As Seattle has experienced rapid population and economic growth, the city has gone through many changes that affect everyone and everything connected to it. Join UW Foster professor Jeff Shulman, who hosts the Seattle Growth Podcast, and a panel of community leaders in a discussion about how to address the growth-related challenges and opportunities that will shape Seattle’s future. Event co-sponsors include the Buerk Center for Entrepreneurship and Impact Hub Seattle.

Event reception includes appetizers and a cash bar. Admission is $30. A limited quantity of pre-sale tickets are available now at a discounted price of $10.

Demographic change is one of the major challenges European societies will face in upcoming decades. In order to support outstanding research on the causes and consequences of population developments in Europe, the Allianz SE, within the framework of the Berlin Demography Forum, and in collaboration with Population Europe, the network of Europe’s foremost demographic research institutes, invites nominations for the Allianz European Demographer Award.

The prize will honor outstanding research in the field of population studies on demographic change in Europe. The research should be at the frontier of anthropological, biological, economic, historical, mathematical, political, sociological, or statistical population studies, achieved by researchers in the early stage of their careers or those at a more advanced stage.

The prize will be given to candidates within two prize groups:  A) for an outstanding PhD thesis, which was accepted within the period 2011-2016;  B) for a more experienced researcher, who has obtained his or her Ph.D. within the period 2001-2006.

Candidates should have an outstanding scientific track record, showing great promise as population researchers. Candidates have to be nominated by a senior researcher. Nominations should include a short (maximum one page) explanatory statement by the nominator, as well as the candidate’s curriculum vitae, including a complete list of publications, and PDFs of two publications published or accepted for publication. Nominations will be treated as confidential.

The applications will be evaluated by a committee from Population Europe, chaired by Prof. Dr. Zsolt Spéder, Hungarian Demographic Research Institute, Budapest, and Prof. Dr. Francesco C. Billari, University of Oxford. The successful candidates will be invited to the awards ceremony, which will be held on occasion of the opening event of the Berlin Demography Forum on the 15th of February 2017, with eminent decision-makers and representatives from research, the economy, as well as political and societal organizations in attendance. The prize winner from group A will receive a certificate and 1,000 Euros, and the winner from prize group B will also receive a certificate and 2,000 Euros in prize money.

Please send your nomination, compiled into one PDF, by 4 November 2016 to allianzaward@population-europe.eu with subject “Allianz European Demographer Award”.

Advanced graduate students are invited to submit short reflective articles about their field research for the Fall 2016 issue of Sectors. Articles may address the implications of the research for the field of international development. Alternatively, pieces may reflect upon particular aspects of field research, such as the author’s positionality, the field site, or methodological choices and challenges. Below are some suggestions for questions that may guide your writing:

• In this research context, what is the meaning of development: international, grassroots and/or local development? How is international development influenced by local actors, and vice versa? What are the barriers to development in this research context?
• What are some of the challenges associated with doing research at this particular research context or site(s)? What are some ethical and logistical dilemmas that you had to resolve?
• How has the data collection process been shaped by your own positionality, methods, data sources, choice of language for data collection and analysis, etc.?
• How did axes of power—race/ethnicity, class, gender, citizenship, sexual orientation, and abilities—shape the data collection process and in turn your understanding of how those axes of power shape development outcomes?
• How might this research be used to inform development coursework for graduate and/or undergraduate students?

Interested section members should be in the field or recently returned from the field, either in the U.S. or abroad. Please follow the following guidelines:

• 500-600 words (not including references)
• If references are used, list them using ASA or APA format.
• Photos are welcome, with permission from photographer and subjects.
• Articles must be submitted as Word documents or copy-pasted into the email body.
• Include an accompanying one-to-two sentence biography to accompany the article, including current affiliation and title.

Submissions may be edited for grammar, syntax, and spelling errors. The submission deadline is October 31st, 2016.

Please send to Sectors’ co-editors, Svetla Dimitrova and Kelly Birch Maginot, at SOCDEVSectors@gmail.com. The Fall 2016 edition of Sectors is scheduled for release in early December.

