Assistant Professor of Human Development. The Department of Human Ecology, in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences at the University of California, Davis is recruiting an Assistant Professor of Human Development with an emphasis in Adult Development and Aging. This is an academic year (9-month), Assistant Professor tenure-track position with teaching, research, outreach/engagement and service responsibilities and includes the expectation that the appointee will conduct mission-oriented research and outreach/engagement of relevance to the California Agricultural Experiment Station
(http://caes.ucdavis.edu/research/agexpstn).

The Department of Human Ecology is seeking applicants that focus on Adult Development and Aging with emphasis on any one or more of the following domains of human development: biological, environmental, sociocultural, mental health, and neurocognitive.  Potential applicants whose work focuses on these and related topics in diverse populations and/or who are interested in health disparities in adult development and aging are particularly encouraged to apply. The appointee is expected to establish a competitively funded research program to address critical or emerging issues in adult development and aging. The appointee will teach three courses per academic year; the specific courses will vary from year to year, based on programmatic needs, and will encompass both core courses (undergraduate and graduate) in human development (e.g., HDE 100C – Adulthood and Aging; HDE 200C – Development in Adulthood) as well as specialty courses in appointee’s area of expertise. The appointee will be a member of the Graduate Group in Human Development, serving as a research mentor for graduate students. Participation in and development of outreach/engagement programs, and performance of departmental and university service is expected. This position is expected to work with Cooperative Extension educators and partners in allied industries.

The landscape of family life is ever changing. The strategies needed to maintain family economic stability, health and general well-being vary across space and place. Although the rural-urban divide is often portrayed as the most important geographic distinction, there is tremendous diversity across rural communities. Contrary to some depictions, families in rural areas come from diverse backgrounds. Further, some rural areas are resource constrained while others host opportunities that can support healthy families and child well-being. The 2018 National Symposium on Family Issues will focus on the challenges facing families in rural areas and the unique strategies invoked by families in rural areas today.

The William T. Grant Scholars Program supports career development for promising early-career researchers. The program funds five-year research and mentoring plans that significantly expand junior researchers’ expertise in new disciplines, methods, and content areas. We recognize that early-career researchers are rarely given incentives or support to take such risks, so this award includes a mentoring component, as well as an emphasis on community and collaboration.

Scholars Program applicants should have a track record of conducting high-quality research and an interest in pursuing a significant shift in their trajectories as researchers. Proposed research plans must address questions of policy and practice that are relevant to the Foundation’s focus areas.

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The online application will open on April 23. All applications must be received by July 5, 2018 at 3:00 PM EST.

• Download the Scholars Program Application Guide (Updated January 2018)

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Focus Areas

We fund research that increases understanding in one of our two focus areas:

• programs, policies, and practices that reduce inequality in youth outcomes, and
• strategies to improve the use of research evidence in ways that benefit youth.

We seek research that builds stronger theory and empirical evidence in these two areas. We intend for the research we support to inform change. While we do not expect that any one study will create that change, the research should contribute to a body of useful knowledge to improve the lives of young people.

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Awards

Award recipients are designated as William T. Grant Scholars. Each year, four to six Scholars are selected and each receives up to $350,000, distributed over five years.

Awards begin July 1 and are made to the applicant’s institution. The award must not replace the institution’s current support of the applicant’s research.

Capacity-Building

The Foundation holds annual meetings during the summer to support the Scholars’ professional development. These summer retreats are designed to foster a supportive environment in which Scholars can improve their skills and work. Scholars discuss works-in-progress and receive constructive feedback on the challenges they face in conducting their projects. The retreat consists of workshops centered on Scholars’ projects, research design and methods issues, and professional development. The meeting is attended by Scholars, Scholars Selection Committee members, and Foundation staff and Board members. Scholars are also invited to attend other Foundation-sponsored workshops on topics relevant to their work, such as mixed methods and the use of research evidence in policy and practice.

In years one through three of their awards, Scholars may apply for additional awards to mentor junior researchers of color. The announcement and criteria for funding are distributed annually to Scholars. Our goals for these two-year awards are to build Scholars’ mentoring skills and understanding of the career development issues faced by junior colleagues of color. We also seek to expand their mentees’ research assets and increase the number of strong, well-networked researchers of color doing work on the Foundation’s research interests. The Foundation convenes annual workshops to strengthen these mentoring relationships and support career development.

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Eligibility Requirements

• Applicant received his/her terminal degree (e.g., PhD, MD) within seven years of submitting the application. For PhDs this is the date the doctoral degree was conferred. In medicine, the seven-year maximum is dated from the completion of the first residency.
• Project advances the Foundation’s interest in understanding programs, policies, and practices that reduce inequality or improving the use of research evidence.
• Applicant is employed at a tax-exempt organization.

