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PhD Positions in Global Land-Use Change and Telecoupling

15 PhD Positions Available in Global Land-Use Change and Telecoupling 

  • Are you interested in land-use change?
  • Would you like to be trained in the telecoupling framework and be on the forefront of understanding processes and actors that influence land-use in an interconnected world?
  • Would you like to become an expert in trans- and interdisciplinary concepts and methodologies?
  • Are you interested in moving between science and practice in order to qualify for a successful career in research, consulting, industry or governance?
  • Are you in the first four years of your research career, or will you graduate soon?

If yes, apply now for a PhD position in the research network “COUPLED – Operationalising telecouplings for sustainability challenges related to land use”!

Funded by the European Commission under the Horizon 2020 Marie Sklodowska-Curie ITN Programme, the COUPLED network PhD students will be selected for 3-year advanced multidisciplinary research training, starting July 2018 or earlier.

To see the 15 positions and submit your application, please go to http://coupled-itn.eu/recruitment/

On the website you can learn more about our research programme, the supervisors, the participating host organizations, and much more.

Closing Date: November 24, 2017

KL2 Multidisciplinary Clinical Research Career Development Program

The ITHS KL2 Multidisciplinary Clinical Research Career Development Program provides the time, funding, mentorship, and training necessary to foster the early career development of clinical and translational researchers. The program is funded by the NIH and welcomes scholars from all health professions.

KL2 Scholars are appointed for up to three years of support. The program encourages all types of clinical research, including patient-oriented research, translational research, small- and large-scale clinical investigation and trials, epidemiologic and natural history studies, health services research, and health behavior research.

TL1 Translational Research Training Program

The ITHS TL1 Program is a one-year mentored research training program in translational science for predoctoral students. This program creates a cross-disciplinary community of emerging researchers and provides them with specific training, career development opportunities, and team science skills to help them function effectively within translational science teams. Up to sixteen (16) Trainees will be selected for the TL1 Program.

Eligibility

The TL1 Program is open to students enrolled in predoctoral programs within the University of Washington. These include Dentistry, Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy, Public Health, and Social Work, as well as health-related programs in the College of Engineering and College of Arts and Sciences.

To be considered eligible for the TL1 Program, applicants must be:

  • Pre-doctoral trainees training at a post-baccalaureate level and enrolled in a program leading to a PhD in a health science research-related doctoral degree program, or a combined doctoral level professional degree plus a clinical research-related advanced degree (such as a MD, DDS, DO, DNP, PharmD/MS or MD, DDS, DO, DNP, PharmD/PhD). Students who wish to postpone their professional studies for one year to gain research experience may be appointed to the TL1 Program for that period, provided that all other eligibility criteria are met.
  • A U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident, with verification documents (individuals on temporary or student visas are not eligible).
  • Able to commit full-time effort in the program at the time of appointment.

Applicants must not:

  • Conduct research outside of the United States during their appointment period.
  • Accept salary support from other Public Health Service-funded grants during their appointment period.
  • Have previously received five years or more of NRSA support in aggregate at the predoctoral level, including any combination of support from institutional training grants and individual fellowship awards.

Key Dates

  • Application Deadline
    October 30, 2017
  • Notification of Awards
    Mid-December, 2017
  • Program Start and End Dates
    March 1, 2018 – February 28, 2019

 

 

Sociology Speaker Series: “Under the Cover – The Creation, Production, and Reception of a Novel”

Sociology Speaker Series

Under the Cover: The Creation, Production, and Reception of a Novel
Clayton Childress, University of Toronto 
Monday, October 30
12:30-1:30 PM
Savery Hall, Room 409

 

Starting in the early 1970s, in sociology and allied disciplines the studies of cultural pro­duction and reception began to split apart. Likewise, while applications of field theory to cultural production and reception have gen­erated no shortage insights about the inter­nal orders within fields, for the most part em­pirical analyses have stopped short at the relationships betweenfields. What are the consequences of both of these of arrange­ments? Through following a novel in real-time all the way from its authoring, into its publishing and selling, and then to the read­ing of it in 21 book groups, this talk reveals how decisions are made, inequalities are re­produced, and novels are built to travel in the creation, production, and consumption of cul­ture.