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.

The Global Innovation Fund offers seed funding of up to $20,000 for initiatives and programs developing cross-college and cross-continent collaborations.

• Deadline: Tuesday, November 1, 2016
• Faculty members, research scientists, and non-faculty researchers are encouraged to apply
• Eligible projects include: research collaborations, faculty and student collaborations, new study abroad program development, enhancement of existing study abroad programs, faculty exchanges, conferences, and new project development

For questions, email uwgif@uw.edu.

The goal of the Data Science Incubator is to enable new science by bringing together data scientists and domain scientists to work on focused, intensive, collaborative projects.  The team of data scientists provides expertise in state-of-the-art technology and methods in statistics and machine learning, data manipulation and analytics at all scales, cloud and cluster computing, software design and engineering, visualization, and other topics. It invites short proposals (1-2 pages) for one-quarter data-intensive research projects focusing on extracting insight from large, noisy, or heterogeneous datasets.

The program is open to any faculty, staff, or student whose research can be significantly advanced by intensive collaboration with a data science expert. To apply, a short project proposal describing the science goals, the relevant datasets, and the expected technical challenges is required. The ideal proposal will clearly identify both the datasets involved and the questions to be answered, and it will explain how the technical component of the project is critical to delivering exciting new findings.

Each project must include a project lead who is willing to physically co-locate with the incubator staff. Collaboration in a shared space is important for deeper technical engagement and provides opportunities for “cross-pollination” among multiple concurrent projects. The Incubator operates on Tuesdays and Thursdays out of the  WRF Data Science Studio (6th floor of the Physics/Astronomy Tower). The project lead should plan to work in the Studio for several hours on these days.

Incubator projects are not “for-hire” software jobs—the project lead will work in collaboration with the data scientists and the broader eScience community. Each project lead will “own” their project (and its results) and be responsible for its successful completion, with the eScience team providing guidance on methods, technologies, and best practices as well as general software engineering.

The Center for Creative Conservation invites proposals for a transdisciplinary project. Incubators on any cross-cutting topic related to conservation and sustainability from groups of practitioners and University of Washington (UW) researchers. Project Incubators convene interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral teams in a series of start-up meetings to encourage effective and creative conservation problem solving. Incubators help teams build effective working relationships, further conceptualize project ideas, develop plans for implementation, and seek additional funds to support long-term collaboration. Letters of inquiry are due November 10, 2016.

The Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR) is highly interested in hosting up to two independent Max Planck Research Groups. Apply for a position as Max Planck Research Group Leader.

Applications will need to be directed to the Max Planck Society. With this call for applications, MPG und Technische Universität München (TUM) combine their respective career opportunities to a highly attractive career option for international top talents: Successful candidates will be offered a Max Planck Research Group Leader position accompanied by the excellent research conditions in a Max Planck Institute of their choice, and additionally—in case of interest—also the opportunity to apply for a Tenure Track Assistant Professor at TUM with doctorate granting rights and career options via Associate to Full Professor according to the TUM Faculty Tenure Track system. This offer is independent of the location of a chosen Max Planck Institute.

The successful candidates will be offered a Max Planck Research Group for a period of five years. This includes a W2 position equivalent to assistant or associate professor level and additional resources for research positions, budget, and investments. The cumulative amount of funding is competitive with top class start-up packages of international career development programs. Start of funding is in 2017, with a lead time of up to three months.

Excellent research and teaching is irrespective of gender. However, the MPG and the TUM still lack female scientists and hereby explicitly welcome applications from highly skilled women in all disciplines. The MPG and the TUM Munich Dual Career Office provide support for dual career couples and families.

The Max-Planck-Gesellschaft and the Technische Universität München are committed to equal opportunities and to employing individuals with disabilities, and explicitly encourage them to apply.
The deadline for application is October 26, 2016.

It is recommended to contact MPRG@demogr.mpg.de in case you plan to apply for leading a group at the MPIDR.