NIMBioS.

Objectives: Gun violence is a central public concern in the United States, annually leading to the deaths of 31,000 individuals and the non-fatal injuries of 78,000 others. It has been called an epidemic and a public health crisis. For infectious disease epidemics and associated public health planning (including recent Zika and Ebola outbreaks), officials relied on mathematical models to evaluate immediate responses and develop preventative policies. The construction of policies to curb the spread of gun violence could benefit from the development of mathematical models linked with available data. This workshop will bring together researchers from diverse disciplinary backgrounds to (i) review the existing approaches on the mathematics and modeling of gun violence, (ii) identify and prioritize areas in the field that require further research, (iii) develop cross-disciplinary collaborations to gain new perspectives, and (iv) suggest research and data-collection that could assist evidence-based policy recommendations. A direct outcome from this workshop will be a comprehensive review of existing models on this topic with suggestions for further effort. It is expected that collaborations arising from the workshop will result in novel efforts to enhance the quantitative underpinnings of the science of gun violence.

The workshop will incorporate discussions and critiques of the existing approaches to gun violence modeling and how these relate to the objectives for which models could be developed. Comparisons of various modeling approaches (including dynamical systems, agent-based, spatial, and statistical) and the parameterization of these models will be considered. Through discussions of existing and future models, we will also assess the available data and suggest new data collection.. The workshop will consider the variety of scales at which models of this system can be developed and the associated implications at these different scales. The relationship to models for human behavior, including those from social psychology and game theory, will be evaluated.

Effective approaches to building a theory of gun violence, which will then inform a science of gun violence, will require perspectives from multiple disciplines. The workshop will consider a systems approach that bring together interacting factors and components operating on multiple scales of time and space. Attendees will incorporate ideas from various quantitative fields (including mathematics, computer science, statistics, and informatics), social science areas (including geography, psychology, and criminology), and biological disciplines (including behavior, medicine, and ecology). The necessary research will be informed by practitioners involved in policy and law enforcement and will account for ethical issues of social justice and privacy. An objective is to consider how models might inform potential interventions, communication formats, educational initiatives, and control methods.

The workshop will include presentations from participants, a poster session to indicate the diversity of methods currently being used in the field, and breakout groups on topics chosen with input from participants. Participants will be expected to contribute to a review outlining the current approaches identifying gaps in the literature, and presenting potential future directions.

Co-Organizers: Andrea L. Bertozzi, Mathematics and Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, UCLA; Louis J. Gross, Mathematics and Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, NIMBioS, Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville; Andrew V. Papachristos, Sociology, Institute for Policy Research, Northwestern Univ.; Shelby M. Scott, Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville; Martin B. Short, Mathematics, Georgia Tech

The National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis (NIMBioS) brings together researchers from around the world to collaborate across disciplinary boundaries to investigate solutions to basic and applied problems in the life sciences. NIMBioS is supported by the National Science Foundation, with additional support from The University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

Beyond the Nuclear Family: Children and Shared Living Arrangements

Natasha Pilkauskas, Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, University of Michigan

Children’s living arrangements are increasingly diverse and complex, and a robust body of research has documented links between living arrangements, economic wellbeing, and child outcomes. Despite increasing recognition of the diversity in children’s living arrangements most research continues to focus on the nuclear family. This talk draws on a number of published and papers in progress that focus on shared living arrangements of children in the U.S.–examining the people children live with beyond their nuclear family.

I will describe trends in household extension over time and across the child’s life course showing differences by key demographic groups and patterns of coresidence. I find that although shared living arrangements among children have become more common over the last 20 years, this increase is nearly entirely driven by an increase in multigenerational/three-generation family households (grandparent, parent and child). In 1980, 5% of children lived in a multigenerational household and today nearly 10% do likewise. I’ll present results of decomposition analyses that examine the factors that have led to this large increase. By understanding the diverse nature of children’s living arrangements and how these arrangements are changing over time, we can better consider how public policies and programs might better support children’s development.

Natasha Pilkauskas is an assistant professor of public policy at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. She received a Master in Public Policy from Harvard University and a PhD in Social Welfare Policy from Columbia University. Her research examines how public policies can improve the lives of low-income people, and in particular children. She studies how families make ends meet, with a focus on the private (or kin/personal/social) safety net, household sharing among families with children, public programs, and employment. Much of her research focuses on early childhood, a time when poverty and instability are known to have long-lasting detrimental effects on children’s health and development, and when social policies have been shown to have some of the strongest impacts on improving children’s life chances. Dr. Pilkauskas’ research has been funded by the Institute for Research on Poverty, the National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation, and the American Education Research Association. Her work has been published in a variety of journals including the Journal of Marriage and Family, Demography, Developmental Psychology, and the American Journal of Public Health. Prior to graduate school she worked as a political pollster and as a policy analyst evaluating various social policy programs.