Data Science Seminar: Andrew Gelman, “The Statistical Crisis in Science”

Top journals routinely publish ridiculous, scientifically implausible claims, justified based on “p < 0.05.” And this in turn calls into question all sorts of more plausible, but not necessarily true, claims, that are supported by this same sort of evidence. To put it another way: we can all laugh at studies of ESP, or ovulation and voting, but what about MRI studies of political attitudes, or stereotype threat, or, for that matter, the latest potential cancer cure? If we can’t trust p-values, does experimental science involving human variation just have to start over? And what do we do in fields such as political science and economics, where preregistered replication can be difficult or impossible? Can Bayesian inference supply a solution? Maybe. These are not easy problems, but they’re important problems.

Andrew Gelman is a professor of statistics and political science and director of the Applied Statistics Center at Columbia University. He has received the Outstanding Statistical Application Award from the American Statistical Association, the award for best article published in the American Political Science Review, and the Council of Presidents of Statistical Societies Award for outstanding contributions by a person under the age of 40. His books include Bayesian Data Analysis (with John Carlin, Hal Stern, David Dunson, Aki Vehtari, and Don Rubin), Teaching Statistics: A Bag of Tricks (with Deb Nolan), Data Analysis Using Regression and Multilevel/Hierarchical Models (with Jennifer Hill), Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State: Why Americans Vote the Way They Do (with David Park, Boris Shor, and Jeronimo Cortina), and A Quantitative Tour of the Social Sciences (co-edited with Jeronimo Cortina).

Emilio Zagheni Leverages Facebook as a Tool for Demographic Research

In an article published last week in Population and Development Review, CSDE Training Director Emilio Zagheni and co-authors present Facebook’s advertising platform as a novel strategy for estimating migration data. Facebook provides a free and accessible means for researchers and advertisers alike to find relevant socio-demographic information about users, which they can then sort by geographic location. Considering the dearth of data sources available for assessing progress towards goals such as sustainable development, this approach—which takes advantage of new data sources—is an important development for demographic research. You can read more about their innovative approach below.

Eleanor Brindle Develops Method for Assessing Micronutrient Deficiencies in Low- and Middle-Income Countries

In a recent article, CSDE Biodemography Lab Manager Eleanor Brindle and colleagues present a technique to address the issue of limited information on the status micronutrient deficiencies in the populations of low- and middle-income countries. The micronutrients of concern to the authors are vitamin A, iron, and iodine, deficiencies of which are public health concerns in a number of low- and middle-income nations. Lead author Brindle and her co-authors developed a 7-plex immunoassay that enables the concurrent measurement of seven biomarkers used to determine the status of these micronutrients in populations of concern. According to the authors, this technique could provide an affordable means of surveying populations for nutrient deficiencies, as well as for falciparum malarial parasitemia inflammation and infection. The article is a product of work Brindle has been doing with the international nonprofit organization PATH over past few years, and is accessible below.

Janelle Taylor Receives Funding from National Institute on Aging for Study on Health Outcomes for Dementia Patients

Janelle S. Taylor, affiliate and Professor in the Department of Anthropology, has received funding from the National Institute on Aging (NIA) for a new study titled “Health Outcomes for Patients with Dementia without Family Caregivers.”  This two-year R21 project includes both quantitative and qualitative components, and will be a collaboration between Taylor as PI and colleagues from Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute; the VA Puget Sound Health Care System; UW Medicine, Social Work, Anthropology; and CSDE. Collaborators include Marlaine F. Gray, Eric B. Larson, Paul K. Crane, Elizabeth K. Vig, Stephanie G.B. Wheeler, Ann M. O’Hare, Clara W. Berridge, and Bettina Shell-Duncan, along with CSDE’s Cori Mar. The research will analyze data from the Adult Changes in Thought (ACT) study–an ongoing longitudinal cohort study of incident dementia–in combination with health records data, to document whether older adults with dementia who lack family support suffer worse health outcomes, and/or different patterns of interaction with the health care system, than do those with strong family support.

