The Population Health Initiative, Urban@UW, the Graduate School and the Buerk Center for Entrepreneurship will be hosting a networking event for graduate students and postdocs from all schools and colleges across the UW who are engaged in scholarship around climate change.

The event will feature lightning presentations from 5-7 students/postdocs on a specific area of climate research.

We are seeking student/postdoc volunteers from diverse disciplines to present their work at this forum, and would like your help in identifying a few presenters. The presentations will be informal and there will be no need for extensive preparation. Presenters will be asked to either talk about a successful collaborative project related to climate change, or about how their own work might benefit from collaborations with different disciplines.

Examples of areas we would like to see represented include climate policy and politics, health implications of climate change, engineering or technology solutions, entrepreneurial approaches to climate change, climate justice and equity, built environment responses to climate change, communicating climate research, and others.

The University of California, Merced, is the newest of the University of California system’s 10 campuses and the first American research university built in the 21st century. With more than 7,500 undergraduate and graduate students, UC Merced offers an environment that combines a commitment to diversity, inclusion, collaboration and professional development. With bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degree programs, strong research and academic partnerships, and community involvement, the UC Merced campus is continually evolving and requires talented, knowledgeable and dynamic educators, researchers, management and staff.

Ranked among the best public universities in the nation by U.S. News and World Report, UC Merced is uniquely equipped to provide educational opportunities to highly qualified students from the San Joaquin Valley and throughout California. The campus enjoys a special connection with nearby Yosemite National Park, is on the cutting edge of sustainability in construction and design, and supports the economic development of Merced and the region.

In Fall 2016, UC Merced broke ground on a $1.3 billion public-private partnership that is unprecedented in higher education. The Merced 2020 Project will nearly double the physical capacity of the campus by 2020, enhancing academic distinction, student success and research excellence. UC Merced is also building the Downtown Campus Center, a $33 million, three-story administrative building in the heart of Merced.

The Department of Sociology in the School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts invites applications for a faculty member at the Assistant Professor level (tenure-track) with research interests in the Sociology of Health, Medical Sociology, and/or Environmental Justice. Candidates in any of these areas are encouraged to apply, but we are particularly interested in applicants with a focus on health disparities and inequities or environmental health and justice. This is a unique opportunity to join the faculty at the newest University of California campus, where we are building a world class program and have the opportunity to work with a wonderfully diverse and engaged undergraduate and graduate student population. We seek outstanding scholars who will establish and maintain creative research programs; participate in creating a multi-faculty specialization in the Sociology of Health at UC Merced; participate actively in the development of innovative interdisciplinary programs and research, especially the Health Sciences Research Institute (HSRI); and, teach effectively at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.

In order to be considered, candidates must have a research program in the sociology of health or a closely related field; a PhD in sociology by the position start date; and a strong record of publication.

The anticipated start date for this position is July 1, 2019.

Applications must be submitted online. Completed applications must be received no later than October 2, 2018, in order to be considered. Interested applicants are required to submit 1) a cover letter; 2) curriculum vitae; 3) statement of research; 4) statement of teaching; 5) three writing samples; 6) a contributions to diversity statement; and, 7) a list of references with contact information including mailing address, phone number and e-mail address.

The contributions to diversity statement should describe your past experience, activities and future plans to advance diversity, equity and inclusion, in alignment with UC Merced’s mission to reflect the diversity of California and to meet the educational needs and interests of its diverse population. Some faculty candidates may not have substantial past activities. If that is the case, we recommend focusing on future plans in your statement. For additional information on what should be included on your Diversity Statement, please visit http://facultyexcellence.ucsd.edu/c2d/index.html#Are-there-any-guidelines-for-wr.

Applicants for the Assistant Professor level should arrange to have three letters of reference submitted online. After an application is submitted, the letters of reference should be electronically uploaded by the letter writers (instructions will be provided by the application system). Letters of reference should be received no later than October 2, 2018.

The University of California, Merced is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer with a strong institutional commitment to the achievement of diversity among its faculty, students and staff. The UC Merced Department of Sociology is committed to the goal of building a culturally diverse and pluralistic faculty dedicated to teaching and working in a multicultural environment, and strongly encourages applications from ethnic and racial minorities and members of other underrepresented groups.

