EVENTS

Wednesday, Feb 22, 12-1:10 PM. Jeremy Freese (Stanford University) will present, “The Problem of Causal Mutualisms, The Promise of Polygenic Scores, and the Pervasive Divergence of Human Lives.” Refreshments and cookies served. 2232 Piedmont Ave.

Brown Bag talks are recorded and posted on the Berkeley Population Sciences vimeo channel, https://vimeo.com/berkeleypopscience. 

EVENTS

Wednesday, Feb 22, 12-1:10 PM. Jeremy Freese (Stanford University) will present, “The Problem of Causal Mutualisms, The Promise of Polygenic Scores, and the Pervasive Divergence of Human Lives.” Refreshments and cookies served. 2232 Piedmont Ave.  Brown Bag talks are recorded and posted on the Berkeley Population Sciences vimeo channel, https://vimeo.com/berkeleypopscience. 

Tuesday, February 21, 2017, 5-6:30 p.m. “The Russian Challenge in the Next Four Years” Dr. Eugene Rumer, Senior Fellow and Director, Russia and Eurasia Program, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Toll Room, Alumni House.

Tuesday, Feb 21, from 12-3pm. The Politics of Difference: Marginalized Ethnic Groups in Asia: Case studies in China and India. Sproul Hall. Contact Doris Happe for more information: dorish@demog.berkeley.edu. Sponsored by the Visiting Scholar Program. 

Tuesday, Feb 21, 3:30-5 PM. “The neural foundations/signatures of affective and instrumental social relations and the emergence of dyadic reciprocity and identity in human groups.” With Peter Bearman, Columbia University. 420 Barrows Hall.

Tuesday, February 21st, 12-1:30. “The Obama Era, Black Attitudes, and Immigration Policy” with Lorrie Frasure-Yokley, Associate Professor of Political Science, UCLA. Moses 119.

Wednesday, Feb 22, 4-5:30 PM.  “Schedule Instability and Unpredictability and Worker and Family Health and Wellbeing” with Danny Schneider.   2538 Channing (Inst. for the Study of Societal Issues), Wildavsky Conference Room

Wednesday, February 22, 2017, 4 – 5:30 p.m. “Genoeconomics: A Primer and Progress Report” Daniel Benjamin, University of Southern California, Evans Hall, room 648. 

Thursday, February 23, 11 AM – 1 PM. NSF Career Workshop. Presented by the Berkeley Research Development Office (BRDO). Reservation info:  Make reservations online or by emailing Erica Whitney at evwhitney@berkeley.edu by February 23.

SAVE THE DATE

Thursday, March 2, 2017 – 2:30pm to 6:30pm “Research That Gets Results: A Symposium on Science-Driven Policy Change” Byers Auditorium at Genentech Hall. Through two moderated panels, Bixby Center researchers will share their experiences producing science that has shaped reproductive health policy in significant ways. Panelists will represent a diversity of disciplines and will discuss how their research has influenced institutions, from courts and legislatures to government agencies, both here and abroad. Confirmed speakers include Drs. Dan Grossman, Craig Cohen, Ann Keller and Uta Landy – full list forthcoming. This event aims to foster conversations relevant to a wide range of scientific fields and policy arenas in women’s health. Guests are encouraged to join us for a reception following the event to build community, share knowledge and enjoy refreshments. Event Schedule: 
• 2:30-4:30pm: Panel Discussions and Q&A
• 4:30-6:30pm: Reception
Please register by February 23 at http://bixbycenter.ucsf.edu/symposium. 

Monday, March 13, 12-3pm: Fertility and the Great Recession: Crossing disciplinary boundaries of theory and data: fertility trends during and after economic downturns in Western Advanced Societies. Sproul Hall. Contact Doris Happe for more information: dorish@demog.berkeley.edu. Sponsored by the Visiting Scholar Program.

April 7, 2017. “Immigration Detention in the Age of Migration Control” One-day workshop for scholars and legal advocates to explore key issues in immigration detention in and outside the United States. Free and Open to the Public. Please RSVP at ImmigrationDetention.eventbrite.com

CALLS FOR PAPERS
The 4th Oxford Symposium on Population, Migration, and the Environment will be held 15 and 16 March 2017 at the Oxford University Club, Oxford, U.K. Keynote speaker – Robert Rowthorn, Emeritus Professor of Economics at University of Cambridge and Research Fellow at University of Oxford. We invite you to present a paper that encourages the exchange of interdisciplinary ideas about the main themes of the conference: world population increase, human migration, and environmental sustainability. Alternatively, you may wish to attend as an observer or panel member. The Symposium seeks to cover a broad agenda that includes disciplines such as economics, education, environmental studies, agriculture, law, political science, religion, and social studies. Topics for presentation may reach beyond these areas, and our website contains an extensive list of suggested topics. Papers presented at the meeting will be subsequently peer-reviewed by external readers for possible inclusion in Symposium Books or sponsored academic journals. Please Email Lydia at contact@oxford-population-and-environment-symposium.com if you have questions.

ISA World Congress of Sociology (“Power, Violence and Justice: Reflections, Responses and Responsibilities”), July 15th to 21th, 2018, in Toronto (Canada). Please find the complete Call for Sessions on the conference website: http://www.isa-sociology.org/en/conferences/world-congress/toronto-2018/call-for-sessions/. After logging in, choose for an Oral, Poster or Round Table session / submit an abstract of at most 250 words. The deadline isMarch 15, 2017. See more details on types of sessions you may consider: http://www.isa-sociology.org/en/conferences/world-congress/toronto-2018/guidelines-for-program-coordinators/)

ANNOUNCEMENTS
The Department of Education restored the disabilities website, saying it was a server problem. 