If you would like to schedule a time to meet Prof. Pilkauskas this week, please sign up here.

MPIDR Symposium on Digital Demography (Rostock, 10/17-10/18/18)

The Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR), in partnership with the IUSSP Panel on Big Data and Population Processes, is organizing and hosting the first Symposium on Digital Demography (Rostock, October 17-18, 2018).

This event brings together prominent scholars in Demography, Sociology, and Computational Social Sciences. It serves as a forum for discussion of the direction and latest advances in the field, as well as an opportunity to develop collaborative initiatives in research and training.

Digital Demography is an emerging field that focuses on 1) using our digital breadcrumbs and new forms of data collection made possible by digital technologies in order to measure and predict demographic change; 2) evaluating the implications of the digital revolution for demographic behavior and the well-being of people.

The symposium marks the launch of the new MPIDR Lab on Digital and Computational Demography, headed by MPIDR director and CSDE regional affiliate Emilio Zagheni. CSDE Science Core Director Matt Hall is a featured speaker.

If you would like to attend the symposium, please register by October 12 at the latest by sending an e-mail to Annett Döpke (sekzagheni@demogr.mpg.de).

Ali Rowhani-Rahbar and Heather Hill Awarded U01 to Investigate EITC and Violence Prevention

We are thrilled to announce that CSDE Affiliate Ali Rowhani-Rahbar, Associate Professor of Epidemiology and his project team (including affiliate Heather Hill, Associate Professor at the Evans School of Public Policy and Governance), have been awarded a highly competitive U01 grant from the National Institutes of Health to investigate the relationship between Federal Earned Income Tax Credits (EITC) and violence prevention.

The project will be the first comprehensive evaluation of the impact of state EITCs as a primary prevention strategy for multiple forms of violence. While evidence has emerged on the impact of EITC on health and well-being, Rowhani-Rahbar and Hill note that there is a striking dearth of research on the impact of EITC on violence. Guided by a specific Theory of Change model, Rowhani-Rahbar and Hill will leverage a “natural experiment” through using the state policy variations resulting from the adoption and expansion of state EITCs over the past three decades to examine their impact on child maltreatment, youth violence, intimate partner violence, sexual violence, and suicide.

Using 14 administrative, surveillance, and survey data sources containing information on a variety of violence outcomes over the period 1986-2017, they will conduct a quasi-experimental study to: (1) Evaluate the magnitude of the impact of state EITCs existence, type, and generosity on the primary prevention of each of the five forms of violence, (2) Explore whether the impact of state EITCs on these forms of violence differs by specific state-level and individual-level characteristics; and (3) Examine whether state EITCs influence specific shared risk and protective factors for these forms of violence, namely stress, parenting practices, material well-being, relationship quality, and financial independence.

Considering the sheer burden of violence as a leading cause of mortality and morbidity in the United States, the investigators believe that even a modest impact of state EITCs in preventing some forms of violence may translate to positive changes. Characterizing and quantifying this impact can further inform the adoption and expansion of current and future economic assistance policies to prevent violence and improve public health.

This project will access a number of datasets using the Northwest Federal Statistical Research Data Center (NFSRDC), located on the UW campus. The NFSRDC is an rich resource for accessing restricted federal data, with close ties to the CSDE community and support from the University of Washington. Faculty who are interested in exploring the potential of working with the NWFSRDC in their own research projects, should feel free to reach out to NWFSRDC Director, Mark Ellis, and CSDE Science Core Director, Matt Hall.

For graduate students interested in this research, an exciting RA position opportunity has just been announced.

Janelle Taylor Receives Supplement Award to Continue Research on Dementia

Congratulations to Janelle Taylor, CSDE faculty affiliate in Anthropology, who received an Administrative Supplement to her NIA-funded project, “Health Outcomes for Patients with Dementia without Family Caregivers”.

This study uses data from the Adult Changes in Thought (ACT) study, an ongoing prospective longitudinal study of dementia at Kaiser Permanente (formerly Group Health). The supplement was the result of finding a rich new source of information about family and caregiving support for older adults with dementia: The narrative medical documents created for the diagnostic review meeting contain much information about the patient’s social context even though the original purpose of the documents is to provide diagnostic medical information.

These reports are not currently conceived of as data per se by ACT and much of it exists only as paper documents. Using a high speed, high resolution scanner, and optical character recognition (OCR) software, Janelle’s team will turn this rich source of contextual information about patients’ lives into textual data. This new data will be analyzed using both quantitative and qualitative methodology. CSDE staff members Cori Mar and Matt Weatherford were instrumental in both writing the supplement ($220,968 total award) and are named on the grant. Matt will supervise the technical issues involved in getting from paper to text data and Cori will do the quantitative analysis. Other CSDE affiliates on this project include Marlaine Gray and Clara Berridge.