Salary is commensurate with education, experience, and UC academic salary scales.

For additional information, please contact Paul Almeida at palmeida@ucmerced.edu.

The School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University is searching for up to two tenure track or tenured faculty members with specialties in U.S. social policy in one or more of the following areas: poverty, inequality, race/ethnicity, immigration, and income security. Research methods may be quantitative and/or qualitative in nature. Candidates may have research interests in policy design, implementation, and/or evaluation. The successful candidate(s) will be expected to develop an extramurally supported research program. Candidates may be appointed at the rank of assistant or associate professor. Appointment at the full professor level may be possible for a candidate with an exceptional research record in the specified area(s) of expertise.

Minimum educational qualifications include a Ph.D. in a related field (e.g. public affairs/public policy, economics, sociology/demography, political science, public administration), evidence of a cohesive research program and a commitment to high quality teaching.

All SPEA faculty members are expected to interact with our diverse student and faculty community. As such, we are especially interested in applicants with a record of successful teaching and mentoring of students from many backgrounds (including first-generation college students, low-income students, racial and ethnic minorities, women, LGBTQ, etc.), an interest in contributing to SPEA’s programs, curricular offerings, and a research portfolio in ways that enhance diversity, equity, and inclusion; applicants are encouraged to address these topics in the letter of application.

The Department of Gerontology in the John W. McCormack Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston invites qualified persons to apply for a tenure-track assistant professor position to join our faculty beginning September 1, 2019.

 

The Gerontology Department is building on its strengths in the broad area of aging and health. We are also seeking greater collaboration with the UMass Boston College of Nursing and Health Sciences. Although the tenure home for the position will be in the Department of Gerontology, the position will include responsibility for teaching in the Nursing Department’s PhD program. There will be other opportunities for the person who occupies this position to collaborate with the College of Nursing and Health Sciences.

 

The position requires that applicants have an earned doctoral degree in one of the following fields: gerontology, nursing, epidemiology, sociology, psychology, demography, health economics, social work, or public health. Applicants with terminal degrees in other fields will also be considered. Successful candidates will have demonstrated expertise in one or more of the following substantive areas: health disparities in later life, the intersection of aging, race, ethnicity, and income, as well as mental health and aging, and physical health and aging. Other areas of aging and health expertise will be considered, including health policy and/or basic health research. All candidates should have an emerging or established program of research with evidence of external funding or the potential for generating external funding.

Candidates should have strong quantitative research skills and be able to contribute to the methods and statistics core in both programs, among other areas. Candidates should be prepared to teach in both doctoral programs, as well as in Department of Gerontology’s online Master’s degree program, and the new Global Aging and Life Course Studies undergraduate major/minor.

Faculty from the Department of Gerontology and the Nursing Department will attend the 2018 annual meetings of the Gerontological Society of America in Boston. Arrangements can be made to discuss the position with these representatives. Please contact Michele Campbell (michele.campbell@umb.edu) if you are interested in scheduling an appointment.

We are pleased to announce the Call for Papers for the Eleventh International Conference on Climate Change: Impacts & Responses, held 16–17 April 2019 at the Pryzbyla Center, The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., USA.

We invite proposals for paper presentations, workshops/interactive sessions, posters/exhibits, colloquia, innovation showcases, virtual posters, or virtual lightning talks. 

The Department of Comparative Human Development invites applications for a social scientist whose research focuses on individuals in the context of migration and multicultural societies; scholars may approach this topic from one of a number of disciplinary perspectives. Topics of particular interest include but are not limited to: migration and the life course, socialization and intergenerational transmission in multicultural settings, bilingualism and learning, gender, kinship and sexuality; citizenship ideologies and attitudes towards cultural difference in host countries (e.g., tolerance, human rights, pluralism, social intelligence, etc.) and mental health. The ideal candidate will have an ambitious and innovative research program with strong theoretical and empirical components. A goal of this search is to increase the diversity of the faculty in the Department, and we therefore welcome applicants who come from groups historically underrepresented in the discipline, such as Black/African American, Hispanic/Latino, American Indian, or Alaskan Native.

