The deadline is fast approaching to submit papers for the 2017 PAA Annual Meeting.  (#PAA2017). The 2017 meeting will be held April 27-29 in Chicago, IL. You can find the Call for Papers and other information on the PAA Website.

Submissions must be completed no later than 11:59 PM PT (Pacific time) on Thursday, September 29, 2016.

For technical assistance with submissions, email help@popassoc.org. Please check the PAA website throughout the year for updated meeting information.

Fall Quarter is almost here, and the Qualitative Multi-Method Research Initiative (QUAL) is looking forward to another great school year. It is happy to announce the QUAL Speaker Series schedule (see below) for 2016-17. One theme this year is on ethics in qualitative research; political science professor and QUAL Steering Committee member James Long will kick things off on Oct. 12 with a talk titled “Ethics and Data Transparency in Applied Social Science Research and Publishing.” Check out QUAL’s offerings throughout the quarter!

The Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), a center in the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan, is recruiting a senior social scientist to direct the Resource Center for Minority Data.

The team seeks an experienced researcher who will engage in outreach and education to the research community, encouraging and supporting data sharing and data use on minority-related issues. It is particularly interested in someone who can expand RCMD’s data resources to include administrative and other naturally occurring data and researchers addressing issues related to data access itself, such as the digital divide, or other research areas grounded in data on minorities, including health disparities, poverty and inequality, and minority entrepreneurship. The person selected for this position will hold a research faculty appointment at ICPSR and as well as an appropriate academic unit at the University of Michigan.

Screening of applications will begin 1 November 2016 and continue until the position is filled.  To apply, please submit a cover letter, a CV, relevant writing samples, and contact information for three references to Margaret Levenstein, Director, Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research, Institute for Social Research, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106-1248 at rcmd-search@umich.edu.

The Tech Policy Lab—an interdisciplinary unit here on campus that bridges computer science, information science, and law—seeks a PhD or Masters candidate to help conduct and coordinate research into how the City of Seattle might adapt to greater automation in transportation. The individual would work as part of an interdisciplinary team to imagine the potential opportunities and risks presented by advances in autonomous transportation, including in particular driverless cars. It is open to candidates with any relevant experience in urban or autonomous transportation.

The team envisions a standard RAship for one quarter (Fall 2016) involving an obligation of 20 hours per week but are open to other configurations. The Lab is physically located in the School of Law and has work space available. The deliverable will be a short (10-15 page) report due at the end of the quarter for which the RA would have shared drafting responsibility. Funding comes from Challenge Seattle, a public-private partnership led by former Washington Governor Christine Gregoire.

If you have a student who might be interested, please contact Ryan Calo.

Mark your calendars! The University of Washington International Security Colloquium (UWISC) welcomes Paige Sechrest, Ph.D student in the UW Department of Political Science. Paige will present a talk titled “Violence by the People, for the People: Torture and Brutality in Democratic States.”

The talk will be held on Friday, September 30, 12-1:20pm in the Olson Room (Gowen 1a). UW Political Science Professor Rachel Cichowski will act as discussant.

Paige Sechrest is a fourth-year doctoral student in the Political Science department, specializing in comparative politics, public law, and political methodology. Her research interests include critical race theory, ethnic politics, religion, and political violence, as well as text data and natural language processing. She was the recipient of the Speier Fellowship in 2013 and has presented her work at the Association for the Study of Economics and Religion, the Law and Society Association, and the Western Political Science Association.

There is a 1- or 2-credit course this fall cross-listed as CSE495 or ENGR 297/497 Vertically Integrated Projects (VIP). This year, it is split into the two projects outlined below. VIP team members typically commit 3-7 hours per week if registered for 1 credit and 7-12 hours per week if registered for 2 credits.

The VIP Structure: Continuity, Technical Depth, and Disciplinary Breadth

This course operates in conjunction with the University of Washington Vertically-Integrated Projects (VIP) Program, which supports hands-on, project-based, graduate and undergraduate research and exploration. The VIP Program operates in a research and development context, with teams of students and faculty working on real-world projects. Undergraduate students that participate in VIP earn academic credit for their participation in design/discovery efforts that assist faculty and graduate students with research and development issues in their areas of expertise.

The teams are:

• Multidisciplinary – drawing students from all disciplines on campus;
• Vertically-integrated – maintaining a mix of sophomores through PhD students each quarter;
• Long-term – each undergraduate student may participate in a project for up to three years and each graduate student may participate for the duration of their graduate career. The longevity of students’ involvement enables the completion of large-scale design/discovery projects that are of significant benefit to research programs.

Team AccessMap

The AccessMap team is building a mapping, routing and navigation application that creates interactive map displays of the physical environment in and around pedestrian ways. Our aim is to enhance representations to assist people with disabilities in planning their routes. The application incorporates mapping, GIS data, municipality-specific data, transportation information, and eventually weather and other state-specific information like construction.

The AccessMap team is multidisciplinary and is especially interested in recruiting students that are studying or have expertise in computer science (interest in mobile applications, big data science, GIS, machine learning, and data visualization are a big plus), hardware engineering, electrical engineering, human centered design, mobile apps, informatics, communications, and public relations.

The AccessMap team is currently looking for students to contribute to the following activities:

• App development, including iOS and Android platforms
• Machine learning-based modeling
• Geographical information system (GIS) integration
• User experience and user interface development
• Communications and publicity

Team OSRead

Open Source Reading Education Assessment and Diagnosis (OSRead) is an open source platform for literacy educators and researchers to implement and measure the success of various reading curricula, specifically targeting populations at risk for Dyslexia. This platform allows a researcher to implement a personalized reading curriculum as short games and activities and to assign these activities in order to encourage students to practice their skills without facilitators. OSRead also allows educators to track student performance and progress over time, simplifying their work particularly in following Individualized Education Plans.

The OSRead team is creating an access-anywhere educational research platform. Our aim is to concurrently enhance and study educational interventions for students considered “at-risk” for learning disabilities. The application incorporates web-app deployment, Drupal Application development, age-specific curriculum related to literacy. The OSRead team is multidisciplinary, bringing together researchers from the UW ILabs and UW CSE departments (Taskar Center for Accessible Technology). We are particularly interested in recruiting students that are studying or have expertise in education, data science, web application building, citizen-science, and learning interventions.

Students in education, computer science (interest in mobile applications, big data science, gaming and data visualization are a big plus), human centered design, mobile apps, informatics, communications, and public relations.
The OSRead team is currently looking for students to contribute to the following activities:

• Web-based app development
• Drupal application development
• Audio signal processing/ Speech processing
• Audio compression and transmission
• Machine learning-based modeling (for speech analysis in particular)
• User experience and user interface development
• Game development and Gamification
• Communications and publicity

The latest issue of PAA Affairs has released! Check it out to find great articles and PAA news about the following:

• #PAA2016 Award Winners
• Call for Nominations for #PAA2017 Awards
• The History of PAA
• Data Points: Longevity and Social Tolerance
• Congressional Update
• Jobs and Call for Papers

…and much more. PAA periodicals are wonderful opportunities to stay on the forefront of population science, so make sure you check it out! CSDE makes an effort to send Trainees to the PAA’s Annual Meeting for research presentations—if you’re considering the 2017 meeting, this publication could also offer useful context.