This is Taylor’s first time submitting an NIH grant as PI, and it was funded on the first submission–a happy outcome for which Taylor gives much credit to the excellent support that she received from CSDE.  She relied upon CSDE staff not only to apply for the grant (John Kemner), but also for guidance on NIH policies and procedures (John Kemner, Sara Curran, Bettina Shell-Duncan), comments and feedback on application drafts (Sara Curran), and advice on study design and preliminary assessments of data (for example, when requesting preliminary data and preparing a power analysis; Cori Mar).  She hopes that her positive experience and outcome, as a first-time NIH applicant, may offer encouragement to other CSDE affiliates considering embarking upon what can be a rather daunting application process.

Data Science Incubation Program

The UW eScience Institute is pleased to announce
the Data Science Incubation Program – Winter 2018

The goal of the Data Science Incubator is to enable new science by bringing together data scientists and domain scientists to work on focused, intensive, collaborative projects.  Our team of data scientists provides expertise in state-of-the-art technology and methods in statistics and machine learning, data manipulation and analytics at all scales, cloud and cluster computing, software design and engineering, visualization, and other topics. We invite short proposals (1-2 pages) for one-quarter data-intensive research projects focusing on extracting insight from large, noisy, or heterogeneous datasets.

The program is open to any faculty, postdoc, staff, or student whose research can be significantly advanced by intensive collaboration with a data science expert. To apply, we require a short project proposal describing the science goals, the relevant datasets, and the expected technical challenges.  The ideal proposal will clearly identify both the datasets involved and the questions to be answered, and will explain how the technical component of the project is critical to delivering exciting new findings.

Each project must include a project lead who is willing to physically co-locate with the incubator staff. We find that collaboration in a shared space is important for deeper technical engagement and provides opportunities for “cross-pollination” among multiple concurrent projects. The Incubator operates on Tuesdays and Thursdays out of the  WRF Data Science Studio  (6th floor of the Physics/Astronomy Tower). The project lead should plan to work in the Studio for several hours on these days.

Incubator projects are not “for-hire” software jobs — the project lead will work in collaboration with the data scientists and the broader eScience community. Each project lead will “own” their project (and its results) and be responsible for its successful completion, with the eScience team providing guidance on methods, technologies, and best practices as well as general software engineering.

For more information including how to apply, see our Incubator Program page.

Important Dates for the Winter 2018 Incubator:

October 26th: Information meeting. Location: WRF Data Science Studio. Time: 1pm.

November 10th: Applications due.

December 4th: Notification or proposal selections.

January 4th: Kickoff meeting. Location: WRF Data Science Studio.

 

If you have any questions about submitting a project for an Incubator, please consult one of our Data Scientists during their Office Hours for guidance: http://escience.washington.edu/office-hours

 

Moving to Despair? Migration and Well-Being in Pakistan

Valerie Mueller, School of Politics and Global Studies, Arizona State University

Internal migration has the potential to substantially increase income, especially for the poor in developing countries, and yet migration rates remain low. We explore the role of psychic costs by evaluating the impacts of internal migration on a suite of well-being indicators using a unique, 22-year longitudinal study in rural Pakistan. We account for selection into migration using covariate matching. Migrants have roughly 35 to 40 percent higher consumption per adult equivalent, yet are 12 to 14 percentage points less likely to report feeling either happy or calm. Our results suggest that deteriorating physical health coupled with feelings of relative deprivation underlie the disparity between economic and mental well-being. Thus, despite substantial monetary gains from migration, people may be happier and less mentally distressed remaining at home. If traditional market mechanisms cannot reduce psychic costs, it may be more constructive to address regional inequality by shifting production – rather than workers – across space.