The Department of Comparative Human Development is an interdisciplinary program at the critical edge of thought and research in the social sciences. Faculty and students conduct interdisciplinary, holistic, and comparative research focused on individual lives within various, changing, and heterogeneous contexts. They draw on methods and concepts from anthropology, biological and developmental psychology, educational research, sociology, and statistics. They are committed to examining humans as simultaneously sociocultural, biological, and psychological beings who change over developmental and historical time. For more information please see our website: https://humdev.uchicago.edu.

The successful candidate will be appointed as either an Assistant Professor, or as a Provost Postdoctoral Fellow with an initial one or two-year appointment at the faculty rank of instructor. Candidates are expected to have the PhD in hand, and no more than two years of postdoctoral experience, by the time the appointment begins. This initial period is intended to serve in lieu of a postdoctoral appointment for the same period, during which Provost Fellows will teach one course per year. At the end of the initial term, Provost Fellows will ordinarily be promoted to Assistant Professor.

Applicants must apply online at the University of Chicago’s Academic Career Opportunities website: https://tinyurl.com/y7blnufw. Applications must include: 1) a cover letter; 2) a current curriculum vitae; 3) three letters of reference; 4) a research statement addressing current research and future plans for research; and 5) a teaching statement addressing teaching experience and philosophy. Writing samples may be requested at a later date.

The main objective of this consultancy is to assist with methodological developments and improvements, further maintain, update and optimize the child and adolescent mortality database, assist in generating child and adolescent mortality estimates, support preparing for country consultations, preparing for the child mortality reporting under the supervision of the Statistics Specialist in the Data and Analytics Section, Division of Data, Research and Policy.

Minimum requirements and competencies:

• An advanced university degree (Master’s) in demography, statistics
• Minimum 3-5 years of professional experience in the area of demographic and statistical analysis.
• Knowledge of methods of demographic analysis and child mortality estimation.
• Advanced experience in statistical programming with R.
• Excellent communication and writing skills and detail-oriented.
• Ability to take initiatives and work independently.
• Creativity and enthusiasm.
• Ability to work well in a team environment.
• Fluent in English

The Sociology Department is comprised of thirteen full-time faculty engaged in a wide range of research activities who often involve undergraduate students in their research. The Center for Social Science Instruction is housed within the Department and provides assistance to faculty and students with computing and statistical analysis. The Department also maintains a significant international focus and has sponsored a number of faculty-led study abroad programs. The Sociology Department supports Western’s mission to bring together individuals for diverse backgrounds and perspectives in an inclusive, student-centered university that develops the potential of learners and the well-being of communities, and encourages applications from diverse candidates. The Department does not offer a master’s degree. For more information about the Department, please see https://chss.wwu.edu/sociology.

About the Position

• Teach undergraduate courses within the department’s existing curriculum
• Develop new courses in the candidate’s area of expertise within the field of social demography, broadly defined
• Ability and willingness to teach Department’s core courses in statistics and research methods
• Participation in curricular planning of the Department’s Bachelors of Science in Sociology degree
• Fulfill teaching responsibilities in ways that provide equitable and inclusive learning environments for all students
• Active engagement in scholarship, including scholarly publications
• Active participation in service activities within the Department, University, and discipline

Theme: “Harnessing Africa’s Population Dynamics for Sustainable Development: 25 Years after Cairo and Beyond” In 1994, 179 governments adopted the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), which underscores the integral and mutually reinforcing linkages between population and development. The ICPD programme was reinforced by other global agreements including the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that were adopted during the Millennium Summit in 2000.

Overall, Africa has made considerable progress towards achieving various development goals since the adoption of the MDGs. Some of the significant strides made include reducing maternal, infant, and HIV-related deaths, enhancing women’s representation in national parliaments, enrolling more children in primary school, bridging the gender gap in primary school enrolment, improved access to safe drinking water, saving millions of lives through targeted investments in fighting malaria, AIDS and tuberculosis among others. These achievements underscore the important role that national commitment, supported by global partnerships can play in realizing development objectives. Despite the various improvements that have been made, considerable challenges remain and need to be addressed urgently. Indeed, the progress observed is not even across the continent or within countries, with significant disparities between and within countries, between women and men, between rural and urban residents, and between the poorest and the wealthiest in the continent. Other challenges relative to the environment, non-communicable diseases, civil unrest, etc. constitute significant threats to Africa’s development.

