This announces the call for nominations for the 2017 Marsha L. Landolt Distinguished Graduate Mentor Award.  Named for the late Graduate School Dean Marsha L. Landolt, the UW Graduate School has recognized excellent faculty mentors annually since 1999.

The Graduate School, with assistance from the President’s Office, sponsors this annual award in order to recognize outstanding mentoring of graduate students by faculty. The relationship between a graduate student and a faculty advisor is one that can have a profound, lifelong influence on both parties.  At its best, this mentoring relationship inspires and gives confidence to the student while providing the faculty member with a valued colleague. The Marsha L. Landolt Distinguished Graduate Mentor Award allows us to honor those members of the faculty who exemplify excellence in graduate education.  A single award, accompanied by $5,000 in discretionary funds that may be used to support the awardee’s scholarly activities, will be given and presented at the annual Awards of Excellence Ceremony in June 2017 in conjunction with other University-wide awards.

Questions about the Landolt Distinguished Graduate Mentor Award or nomination procedures may be directed to graddean@uw.edu.

Again this spring, UW will recognize 100 outstanding UW students who are making the most of their time at the UW. Please help in finding the next Husky 100. Anyone — faculty, staff, students, community members, alumni — may formally nominate up to 10 students.

Nominations from faculty and staff are invaluable in encouraging students to apply — over 70 percent of the first Husky 100 cohort received a nomination. Current UW juniors, seniors or graduate students on any of our three campuses are eligible.

This year, the online system limits nominations to 10 per person; so those who wish to nominate more than 10 may contact individual students directly to encourage them to apply. Nominations are due Jan. 8, 2017. Once nominated, the student fills out the application online, which is open now. Students also may apply directly themselves, without being nominated. All student applications are due Jan. 23, 2017.

These 100 students will be recognized at an event in spring and have opportunities in the 2017–18 academic year to expand their networks with UW students, alumni, faculty staff and business leaders.

The University of Washington Retirement Association has endowed a fellowship to support graduate students of outstanding academic merit who have a demonstrated academic and personal interest in aging-related issues or concerns.

This fellowship will provide a monthly stipend equivalent to the PDTA 2 level (currently $2,572/month), GAIP health insurance, and a waiver of a maximum of 18 credits of state-tuition (except for U-PASS fee and international student fee).  The fellowship must be used in 2017-18 academic year.

At the time of application, students must be matriculated in a UW graduate degree tuition-based program and not in their last year of study.  (Students in fee-based programs are not eligible.)  The recipient of the award must be enrolled in full-time credits (at least 10) during the quarter in which he/she takes the fellowship.

Please visit the website below for further information.  Detailed on that page are also the application requirements and process (statements, letters of recommendation, etc.) as well as criteria for selection.

The selected recipient(s) will be invited to attend the UWRA luncheon in spring 2017.  They will also be asked to give an informal presentation to UWRA members on their research/academic and personal interests related to aging during the year of the award.

The Third Annual Berkeley Formal Demography Workshop – Special Emphasis Topic: Fertility Patterns over Time, to be held Monday-Friday, JUNE 5-9, 2017 at the University of California campus. 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 at Berkeley consists of three days of hands-on training followed by two days of research presentations by invited faculty. Following the meeting, students may choose to take part in a mentored research project and a capstone presentation of projects at the 2018 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 fertility, family, 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. For more information, contact Dr. Leora Lawton, Executive Director, Berkeley Population Center.

The 24th annual RAND Summer Institute (RSI) will take place in Santa Monica, CA, July 10-13, 2017. The RSI consists of two conferences addressing critical issues facing our aging population: a Mini-Medical School for Social Scientists (July 10-11) and a Workshop on the Demography, Economics, Psychology, and Epidemiology of Aging (July 12-13). The primary aim of the RSI is to expose scholars interested in the study of aging to a wide range of research being conducted in fields beyond their own specialties. Participants attend a series of master lectures given by expert clinicians and researchers, drawn from diverse disciplinary backgrounds. These lectures are intended to offer insights into both the science of aging and the interrelationship of health, economic status, and public policy on the aging field.

The conferences are sponsored by the National Institute on Aging and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Office of Behavioral and Social Scientists Research, and will convene at the RAND Corporation headquarters.