MPIDR Symposium on Digital Demography hosted by Emilio Zagheni and featuring Matt Hall

If you would like to attend the symposium, please register by October 12 at the latest by sending an e-mail to Annett Döpke (sekzagheni@demogr.mpg.de).

Data Manager

The Policy and Research Department is currently seeking a full-time Data Manager to lead internal data capacities including oversight of the agency’s Data Management Plan and use of administrative data to support research and evaluation projects as well as to manage external, cross-sector data sharing and data collaborations. This is a unique opportunity to support and expand data-driven decision-making at KCHA and to advance broader housing and social policy through innovative data applications.

Essential Functions

Lead the development and implementation of agency Data Management Plan that enhances KCHA’s ability to use administrative data for research and evaluation purposes and that upholds and evolves to be current with best practices in data management and application;
Ensure that agency data systems support the collection of necessary metrics in a consistent and valid manner. This effort will include participating in database design working groups as well as identifying and expanding opportunities to collect new information from KCHA residents consistent with both research/evaluation questions and regulatory functions;
Lead agency efforts to identify and develop best practices for data-sharing and data-handling activities, including compliance with regulations on data privacy and disclosure;
Scope, institute, and manage cross-sector data collaborations with partners from health, education, and other sectors;
Oversee the production of regular extracts or other data pulls (including data linkages) to support internal and external data use cases;
Collect and analyze internal and external data (both qualitative and quantitative) to inform agency program and policy development and research and evaluation projects. Quantitative data analyses will include both descriptive and multivariate methods;
Develop and oversee the development of data reports, data visualizations, and other briefing materials to effectively convey findings to intended stakeholders;
Supervise analysts and/or interns responsible for data-related activities.

Required Qualifications:

Bachelor’s Degree with degrees preferred in public administration, public policy, statistics, sociology or related field AND four years of experience working with applied data/data management, research, and analysis. A graduate degree in relevant fields is desirable and may be substituted for up to two years of applied experience.

Ideal Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:

Strong technical skills, and demonstrated experience with quantitative data collection, management and analysis;
Proven experience working with administrative datasets, including data sharing and data linkages;
Ability and interest to lead, supervise, coach, mentor, and train assigned staff; willingness and ability to work collaboratively and cooperatively with others, as well as to participate in and foster teamwork;
Strong critical thinking skills, an ability to introduce creative problem-solving to complex analytic puzzles, and the skills to translate these ideas to both technical and non-technical audiences;
Outstanding Excel skills and strong proficiencies in other MS applications;
Knowledge and skill in using analytic software programs such as Stata, Tableau, and/or GIS;
Exceptional written and verbal communication skills;
Knowledge and ability in creating reports, dashboards, data visualizations, and other data summary and visualization materials;
Strong project management skills including the ability to prioritize and handle multiple projects simultaneously and with multiple internal and external stakeholders;
Knowledge of affordable housing policy and research and/or knowledge of related social policy arenas such as health, education, or other areas;
Collaborative team player that is at ease working with multiple and diverse stakeholders and who brings enthusiasm, curiosity, humility, and humor to their work.

Research & Data Analyst

The Policy and Research Department is currently seeking a full-time Research & Data Analyst to support the Department’s research, analysis, and data management efforts. This is a unique opportunity to engage in meaningful, applied research and analysis on housing and social policy. The Analyst will assist in a variety of tasks and projects across the Department and agency, and will get to work on a variety of policy areas and analytic approaches.

This position is partially grant funded that may be renewable into 2020 and beyond.

Essential Functions

Analysis of agency administrative data, both for regular reporting efforts and in response to emergent requests;
Preparation of data extracts and matched data sets;
Creation and updating of data utilization tools, including reports, dashboards, and quality assurance tracking tools;
Literature review and syntheses of best practices;
Participation in qualitative and/or quantitative data collection and management processes including tool development, fieldwork, and data cleaning;
Development of data reports, visualizations, and/or other briefing materials to effectively convey findings to intended stakeholders.

Required Qualifications:

Associate’s Degree with degrees preferred in public administration, public policy, sociology, community development, or related field AND three years of experience in housing programs, community development or social services OR an equivalent combination of education and experience.

Ideal Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:

Experience in qualitative and qualitative research applications including data collection, management, and analysis;
Outstanding Excel skills and strong proficiencies in other MS applications;
Strong critical thinking skills and an ability to introduce creative problem-solving to complex analytic puzzles;
Knowledge of affordable housing policy and research and/or knowledge of related social policy arenas such as health, education, or other areas;
Experience working with large and/or administrative datasets strongly preferred;
Knowledge and skill in using analytic software programs such as Stata, Tableau, or GIS;
Knowledge and ability in creating reports, dashboard, and other data summary and visualization materials;
Strong organizational skills including the ability to handle multiple projects simultaneously;
Exceptional written and verbal communication skills;
Collaborative team player that is at ease working with multiple and diverse stakeholders and who brings enthusiasm, curiosity, humility, and humor to their work.