Population Science News

Weekly News – February 6, 2017

EVENTS
No Demography Brown Bag this week due to cancellation.  Brown Bag talks are recorded and posted on the Berkeley Population Sciences vimeo channel, https://vimeo.com/berkeleypopscience
Monday, Feb 6, 2-3:30 PM.  Using Text as Data Methods to Discover, Measure, and Explain” with Justin Grimmer, Stanford University. 402 Barrows Hall

Tuesday, Feb 7, 12:40-2 p.m. “ACA and its Replacement: Effects on the Nongroup Insurance Market and Exchanges” with Will Dow.  714C University Hal

EVENTS
No Demography Brown Bag this week due to cancellation.  Brown Bag talks are recorded and posted on the Berkeley Population Sciences vimeo channel, https://vimeo.com/berkeleypopscience

Monday, Feb 6, 2-3:30 PM.  Using Text as Data Methods to Discover, Measure, and Explain” with Justin Grimmer, Stanford University. 402 Barrows Hall

Tuesday, Feb 7, 12:40-2 p.m. “ACA and its Replacement: Effects on the Nongroup Insurance Market and Exchanges” with Will Dow.  714C University Hall.

Tuesday, Feb. 7 3:00pm–4:00pm. “The Educational Backgrounds of American Business and Government Leaders” with Steven Brint, UC Riverside. Evans Hall, 768 Library Evans Hall.

Wednesday, February 1 I 4:00-5:30pm. “Theorizing Black Europe; Strident Imperialists, Peripheral Colonial Beneficiaries and the Contemporary Politics of Immigration and Citizenship” with Stephen A. Small, Associate Professor, African American Studies, UC Berkeley.

Friday, Feb 10, 12-1 PM. “How do Pension Wealth Shocks affect Working and Claiming?” with Rafael Lalive, University of Lausanne. | 648 Evans Hall. 

SAVE THE DATE
February 27, 2017 Comparative Workshop on Adult Mortality Determinants: “Adult Mortality Determinants in Low and Middle Income Countries and Comparisons with High Income Countries.”
 This one-day workshop is designed to share leading research methods and findings on comparative patterns of adult mortality risk factors in low and middle income countries (LMIC), following-up on an inaugural workshop held on this topic at USC in February 2016.  The goal is to build a robust evidence base for understanding the drivers of cross-national mortality and health expectancy patterns, especially in populations with unusually high or low adult mortality.  The newly expanded availability of longitudinal HRS-type surveys in LMIC make this an opportune time to gather a network of researchers using such data to study mortality patterns, in order to share innovative methods, new results, and ideas for the most promising research agenda going forward.. It is co-sponsored by the UC-Berkeley Center on the Economics and Demography of Aging-CEDA (William Dow), and the USC/UCLA Center for Biodemography and Population Health (Eileen Crimmins and Teresa Seeman). Lunch and refreshments will be served. Attendance is free and open to the public and the university community, but seating is limited. If interested in joining, RSVP no later than February 10th, to Liz Vasile (evasile@berkeley.edu).

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

CONFERENCES
The 12th Summer Institute on Migration and Global Health, June 26-28, 2017.
 During the Annual Summer Institute on Migration and Global Health, researchers, faculty, graduate students, and professionals working with migrant communities around the world come together to learn about different health issues that affect mobile populations. Participants have the opportunity to discuss and analyze the interrelation between migration and health in depth from a multi-disciplinary perspective. Through a combination of lectures, workshops, poster sessions, and field trip, the Institute allows for an exceptional opportunity not only to learn, but also to create professional networks. Some of the topics covered include: current and historical trends on migration and global health; access to health care; refugee health; research methodologies for migrant and refugee populations; best practices to work with vulnerable and underserved displaced people; and current political issues related to migrants and refugees. Register HERE.

CALL FOR PAPERS/ABSTRACTS
International Conference on Social Sciences (ICSS) 
will be held in the Southern Sun Maharani and Elangeni Hotel in Durban, South Africa, on Aug. 23 – 25, 2017. The ICSS is calling for papers on a variety of topics, including ethnic studies, family economics, community development, and much more. Deadline for submissions is May 31, 2017. For more information, visit: http://www.icssconference.net/

Improving Population Health Now, Across People’s Lives and Across Generations to Come, October 2 – 4, 2017, AT&T Executive Education and Conference Center, The University of Texas at Austin 2017.  The 3rd annual interdisciplinary population health research conference will bring scholars and practitioners from different disciplinary backgrounds together to share and discuss the science, practice and policy of population health. This meeting is also the first membership meeting of The Interdisciplinary Association for Population Health Science (IAPHS). Submissions are encouraged from population health scientists from any academic discipline, career stage, and sector committed to improving population health in the U.S.  The meeting is free and open to the public. Registration is required and will be open in late May! Pleaseclick here to read our Call for Submissions and How to Submit an Abstract for the Conference. Due April 7, 2017.  

