Submissions are invited for the IAPHS 2018 conference, “Pushing the Boundaries of Population Health Science: Social Inequalities, Biological Processes, and Policy Implications.” This 4th annual interdisciplinary population health research conference will convene October 3-5, 2018 at the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine in Washington, DC.

Please see the Call for Submissions for more details and information on how to submit. The deadline for submissions is March 15, 2018 and those submitting will be notified of decisions by June 15, 2018. Registration for the October conference will open April 1, 2018 for members of IAPHS and May 15 for non-members. Follow the links for further information about the conference and membership in IAPHS.

About the Husky Seed Fund

The Husky Seed Fund is an award that brings to life innovative ideas by students that are inclusive, impactful, and inventive to the UW. The fund launched as a pilot program for students on the Seattle campus in 2016 and is now expanded to also include the Tacoma and Bothell campuses. The fund is managed by students on the Husky Experience Student Advisory Council with funds from the Office of the Provost. Created by students for students, the goal is to bring to life innovative ideas by awarding funds for projects that that will enhance students’ extracurricular experience.

The winners of the Husky Seed Fund are students who are embracing their Husky Experience. They are making their passions come to life, and gaining the skills they need to prepare for rewarding careers in industry, community and life. As you learn more about their projects, we encourage you to do the same – make the most of your Husky Experience.

For questions or more information, contact HESAC members at seedfund@uw.edu, visit our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/huskyseedfund, and read this UW Daily article.

Applying for the Husky Seed Fund

Applications for 2018 are open from February 14 and close on March 12 at 5pm.

Your idea could become reality with a seed funding award of up to $5000. This is your chance to develop leadership and team building while creating something truly unique for your fellow Huskies.

Projects must be Inclusive, Impactful, and Inventive. Overall, HESAC looks for projects that help students feel at home with the UW and engage with the Husky community.

Eligibility Requirements

To be eligible to apply for this program, you (or the group) must be enrolled at either the UW Seattle, Bothell, or Tacoma campus. The applicant(s) must be in good academic standing with a minimum GPA of 2.5 for each group member, and can be of any discipline, major and class standing (including graduate and professional students).

Award Distribution and Accountability

Projects can request up to $5000 (with an average award amount of $2500). Awardees will be held accountable for their progress. Funds are distributed quarterly and awardees will submit a progress report prior to receiving the funds, giving a summary of their achievements, lessons learned, etc.

The University of Colorado Population Center (CUPC), CU’s Institute of Behavioral Science and the  International Union for the Scientific Study of Population (IUSSP), are hosting the 4th annual workshop on  Climate, Migration and Health. This year’s subtheme is focused on trapped populations.

The two‐day workshop, held in Boulder, Colorado, will bring together approximately 10 researchers and  policy communicators to discuss, and move forward, research on this important intersection.

Key is that researchers need only possess expertise in at least one aspect of the workshop.  We aim to  introduce scholars of migration‐climate, to scholars of climate‐health and to also hear from scholars on  trapped populations.

We will spend much of the workshop brainstorming about knowledge gaps and beginning papers/proposals  designed to fill those gaps. Contributors will include members of IUSSP’s Special Emphasis Panel on Climate,  Migration and Health.

Funds are available for partial reimbursement for domestic travel and lodging.

Applicants must be post‐PhD and we aim for an interdisciplinary mix of junior and senior scholars.

To be considered for this workshop, please send a CV and a complete paper, working draft, or an extended abstract of a related research project by March 19, 2018.  Decisions will be made by March 23th.

The conference organizers are Lori Hunter and Fernando Riosmena from the CU Population Center, Institute  of Behavioral Science, CU Boulder. Please address questions to Lori.Hunter@colorado.edu.

Please submit papers to Jessica.LaRue@colorado.edu.

The Berkeley Population Center at the University of California Berkeley and the Center on the Economics and Demography of Aging Present

Workshop and Conference on Formal Demography: Special Emphasis Topic – Mortality   

June 4‐8 2018
To be held at the UC Berkeley Clark Kerr Conference Center

Speakers 
Joshua Goldstein, Professor, Departments of Demography, UC Berkeley  Magali Barbieri, Scientist, Department of Demography, UC Berkeley and INED And more to be announced

Join us for an educational program designed to train the next generation of population researchers in the methods in formal demography. This week‐long program, with funding by  NICHD R25HD083136 consists of three days of hands-on training followed by two days of  research presentations by invited faculty. Trainees may choose to take part in a mentored research project and present a poster at the 2019 Population Association of America annual  meeting.

The workshop is targeted to advanced graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, assistant  professors and other early career researchers. We are particularly interested in supporting  underrepresented minorities. Those studying aspects of mortality, health disparities,  economics, sociology, and public health will particularly benefit, but those with other interests should also apply.

Financial Support: Trainees’ expenses for materials, lodging and meals will  be covered. Need-based support for travel is available. We regret that we cannot cover travel  from outside the United States.

Application materials and more information about the program and formal demography can be found on the Workshop website: http://www.populationsciences.berkeley.edu/populationcenter/programs/formal‐demography. Apply by March 5, 2018.

This paper considers capitalist agricultural development in the Philippines and the emergence of a transpacific proletariat across two colonial regimes. Specifically, capital’s reorganization of landscapes for the production of sugar introduced a new way of structuring power relations through the ownership of land and the private exploitation of natural resources.

The paper begins with an historical analysis of the commodification of the land, which defined the scope of legitimate forms of social reproduction reinforced by state violence during the late Spanish and early American periods. The remainder of this paper explores how the displacement and dispossession of Filipino peasants worked hand-in-hand with American colonial education and agricultural development efforts to remake Filipinos into “free labor.”

This working paper seeks to develop an argument about how the capitalization of land and the proletarianization of labor, under the guise of land distribution and paternalistic tutelage, produced the Philippine colony and generated a mobile population of labor.

We will distribute Roneva’s paper by the end of this week. Light lunch and coffee will be provided. Please RSVP to hbcls@uw.edu.

The Institute for Hazards Mitigation Planning and Research (IHMP) will be holding a series of workshops bringing planners, scientists, emergency managers, student and faculty together to improve communication and exchange ideas.  We hope these discussion will also lead to increased understanding along with student theses, dissertations and research.

These “Bridging the Gap” sessions are being promoted through the University of Washington, College of the Built Environments, Department of Urban Design and Planning’s Institute for Hazards Mitigation Planning and Research.

Our first workshop will address:

Topic: “Opportunities to address Hazards Mitigation through the Growth Management Act”.

Panel: Opportunities will be introduced by John D. Schelling MPA, Emergency Management & Safety Administrator; and Mark McCaskill AICP, Managing Director, Growth Management Services, Local Government Division Washington Department of Commerce.

University of Washington input will be by Himanshu Grover PhD and Bob Freitag CFM, Directors of the Institute for Hazards Mitigation Planning and Research; and Joe Tovar FAICP, Project Manager, The William D. Ruckelshaus Center.

Maximilian Dixon, MUP, MIPM Earthquake Program Manager will be our facilitator.

Abstract
Many new theoretical challenges have arisen in the area of gradient-based optimization for large-scale statistical data analysis, driven by the needs of applications and the opportunities provided by new hardware and software platforms. I discuss several recent, related results in this area: (1) a new framework for understanding Nesterov acceleration, obtained by taking a continuous-time, Lagrangian/Hamiltonian/symplectic perspective, (2) a discussion of how to escape saddle points efficiently in nonconvex optimization, and (3) the acceleration of Langevin diffusion.