FUNDING
National Institute on Mental Health is offering Administrative Supplements for Research to Support the Reduction and Elimination of Mental Health Disparities. Admin Sups are grants that ‘piggy back’ on existing grants (R01, R21, P01, etc.) and are related to the parent award but expanded in scope, for example, a different set of hypotheses explored from the data, a new methodology applied, or additional data collected. The review process is often MUCH shorter and simpler. While the following link is specific to this NIMH opportunity, in fact Admin Sups are available to most agencies of relevance to readers of the Weekly News. https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PA-17-165.html.

WORKSHOPS
Poverty Tracker Data Training Workshop, sponsored by The Columbia Population Research Center (CPRC) and the Center on Poverty and Social Policy (CPSP), will be held May 18-19, 2017, at Columbia University in New York City. The workshop is designed to familiarize participants with the data available in the CPRC’s New York City Longitudinal Survey of Well-being, a repeated panel study tracking the dynamics of poverty, hardship, and well-being among representative samples of New York City residents.  The 2017 workshop will include a mini- conference on new frontiers in poverty research, an introduction to the Poverty Tracker data, hands-on sessions for scholars to work with the data, introduction to sensitive data elements and associated data access policies, and other topics. The workshop is targeted toward early- and mid-career scholars from social science disciplines. Underrepresented scholars are strongly encouraged to apply. Applicants must possess basic quantitative data analysis skills. Approximately 25-30 applicants will be selected. Accepted out-of-town candidates will receive travel support.  To access the codebooks and surveys, please visit the CPRC site.  To access the research briefs and learn more about Poverty Tracker findings, please visit the Robin Hood Poverty Tracker site.  The online application is available at http://www.povertytrackerdata.cupop.columbia.edu/ The deadline for application submission has been extended to Wednesday, March 15, 2017, at 5:00pm (EST).

Summer Course for Research Design in the Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences, July 17 – 21, 2017. The Summer Course for Research Design (SCRD) brings together social science area experts and post-doctoral participants from the social sciences for 1 week of intensive study of research design in the social, behavioral and economic sciences (SBE). Supported by the National Science Foundation, the focus of the course is on the development of scientific research proposals. Approximately 12 participants will be selected from a competitive pool of applicants who already hold a Ph.D. in any of the social sciences disciplines under the SBE umbrella. Criteria for selection include an applicant’s interest in issues of research design and a commitment to advancing his or her proposal writing skills, as well as an interest in research relevant to underserved populations.  For complete information, visit: http://qualquant.org/methodsmall/summer-course-for-research-design/. 

The 7th Berlin Summer School in Social Sciences aims at supporting young researchers by strengthening their ability in linking theory and empirical research. The two-week program creates an excellent basis for the development of their current research designs.  In the first week, we address the key methodological challenges of concept-building, causation/explanation, and micro-macro linkage that occur in almost all research efforts. We strive for a clarification of the epistemological foundations underlying methodological paradigms. In the second week, these methodological considerations are applied to central empirical fields of research in political science, sociology, and other related disciplines. In this second part of the program, participants are assigned to four thematic groups according to their own research topics. The thematic areas covered are: “External Governance, Interregionalism, and Domestic Change”, “Citizenship, Migration, and Identities”, “Social Struggle and Globalization”, and “Democracy at the Crossroads”.  Details on travel grants and tuition fees can be found on our webpage. The international summer school is open to 50 PhD candidates, advanced master students, and young postdocs. The call for applications is currently open. Applications can be submitted online via the application form on the summer school webpage until March 31, 2017. The decisions of the selection committee will be announced to the applicants in April. For more information, please visit our webpage at www.berlinsummerschool.de. If you have any further questions, please contact the organizing team at summerschool.bgss@hu-berlin.de. 

ON THE WEB
NIH’s Office of Behavioral and Social Science Research (OBSSR) has a youtube channel.

Webinar: OBSSR Director’s Series: Residential Age Stratification: Effects on Older Adults’ Well-Being. Dr. Sara Moorman, Boston College, is the presenter. Tuesday, February 21, 2-3pm EST. Register here.

FELLOWSHIPS
Research School of Social Sciences (RSSS) Visiting Fellowship with the School of Demography at The Australian National University. The current round of applications close on 31 March, for visits in 2018. Fellowships are generally between four and eight weeks in length. Information on the fellowships is available here http://rsss.anu.edu.au/research/visiting-fellows-scheme. The School of Demography is a research intensive program, active in a number of research areashttp://demography.anu.edu.au/.

D-LAB
Upcoming workshops include ‘Data Wrangling’, Regular Expressions; Optical Character Recognition Software and so much more. On March 7, from 11-1, Dr. Tom Piazza will be teaching a class on weighting. Sign up for these and other workshops at Dlab. Dlab sponsors workshops and training in courses, one-on-one consulting for faculty, grad students and undergraduates, and working groups of focuses topics. For more information and registration, visit http://dlab.berkeley.edu. 

JOBS
All jobs and postdoctoral fellowships are posted as we receive them on the Demography Department Jobs Listserv, http://lists.demog.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/jobs. This list advertises positions of all sorts relevant for social and behavioral scientists with advanced degrees.