The landscape for 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. Families in rural areas come from diverse backgrounds, and communities vary in the degree to which they 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.

Featured Topics:

• What are the family roles, relationships and development pathways unique to those in rural areas?
• How do the conditions of work and family life in rural communities impact well-being?
• What are the current economic and health challenges facing families across diverse rural areas?

Visit our website for more information and to register. The Symposium is open to everyone but registration is required.

The Second Biennial Conference on Population and Public Policy, presented by the International Association of Applied Demographers, hosted by the University of New Mexico Geospatial and Population Studies, and actively supported by the University of Houston’s Hobby Center for Public Policy, will be held at the historic Hotel Albuquerque, February 8-9, 2019. Abstract submission and conference registration as well as hotel booking at the conference site may all be accomplished at the conference website.

Immigration is a major focus of the conference, which will also include panels on New Mexico-specific issues. The plenary speaker will be Douglas Massey, Henry G. Bryant Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs at Princeton University and author of Brokered Boundaries: Creating Immigrant Identity in Anti-Immigrant Times (Russell Sage 2010). An award and cash prize of $500 will be given for the best student paper. The award is named for Guillermina Jasso (PhD, Johns Hopkins), Silver Professor and Professor of Sociology at New York University and author (with Mark Rosenzweig) of The New Chosen People.

The conference has received generous support from Mckibben Demographics; Cropper GIS; The Social Science Research Center, Mississippi State University; and the College of Business Administration, University of Nebraska Omaha. The deadline for submitting abstracts is October 15^th. Complete papers will be due after the first of the year, before the start of the conference. This interdisciplinary gathering of researchers, practitioners, policy makers, and students is an excellent platform for sharing recent innovations, trends, challenges and solutions to population and public policy issues.

 

Job Description:

We are pleased to announce a new postdoctoral fellow position with the Ohio Policy Evaluation Network (OPEN) at the University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio. OPEN conducts rigorous, impactful, and forward thinking social-science research on the reproductive health of Ohioans. Our program is comprised of multiple interdisciplinary research projects which assess reproductive health outcomes, equity, access, cost, and autonomy in the context of federal and state laws and policies. The research team includes faculty, staff, and students from Ohio State University, University of Cincinnati, Case Western Reserve University, and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital.

 

Details:

We seek an exceptional scholar with a strong background and interest in reproductive health research, including health policy, abortion, and contraception for a postdoctoral fellowship position at University of Cincinnati. The postdoctoral fellow will work closely with Michelle McGowan (Pediatrics and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies) and Danielle Bessett (Sociology) on a qualitative study focused on abortion clinic closures and legal vulnerabilities in Ohio and Kentucky. We expect data collection to be challenging and data analysis to be complex.  The postdoctoral fellow will also be involved in analysis and interpretation of findings, and working with PIs and co-investigators to develop a dissemination plan for the findings of the Kentucky clinic case study that is most impactful.

 

This position will provide postdoctoral research training and support (per NIH postdoctoral fellow salary rates) for one year, renewable for a second year upon satisfactory performance. The position also includes funds for travel to conferences for research dissemination and professional development.

 

Eligibility:

Eligible applicants are US citizens or permanent residents specializing substantively in reproductive health research, who have earned a PhD or equivalent degree in sociology, women’s, gender & sexuality studies, anthropology, public health, bioethics, or a related field by January 2019. Experience with qualitative methods and data analytic techniques is required. Excellent written and verbal communication skills; an ability to multitask and function independently; good decision making and leadership qualities; strong networking and outreach skills; effective community relation skills; and a strong desire to advance public health knowledge in Ohio and Kentucky are also highly valued attributes. Preferred characteristics include experience with ethnographic or qualitative case study approaches; experience with multidisciplinary team research and grant funded projects; basic knowledge of reproductive health landscapes in Kentucky, Ohio or nearby states; demonstrated productivity in terms of published journal articles.

 

Minimum Qualifications:

Applicants must have earned a PhD or equivalent degree in sociology, women’s, gender & sexuality studies, anthropology, public health, bioethics, or a related field by January 2019. Experience with qualitative methods and data analytic techniques is required

 

Application Process:

Qualified and interested applicants must complete our online application process by visiting https://job.uc.edu (Search Requisition #31866).  In addition to the application, applicants must submit a current copy of their curriculum vitae; please use the additional documents function and attach a cover letter expressing their knowledge, experience and interests in reproductive health research and details about training and work experience to date; one writing sample; and send contact information for two academic references to Dr. Danielle Bessett (bessetde@ucmail.uc.edu). Applicants who have not yet completed their Ph.D. must also include a letter from their Committee or Department Chair specifying the date of the dissertation defense.

The Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, invites applications for a tenure-track appointment to the faculty at the Assistant Professor rank, with an expected start date of July 1, 2019.

We seek applications from intellectually rigorous and exciting scholars who focus on public policy and who can teach innovative courses to our diverse student body. We are especially interested in candidates who are trying to address infrastructure-related policy problems (including transportation, housing, communications, energy, water, cities, and health care) and who will engage with University-wide data science efforts.

The Goldman School encourages applications from individuals of any scholarly discipline whose research focuses on these questions, including those in public policy, political science, economics, statistics, sociology, civil engineering, urban affairs, management, or demography, or data scientists with roots in computer science, schools of information, and other fields. The Goldman School is interested in candidates who will contribute to diversity and equal opportunity in higher education through their research, teaching, and service. Preference will be given to scholars who have demonstrated the potential to make significant research contributions and who have a clear interest in teaching in the core of the School’s Masters in Public Policy professional program. Public-sector experience is also desirable.