Building on the momentum generated by the MDGs and seeking to address their unfinished business, the international community adopted the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development and its related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in September 2015, an ambitious and transformative agenda to eradicate poverty in all its forms and dimensions by 2030. Eradicating poverty, including extreme poverty, is the greatest global challenge and a requirement for achieving sustainable development in its three dimensions – economic, social and environmental.

As a complement to the 2030 Agenda, Africa took a decisive step by formulating and adopting in 2013 the Agenda 2063: The Africa we want, a framework to guide Africa’s development in the next 50 years, aiming to transform the continent into “An integrated, prosperous and peaceful Africa, driven by its own citizens and representing a dynamic force in international arena”. The Agenda 2063 presents a broader scope of developmental objectives expected to guide actions of governments, international development partners and civil society. At the same time, most African countries have adopted comprehensive long-term development plans to guide their socio-economic transformation. Last but not least, the Addis Ababa Declaration on Population and Development (AADPD), adopted by 53 African countries in 2013, provides a key framework for addressing population and development issues in Africa. Its rich set of commitments can simultaneously support Africa’s efforts to harness a demographic dividend, advance human rights and meet sustainable development goals. The AADPD rests on six thematic pillars: dignity and equality; place and mobility; health; partnership and international cooperation; data and statistics; and governance.

It is noteworthy that the continent’s population dynamics, including the size, distribution and composition of the population, will influence prospects for sustainable development. The challenge that remains is effective implementation of various policies and actions to ensure that Africa’s population growth, structure and distribution do not undermine efforts to reduce poverty, ensure food security, preserve the environment, and improve education, employment, and health while ensuring that successes of the MDGs are sustained towards realizing the SDGs. Today, Africa’s high child dependency burden, resulting from the continent’s youthful population (about 41% of the continent’s population was less than 15 in 2017) is widely recognized as a major barrier to its socioeconomic development. Despite significant declines in fertility levels and mortality among children, women on average continue to have more children than they desire, and many children continue to die before their fifth birthday across the continent, often from preventable diseases. As highlighted by the AADPD that reaffirmed the continent’s commitment to the ICPD Program of Action beyond 2014, the way forward to sustainable development requires significant policy shifts including timely implementation of effective policies, for example, those that aim to help countries realize the demographic dividend which provides an incredible opportunity for accelerated economic growth. Already, African countries have embraced the demographic dividend as a potential critical booster to their sustainable and inclusive socio-economic development.

Furthermore, although the continent is the least urbanized in the world, it is also rapidly urbanizing albeit in an uncontrolled manner and by 2050, the majority of Africans will be living in urban areas. As indicated by the adoption of a standalone goal on cities and urban areas in the 2030 Agenda, urbanization has been recognized as a key driver of economic growth and socioeconomic transformation, if well managed. Evidently, significant efforts will be needed to ensure Africa benefits from its rapid urbanization.

Overall, it is evident that despite the progress made since the adoption of the 1994 ICPD programme of action, considerable challenges remain and if efforts do not go into addressing the various challenges, the gains made recently in advancing the continent’s transformation may be reversed.

The Eighth African Population Conference will bring together scientists from various disciplines, policymakers, practitioners, civil society organizations, international organizations, donors and other stakeholders from Africa and across the world to discuss the most pressing population and development issues confronting the continent and also examine opportunities and best practices that can be leveraged for the continent’s sustainable development. Twenty-five years after the ICPD in Cairo, this UAPS conference will offer an opportune platform for all these stakeholders to engage and discuss how Africa can harness its unique population dynamics for sustainable development, while proposing multidisciplinary solutions to Africa’s development challenges. Papers will respond to the following questions: From the 1994 ICPD programme of action to the 2015 SDGs, what worked? What did not work and why? Three elements will be key in measuring the conference’s success: the quality of the papers presented, the level of participation and ultimately the contribution of the conference deliberations to addressing Africa’s development challenges in the next decade and beyond.