The Global Burden of Disease study is the world’s largest systematic, scientific effort to quantify the magnitude of health loss from all major diseases, injuries, and risk factors by age, sex, and population. With 2,303 collaborators in 130 countries and territories, the study examines 332 diseases and injuries and 84 risk factors. The GBD has helped transform health care policy in numerous countries, and has greatly influenced research, policy, and education.

Speakers and participants will explore various topics, including:

• The history and evolution of the Global Burden of Disease enterprise
• The epidemiological transition and progress toward improving health
• Emerging challenges in health metrics sciences
• The key risk factors that are driving health loss
• The power and impact of subnational estimates
• The future of the GBD

The event is co-hosted by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington and The Lancet. This event is primarily organized into a series of plenary and panel sessions, with the exception of one full day of training on September 25.

Since health metrics sciences is a multidisciplinary field, conference participants will represent a variety of academic and professional perspectives. Invitees include researchers, academic leaders, students, policymakers, non-governmental organizations, foundations, and national and multinational health organizations.

I hope you will be able to join us. To learn more about this event and to register, please visit our event website.

The Fragile Families Challenge is a mass collaboration that will combine predictive modeling, causal inference, and in-depth interviews to yield insights that can improve the lives of disadvantaged children in the United States.  By working together we can discover things that none of us can discover individually.

The Fragile Families Challenge is based on the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, which has followed thousands of American families for more than 15 years.  During this time, the Fragile Families study collected information about the children, their parents, their schools, and their larger environments.

These data have been used in hundreds of scientific papers and dozens of dissertations, and insight from these studies are routinely shared with policy makers around the world through the Future of Children, which is jointly published by Princeton University and Brookings Institution. Your challenge is to use this data in a new way.  Given all the background data from birth to year 9 and some training data from year 15, how well can you infer six key outcomes in the year 15 test data?

The Fragile Families Challenge is our attempt to create a new way of doing social research, one that is much more open to the talents and efforts of everyone. We expect that by combining ideas from social science and data science, we can—together—help address important scientific and social problems. And, we expect that through a mass collaboration we will accomplish things that none of us could accomplish individually.

The Fragile Families Challenge will involve two steps. In the first step, described above, participants will build statistical and machine learning models of several important outcomes in the lives of the children. Participants will then submit their code, their model outputs, and a narrative explanation of their modeling strategy. Then, we will use the unreleased test set to evaluate each model. This first step is an example of the common task method, which David Donoho (2015) has called the “secret sauce” of machine learning. At the end of the first step, we will optimally combine all the individual models into a community model. A variety of results about ensemble methods in machine learning suggest that this community model will perform better than the best individual model.

In the second step, we will use the individual models and the community model to conduct substantive and methodological research.

Network Modeling for Epidemics (NME) is a 5-day short course at the University of Washington that provides an introduction to stochastic network models for infectious disease transmission dynamics, with a focus on empirically based modeling of HIV transmission.  It is a ”hands-on” course, using the EpiModel software package in R (www.epimodel.org). EpiModel provides a unified framework for statistically based modeling of dynamic networks from empirical data, and simulation of epidemic dynamics on these networks. It has a flexible open-source platform for learning and building several types of epidemic models: deterministic compartmental, stochastic individual-based, and stochastic network models. Resources include simple models that run in a browser window, built-in generic models that provide basic control over population contact patterns, pathogen properties and demographics, and templates for user-programmed modules that allow EpiModel to be extended to the full range of pathogens, hosts, and disease dynamics for advanced research.

This course will touch on the deterministic and individual-based models, but its primary focus is on the theory, methods and application of network models. The course uses mornings for lectures, and afternoons for labs with students working in small groups.  On the final day, students have the option of developing an EpiModel prototype for their own research projects, with input from the instructors, which includes the lead EpiModel software developer, Dr. Samuel Jenness.

Returning students: We encourage previous attendees with active modeling projects to apply to return for a refresher course.  The EpiModel package has been significantly enhanced over the last few years. Returning students with active projects will have the opportunity to work with course instructors to address key challenges in the design of their network model code.

Dates and location:

The course will be taught from Monday, August 14 to Friday, August 18 on the University of Washington campus in Seattle.

Application dates and decision dates:

• May 1: Fellowship application deadline. Decisions will be made by May 15.
• June 1:  General application deadline.  Applications will continue to be accepted on a rolling basis until this date. Decisions will be made by June 15.

Costs:

Course fee is $500. Travel and accommodation costs are the responsibility of the participant, although discounted hotel rates will be available. We offer a limited number of fellowships for pre-doctoral students or for attendees from low income countries; these cover waiver of the registration fee only (travel and accommodation are still the responsibility of the fellowship recipient).

Application:

Apply online at https://catalyst.uw.edu/webq/survey/morrism/329397

Course website and more information:  http://statnet.github.io/nme

The UW’s Population Health Initiative is offering Graduate Student Conference Travel Awards of up to $1,500 to further students’ academic, research, or professional goals as they strive to become the next generation of leaders in population health. The application period for this round of funding opens on April 10, 2017 and closes on Friday, April 28, 2017.

These awards are open to graduate students on all three campuses who:

1. Are currently enrolled in a graduate degree program.
2. Have been accepted to present a population health-related paper, poster, or exhibit, or to serve as an invited speaker, at a conference, symposium, or other professional and academic meeting. Students in the arts may request funding for invited performances or installations.