4th Annual International Conference on Demography and Population Studies, 12-13 June 2017, Athens, Greece. You are more than welcome to submit a proposal for a presentation by email to atiner@atiner.com, before 13 February 2017. The registration fee is 540 euro and includes accommodation during the days of the conference, participation to all sessions of the conference, breakfasts, two lunches and all taxes. If you need more information, please let me know and our administration will send it through to you.  The language of the conference is English for both presentations and discussions. Abstracts should be 200-300 words in length and it should include names and contact details of all authors. All abstracts are blind reviewed according to ATINER’s standards and policies. Acceptance decisions are sent within four weeksfollowing submission. Papers should be submitted one month before the conference only if the paper is to be considered for publication at ATINER’s series. See http://www.atiner.gr/demography for more information.

ANNOUNCEMENTS
Migration and Climate Change:  
Federico Castillo, Michael Wehner and Daithi Stone, from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory) are assembling a book titled “Extreme Events and Climate Change: A Multidisciplinary Approach” and are seeking a collaborator to contribute a chapter on migration and extreme event occurrence.  They are looking for someone who has already doing some research on this topic and who would be interested contributing a chapter with both strong empirical and theoretical content. Without getting into much detail the final product is expected to be completed by March, 2018 with the required drafts and other requirements to be completed between now and March, 2018. The book aims to analyze how the expected increase in frequency and magnitude of climate change related extreme events impacts society. Events include floods, heat waves, droughts, hurricanes, and others. If you know of someone who could be interested in collaborating with us please let them know, or contact Dr. Castillo directly at: f.castillo@berkeley.edu

Irene Bloemraad announces the new Berkeley Interdisciplinary Migration Initiative (BIMI, http://migration.berkeley.edu).  Berkeley has long been home to cutting-edge research, teaching and engagement on migration. This work spans disciplines, time periods and substantive concerns, from questions about borders and human rights to investigation of immigrants’ health, educational success and political engagement. The work done by Berkeley faculty, graduate students, undergrads and staff ranges from the Bay area to far corners of the globe and mirrors the diversity of people and places affected by migration. We are launching the Berkeley Interdisciplinary Migration Initiative to bring together this campus knowledge and leverage it for further innovation.  It is clear that thoughtful, balanced understanding of migration is now more important than ever, in the United States and around the world. BIMI is conceived of as a partnership and network. We aim to make connections between people unaware of overlapping interests and spark new ideas among longstanding colleagues. We plan to host a series of research convenings over the next 18 months. We are also investigating new opportunities in mentorship, training and teaching.  Our new website highlights a slice of the research questions and Spring 2017 classes relevant to migration. We want to serve as a hub of shared information, within and beyond campus. On campus, we want to help advertise conferences, classes and events to an audience that crosses disciplines and schools. Beyond campus, we aim to share the insights of Berkeley researchers with the public and to provide publicly-accessible facts about migration. Looking forward, we hope to build a database of existing and new data on immigrant populations in the Bay area for use by researchers, students and the public. We want to make the case that Berkeley is the place for innovative, evidence-based research, training and teaching on migration, and we want to attract the resources necessary to take our work to the next level. In December, the Office of the Vice-Chancellor of Research announced BIMI had been selected as one of a handful of campus initiatives for sustained future development. We hope that we can call on you to make the case for Berkeley. If you would like to be involved, or just know more, please email. Provide your name, email address and a short description of your research. Let us know if we can list you on the migration.berkeley.edu website, and whether you have a professional website we can link to. And send us your ideas for what BIMI should do!  BIMI is an initiative; it is not a research center. Just as migration ties people together across great distances and generations, we want to bridge disciplines and researchers at all stages of their career. BIMI’s success will depend on the ideas, energy and work of those fascinated by and who care about migration. We hope you will join us! 

FUNDING
NSF: 
Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) Includes the description of NSF Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE).