Qualified Institute applicants must hold a Ph.D. or have completed two years of a Ph.D. program and be actively working on a dissertation. Only applicants working in the field of aging – or actively considering this research field – will be considered.

The Russell Sage Foundation requests Letters of Inquiry for a new initiative that integrates knowledge from the biological and social sciences.  According to the Foundation, the initiative will support innovative social science research on social and economic outcomes that improves our understanding of the interactive mechanisms by which environmental influences affect biological mechanisms, and vice versa. This includes research that: (1) estimates how the structured nature of the social environment and intra- and intergenerational social inequalities affect biological processes, (2) identifies which indicators of biological processes interact with the social environment to affect different life domains and how, and (3) yields new conceptual frameworks that holistically characterize the complex relationships among biological, psychological and environmental factors to predict a range of behavioral and social outcomes. They are primarily interested in research that explores and improves our understanding of social and economic predictors and outcomes. For more information, visit the original posting below.

The Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) seeks a social demographer or economist to be a Demographer in the Population Dynamics Branch. The Demographer will manage and develop a portfolio of innovative grant-supported research and research training and identify scientific opportunities to generate new knowledge supporting the NICHD mission.

Responsibilities include:

• Providing administration and scientific evaluation of funded research;
• Advising NICHD leadership on significant research findings and proposing future program emphases;
• Representing the branch at review meetings and scientific conferences;
• Presenting and justifying funding plans to NICHD leadership and the National Advisory Child Health and Human Development Council; and
• Responding to inquiries from Congress, NIH leadership, and others and explaining research results and priorities to multiple audiences.

The U.S. Office of Personnel Management locates the Demographer position within the Sociology series 0184. The ideal candidate will possess a Ph.D. in Demography or in Sociology, Economics, or Public Policy with substantial expertise in Demography. The work site is Bethesda, Maryland. Salaries will be competitive and commensurate with experience; excellent benefits will be provided. All applicants will receive consideration without regard to ethnicity, gender, national origin, age, religion, disability, or sexual orientation. The position will be posted at the GS-14 federal government salary grade, producing an annual salary range of about $108,887 to $141,555.

Interested parties are strongly urged to contact Drs. Rosalind King and Regina Bures (Program Directors, Population Dynamics Branch). This is a pre-announcement of the vacancy, which will be posted on www.usajobs.gov. Applications must be submitted through that website to be considered. Please check that website regularly for updated postings, as positions are only open for 10 days.

Rutgers University School of Social Work seeks a postdoctoral scholar to work on a collaborative, multi-year, multi-faceted project focused on understanding the role of fathers in reducing inequality in outcomes between children from low and high income families and on the impact of social and economic policies on father involvement. The project, led by associate professor Lenna Nepomnyaschy with colleagues from Boston and Cornell Universities, involves quantitative analyses of several large national datasets and the collection of state-level data on employment, wage, criminal justice, and child support arrears policies.

The scholar will contribute to and assist with all aspects of the research including study conceptualization, collection of social and economic policy data across years and states, planning and carrying out quantitative analyses, presenting results at research conferences, and preparing manuscripts for publication. In addition, the scholar will contribute to and gain experience with the preparation and submission of a proposal for federal funding for subsequent analyses building on the knowledge gained from the current project. The scholar will also have opportunities to work on other projects of mutual interest.

The successful candidate has a PhD in Social Work or a related field, has a strong research interest in the study of social policies and their effects on child and family well-being and the role of fathers, has training in advanced quantitative methods, and experience working with large datasets. The successful candidate is also highly motivated, interested in forging collaborative relationships with faculty and doctoral students, and has a strong committed to social justice. Candidates from groups underrepresented in higher education are strongly encouraged to apply to be a part of our supportive and dynamic community of scholars.

Please apply by submitting a letter of interest, curriculum vita, writing sample, and 3 letters of reference through the University’s online job application system using the link below.  Review of applications will begin immediately and continue until a suitable candidate is identified. The position will be a twelve month position starting in July 2017 for one year, with the potential of extension to a second year subject to a review during the first year.

Due to the Thanksgiving holiday, there is no CSDE seminar this week.

The series will resume next Friday, 12/2, with an exciting new event. Please join us for the first ever CSDE Trainee Lightning Talk and Poster Session, featuring eight of CSDE’s upcoming demographic scholars.