The Department of Sociology invites applications for
a tenure-track Assistant Professor position,
commencing August 1, 2019. Exceptionally
qualified candidates may be considered at the
Associate level.
We are looking to expand our strength in the area of
demography. Within this substantive area, all
research foci are of interest. However, research
focusing on health is particularly welcome. We seek
applicants with strong quantitative skills as
demonstrated by a record of applying cutting-edge
statistical methods to important questions in
population dynamics.
The successful candidate will be associated with the
Centre on Population Dynamics. Ability to teach in
the graduate option offered in Population Dynamics
(including demographic methods) is expected. For
more information about our Department, visit our
website at www.mcgill.ca/sociology.
If the successful candidate satisfies the specific
eligibility conditions of the program, the candidate
may be supported by the University for nomination to
a Tier 1 or a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair (CRC) in
Demography, which provides protected time for
research within a full-time academic appointment.

Back by popular demand! The National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis (NIMBioS) is now accepting applications for its Tutorial, “Applications of Spatial Data: Ecological Niche Modeling,” to be held December 3-5, 2018, at NIMBioS. The tutorial was previously held in May 2018.

Objectives: The distribution of a species may be influenced by an array of factors. The combination of these factors results in the ecological niche, the set of conditions that allow a species to exist in a geographic area. However, defining these conditions is difficult, due to the complexity of natural systems. One approach to characterizing the ecological niche uses spatial data GIS software. The objectives of this tutorial are to teach participants the concepts of ecological niche modeling, introduce them to select analytical techniques (formatting data in GIS; running Maximum Entropy (MaxEnt) models), and present how to interpret and apply spatial analyses. Participants will further be familiarized with several commonly-used and/or newly-available online spatial data resources. Participants will be provided datasets to use in hands-on simulations, but can also bring their own data if desired.

This tutorial is intended for advanced graduate students, postdocs, and faculty who are interested in learning how to incorporate ecological niche modeling into their research. Some basic knowledge of GIS software and ecology is preferred. Little to no programming will be involved, with ecological niche modeling and spatial analysis conducted using existing applications (MaxEnt) and packages in QGIS and R.

Location: NIMBioS at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Co-organizers: Mona Papeş, Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville, and Director, Spatial Analysis Lab at NIMBioS; Greg Wiggins, Education & Outreach Coordinator, NIMBioS

Instructors: Mona Papeş; Town Peterson, Ecology & Evolutionary Biology and Biodiversity Institute, Univ. of Kansas, Lawrence, KS; Xiao Feng, Institute of the Environment, Univ. of Arizona, Tucson, AZ; Luis Escobar, Fish and Wildlife Conservation, Virginia Tech

For more information about the tutorial and a link to the online application form, go to http://www.nimbios.org/tutorials/SpatialDataENM

Participation in NIMBioS tutorials is by application only. Individuals with a strong interest in the topic are encouraged to apply, and successful applicants will be notified within several weeks after the application deadline. Lodging, breakfast and lunch will be provided for tutorial attendees.

Application deadline: September 18, 2018

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 sponsored by the National Science Foundation, with additional support from The University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

Systems for Action (S4A) is a national signature research program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) that builds a Culture of Health by rigorously testing new ways of connecting the nation’s fragmented medical, social, and public health systems. Studies conducted through the S4A program test innovative mechanisms for aligning the delivery and financing of these systems with a focus on estimating their impact on health and health equity. S4A uses a wide research lens that includes and extends beyond medical care and public health to incorporate other social service systems that affect health and well-being, such as housing, transportation, education, employment, food and nutrition assistance, child and family support, criminal and juvenile justice, and economic and community development.

The goal of this call for proposals (CFP) is to fund research that supports new scientific evidence on ways to optimize delivery and financing systems in ways that improve health and reduce inequities.

This year’s conference is shaping up to continue the great traditions established in previous meetings.  Conference organizers received a record number of submissions and will be finalizing the program by June.

Highlights will include:

• Interdisciplinary panels and poster sessions that feature the latest in population health science;
• Sessions that foster exchange about population health issues between scientists and stakeholders from policy and practice fields.
• A symposium, Population Health Science in the United States: Trends, Evidence, and Effective Policy, jointly organized by IAPHS and the Roundtable on Population Health Improvement, to be held prior to the start of IAPHS sessions;
• Roundtable discussions on professional development issues and communicating population health research; and
• Plenty of time for networking with a diverse set of people who share a commitment to population health science.

The Environmental Studies Program at the University of Colorado Boulder announces an opening for a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in quantitative human-environment science. Applicants must have a PhD in ecology, geography, sociology, economics, or a related discipline in the human sciences at the time of appointment. The postdoc will join an interdisciplinary research group focused on interactions between humans and their environments, including human adaptation to environmental and climate change. Ongoing projects are based in Africa, Latin America, and the American West.

The postdoc, under the supervision of Dr. Joel Hartter, will participate in several ongoing projects including: Population, Environment and Climate in the Albertine Rift (PECAR); Kavango-Zambezi Vulnerability Assessment (KAZAVA); Responsible Mining, Resilient Communities; and Communities and Forest in Oregon (CAFOR). The postdoc is expected to contribute intellectually to these projects, as well as to advance their own research interests in collaboration with Dr. Hartter. Primary responsibilities include analysis of existing datasets, writing of peer-reviewed articles, development of grant proposals, and management of existing research projects. Creation and dissemination of communication and outreach materials for stakeholders is also expected.

Salary is USD $50,000 annually, plus benefits. The initial appointment is for 12 months; funding exists for annual renewal thereafter, based on performance. Start date is flexible, but not earlier than 1 October 2018.