In order to apply, an applicant must be nominated by a faculty member. Once nominated, applicants will receive an email with a link to their portion of the application.

To learn more, please visit the link below.

The Fulbright Specialist Program provides support for short (2-6 week) visits by US academics or senior professionals in the following fields:

• Agriculture
• American/US studies
• Anthropology
• Archaeology
• Biology education
• Business administration
• Chemistry education
• Communications & journalism
• Computer science and IT
• Economics
• Education
• Engineering education
• Environmental science
• Law
• Library science
• Math education
• Peace and conflict resolution studies
• Physics education
• Political science
• Public administration
• Public/global health
• Sociology
• Social work
• Urban planning

Fulbright Specialist projects may include activities such as lecturing to undergraduate or graduate students; professional consultations and advising; participation in workshops, symposia or conferences; and development and/or evaluation of academic curricula or educational materials. Projects are encouraged that contribute to the creation of new academic programs or fields of study in Israel. The program does not fund personal and clinical medical research.

Grant Benefits:

The program provides the specialist with round trip airfare (tourist class) and a $200 day honorarium. In-country hospitality (lodgings, meals, in-country transportation) is provided by the Israeli host institution/s, according to terms agreed in direct contacts between the Specialist and the institution/s concerned.

Application Procedures:

US specialists interested in visiting Israel must submit their application to the Council for International Exchange of Scholars (CIES). Application instructions and forms may be found on the CIES website, http://www.cies.org/

Israeli institutions interested in hosting a Fulbright Specialist must submit a request to host the visit to the United States-Israel Educational Foundation. Instructions and forms may be obtained by contacting:

Imri Grinberg, Program manager

Tel: 5172131 ext 203, Email: ImriG@fulbright.org

Tally Barkay, Program coordinator

Tel: 5172131 ext 205, Email: Tbarkay@fulbright.org.il

There is no deadline, the admission is rolling based

We advise to submit at least 90 days prior to the project’s starting date.

The United States-Israel Educational Foundation (USIEF) plans to offer eight fellowships in all academic disciplines to American post-doctoral researchers at Israeli universities during the course of academic years 2018/2019-2020.

Grant Benefits:

Program grants total $40,000, $20,000 per academic year.  In addition, the host institution will also provide a standard post-doctoral grant.

Prospective applicants must secure an invitation letter from an accredited Israeli institution of higher education.

Individuals who have already begun research activities in Israel prior to the application date are not eligible.

Application Procedures:

The Council for International Exchange of Scholars (CIES) administers the Senior Scholar Program for the Department of State.  Details on the program and on submission of applications may be found on the CIES website.

Those interested may also contact the CIES staff member responsible for the Middle East region for further information:

Lisa Hendricks, Regional Lead

telephone: 202-686-6239

email: LHendricks@iie.org.

Applications must be submitted to the Council for International Exchange of Scholars (CIES) by August 1st, 2017.

The United States-Israel Educational Foundation (USIEF) plans to award up to eight grants to members of academic staff, to senior professionals, or to accomplished artists or writers for visits to Israeli institutions of higher education to be carried out during the 2018/2019 academic year.

The visiting fellows’ programs of work may include research, lecturing, or a combination of lecturing and research.

The program grants will support visits of 4 months.  This program is open to all fields of study.

Prospective applicants must secure an invitation letter from an accredited Israeli institution of higher education.

Grant Benefits:

Monthly allowance:

• $4,500/month for unaccompanied grantees
• $5,000/month for grantees accompanied by one dependent
• $5,500/month for grantees accompanied by two dependents
• $6,000/month for grantees accompanied by three or more dependents
• limited health insurance for the grantee only
• orientation meetings in the United States (attendance compulsory) and in Israel, and other grantee events during the course of the year

Application Procedures:

The Senior Scholar Program is administered for the Department of State by the Council for International Exchange of Scholars (CIES).  Details on the program and on submission of applications may be found on the CIES website.

Those interested may also contact the CIES staff member responsible for the Middle East region for further information:

Lisa Hendricks, Regional Lead

telephone: 202-686-6239

email: LHendricks@iie.org

 

Applications must be submitted to the Council for International Exchange of Scholars (CIES) by August 1st, 2017.

 

Crossdisciplinary Research Clusters are intended to seed new scholarly activity and develop further pathways for collaboration by bringing together UW faculty and graduate students from different departments and disciplines who share research interests. Projects in this category may vary widely in form and scale: innovative models beyond the speaker series are encouraged, as are clusters that develop emerging fields and communities of inquiry, crossdisciplinary or crossdepartmental curricula, and individual and/or collective documents.

• Proposal Narratives (limit eight pages) should:
  • detail the focus of the cluster and the activities to be funded
  • address near-term goals, and longer-term ambitions if cluster is intended to lead to other forms of collaboration and project development
  • include a list three or more participating faculty and graduate students

• Budgets should detail anticipated expenses (e.g. honoraria, travel, accommodations, promotional materials, printing, postage, hospitality, and facilities rentals) as applicable.
• C.V.s for primary project liaison (limited to five pages), and, key organizers (optional—may also be represented in the narrative or an appendix as short bios).