As a leader in women’s health research, MWRI has embarked on this new initiative to inspire the global agenda on reproductive biology and women’s health issues. With this, we deliver our vision of the future of women’s health and wellness to the world. As a part of this initiative, MWRI will host the Magee-Womens Research Summit, an international conference of global research scientists focused on women’s health. The event will take place on October 9-10, 2018 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.

The centerpiece of the event will be the awarding of a $1 million prize for collaborative, bold and transformative research in an area of inquiry within the reproductive sciences. The funding for the Magee Prize is provided by the generosity and forward-thinking leaders at the Richard King Mellon Foundation who, inspired by MWRI’s focus on women’s health and its impact on population health, wish to bolster discovery and innovation in this understudied area of human health. This prize emphasizes the 9 months of pregnancy and early human development, and its impact on 90+ years of health and wellness. To qualify, proposals should include a component of early human development, and/or a longitudinal, lifespan approach to any project within the reproductive sciences and women’s health. Applications are encouraged in any relevant biological discipline, from basic or translational biology to clinical and health services research. The research must be collaborative and transdisciplinary, and include one or more research groups from anywhere in the world working with an MWRI team. Novelty may be conceptual or methodological, involve new models or drugs, and ideally based on high-risk and high-reward approach. Preliminary data are encouraged but not required. The application must be distinct from projects currently pursued by the investigators, designed to lead to innovative investigations that may not fit a traditional NIH funding mechanism.

The chosen candidate will develop climate-mortality models to generate a prototype of prediction scheme of temperature-related mortality for a very large ensemble of regions in Europe, based on (i) the climate forecasting tools developed by other partners in the project, and (ii) a pan-European daily dataset of regional mortality. This new dataset is the updated version of the one used for example in Ballester et al. 2016 (doi:10.1038/NCLIMATE3070).

The final aim is to evaluate how the skill in climate forecasts is transferred to the predictability of mortality risk, and to generate a tool in the area of climate impacts and human health that can increase human adaptation in the context of global warming.

The position will be paid with funding from the H2020 project Blue-Action (www.blue-action.eu), and research will be carried out in parallel with the work done by other members of the group for the H2020 projects ACCLIM and PUCS, both on the same area of research.

The research aim of ISGlobal’s Climate and Health Program is to address the effects that environmental conditions and climate change have on human health. The research record of scientists in the Program include several high-quality articles in high-impact journals such as Nature, Science, The Lancet, PNAS, Nature Climate Change and Nature Communications. The lines of research include extreme temperatures and precipitation, heat waves and cold spells, the impact of climate change on the spread of infectious (e.g. malaria, dengue, leishmaniosis, chikungunya, Zika) and non-infectious (Kawasaki Syndrome) diseases, the El Niño phenomenon and other environmental and climate factors.

Postdoctoral position focused on structures and dynamics in networks. The successful candidate will have the opportunity to work interdisciplinarily with a wide range of social networks and network neuroscience interests at both UNC and Duke, as well as with collaborators of Mucha’s networks research group at Penn and Columbia. If desired, applicants with the requisite background and teaching experience will also be considered for a teaching assignment in Mathematics.The position is initially for one-year, renewable based on satisfactory performance and availability of funding. Starting date: July 1, 2018 or as soon after that as possible Ph.D. in Mathematics, Applied Mathematics, Statistics, Computer Science, Neuroscience, Sociology, Physics, Engineering, or a closely related field. Previous research experience in the study of networks is required. Preference will be given to candidates with demonstrated expertise in clustering, community detection, modeling infection/information spread, networked dynamical systems, or network neuroscience. In addition to applying at the UNC website, applicants should post the following at www.mathjobs.org: (1) a current vita including all publications and submitted articles; (2) a current research statement; (3) at least three reference letters that address research qualifications for the position. Applicants must apply online at http://unc.peopleadmin.com/postings/140822 to be considered for this position. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We welcome all qualified applicants to apply, including individuals of all gender identities, under-represented minorities, individuals with disabilities, and veterans.

 

Abstract

Bio

Dr. Uyi Stewart is the director of Global Development Strategy, Data and Analytics at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. His team is responsible for applying innovative technologies such as machine learning, artificial intelligence, etc. to optimize the use of data for decision-making and for delivery effectiveness, as well as leveraging the foundation’s data investments to create global public goods.

Prior to joining the Gates foundation in March 2017, Uyi previously spent 13 years with IBM Research where he was promoted to distinguished engineer (one of the firm’s highest technical honors) in 2014, and he was also the co-founder and chief scientist of IBM Research – Africa from 2012 – 2016 (the first lab on the continent for conducting applied and far-reaching exploratory research into Africa’s grand challenges). Before IBM Research, Uyi held technical leadership positions with AT&T Labs, Call Sciences and Nuance Communications. He was also a lecturer at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver. Uyi holds a PhD in Linguistics with specialization in generative syntax and language/speech interfaces from McGill University, a Master of Philosophy from Cambridge and a Bachelor of Arts (first class honors) from the University of Benin, Nigeria.