WORKSHOPS
SPACE Workshop for Estimating Health Expectancy, sponsored by 
CEDA, will be held on Sunday, February 26 in the Demography House seminar room. Information can be found here.  
As described on the CDC site: “The SPACE (Stochastic Population Analysis for Complex Events) program is a collection of PC SAS® programs to estimate multi-state life table (MSLT) functions via microsimulation, and their sampling variability via a special bootstrap approach. This program offers a versatile statistical tool for researchers interested in modeling multiple and recurrent events using longitudinal survey data. Its development and applications is described in detail in a recent paper (Cai et al. 2010).” http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data_access/space.htm
Related information on using SPACE for estimating health expectancy can be found in Nihon University Professor Yasuhiko Saito’s 2014 paper “The methods and materials of health expectancy,” Statistical Journal of the IAOS 30 (2014) 209–223: http://content.iospress.com/download/statistical-journal-of-the-iaos/sji00840?id=statistical-journal-of-the-iaos%2Fsji00840
Professor Saito and others will lead this 1-day workshop that will cover:
1.  Introduction to SPACE
2.  Using sample data to run SPACE
3.  How to run microsimulations with SPACE
4.  Using your own data to run SPACE
Please bring a laptop with SAS installed (including BASE, STAT, and IML). Lunch and refreshments will be served.  Attendance is free but seating is limited.  The deadline to RSVP is February 10. Please RSVP by sending an email to Liz Vasile (evasile@berkeley.edu). 

Grant Writing Workshops – Sponsored by SPH.
Feb 14                 12:30pm-1:30pm              (Room TBD)
Understanding NIH – Webinar with Rosemarie Hunziker, NIH
April 18                12:30pm-1:30pm              (545 Li Ka Shing Building)
How to navigate NIH study sections and peer review process with Jennifer Ahern
May 9                  12:30pm-1:30pm              (401 University Hall)
Rigor and reproducibility: What does it mean for my proposal? with Jennifer Ahern

B. Berkeley Research Development Office workshop schedule for this spring 
All sessions in 177 Stanley, 11:30am-12:30pm
March 9                Session 1 Understanding NIH
March 23              Session 2 Understanding NSF
April 13                 Session 3 Specific Aims
April 27                 Session 4 Writing Your Research Proposal
May 4                    Session 5 Finding Research Funding
May 11                  Session 6 Scientific Writing
May 18                  Office hours/Consultations

The University Library and the Research Data Management will host a set of events that will be held from February 13th-17th as a part of Love Your Data Week campaign to encourage and teach researchers how to manage, secure, publish, and license their data. Librarians, graduate students, researchers and data specialists are invited to attend these events and learn multiple data services that the university campus provides. To register for these events and find out more, please visit: http://guides.lib.berkeley.edu/LYDWeek2017
Schedule:
Securing Research Data –  Explore services needed to unlock the research potential of restricted data. 11:00 am-12:00 pm, Tuesday, February 14, Doe Library, Room 190 (BIDS)
RDM Tools & Tips: Box and Drive – Learn the best practices for using Box and bDrive to manage documents, files, and other digital assets. 10:30 am-11:45 pm, Wednesday, February 15, Doe Library, Room 190 (BIDS)
Research Data Publishing and Licensing – This workshop covers why and how to publish and license your research data. 11:00 am-12:00 pm, Thursday, February 16, Doe Library, Room 190 (BIDS)

GRADUATE STUDENTS
The Population Reference Bureau (PRB)
 U.S. Policy Communication Training Program, is accepting applications for the 2017-2018 cohort and are due on February 13, 2017. Please see our announcement for eligibility criteria and instructions on how to apply. This training program builds on PRB’s 40-year legacy of training researchers to communicate their findings for policy change. The program is designed to develop skills that U.S. researchers need to communicate with U.S. policy audiences, including decision makers and the media. Through the generous support of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), we are able to offer this in-depth policy communication training to U.S. citizens and permanent residents studying demography, population health, and reproductive health in doctoral programs at U.S. academic institutions.  If you have questions, please contact Hanna Christianson atUSPolicyTraining@prb.org

ON THE WEB
COSSA presents: “
Social Science in the Age of Trump: What We’d Like to See,” a webinar with Wendy A. Naus, Executive Director, Consortium of Social Science Associations (COSSA).  Thursday, February 9th 9 a.m. PT/12 p.m. ET/5 p.m. GMT.  Register here:https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/764310495004381187

WEBINAR:  Dr. Jim Spletzer presents, “Earnings Inequality Statistics from the LEHD.” Much of what we know about increasing earnings inequality comes from publicly available statistics from the Current Population Survey (CPS) and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). These statistics show that inequality has been increasing since the late 1970s or early 1980s. Earnings inequality statistics calculated from the Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics (LEHD) data shows that individual-level inequality statistics from the LEHD are extremely similar, in both levels and trends, to the published statistics from the CPS and the IRS. The LEHD also confirms that the firm plays a large role in this increasing inequality — 93% of the growth of earnings variance is between firms rather than within firms.  Register here: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/7219622426631318275

D-LAB
Upcoming workshops include machine learning, R, and Python.  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, visithttp://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.
 

 

Posted in Newsletter.