This week’s Brownbag Seminar on Wednesday, April 1st at 12pm PT is with Juana Montoya Murillo, PhD candidate in Demography at UC Berkeley, who will present, “After Legalization: Fertility and the Persistence of Abortion Stigma in Colombia.” The event will take place in Room 310 in the Social Sciences Building and will also be available via Zoom. (Meeting ID: 985 2901 0198 Password: DEMOG_BB). See the full event details here. Our YouTube channel is here. Visit our Brown Bag event page for both past and upcoming talks here.
Don’t forget to register for our Spring Symposium on Population Research: New Findings, New Directions. Join us for this in person, one-day symposium hosted by the Berkeley Population Center (BPC) and the Center on the Economics and Demography of Aging (CEDA). This symposium is an opportunity for the UC Berkeley population sciences community to share and discuss new findings, innovative ideas, and future directions of their research.
Symposium Date: Friday, April 17, 2026
Location: Heyns Room, Faculty Club, UC Berkeley
Time: 9:30 AM-3 PM
Please register by Friday, April 3, 2026.
More details and register here.
Calling all reproduction scholars: There is an effort to organize a new American Sociological Association section on Reproduction. Briefly, our goals are to ensure that there are plenty of opportunities to spotlight all of the excellent research being done on reproduction, which is especially important for early-career scholars. A new section will also make it possible to create additional awards for reproduction-related research and to host a reception at the annual meeting for scholars working in this area to come together. If you are supportive of this effort, please take a moment to sign our petition to form a new section: https://forms.gle/cRC8woXJGzEDF5dQ6. ASA requires that we gather at least 200 signatures from current members. Please feel free to send any questions to Rene Almeling (rene.almeling@yale.edu).
From the NIH.
Feedback Wanted: Developing the NIH-Wide Strategic Plan for Fiscal Years 2027-2031. NIH seeks community feedback on the next Agency-Wide Strategic Plan. This plan will guide our work over the next five years to fulfill our mission. Input from researchers, other stakeholders, and the general public is essential to ensure transparency in what we do and advance the principles of gold standard science that we all apply to our daily work. Request for Information will be released in April and there will be a 60 day period in which the public can submit comments. NIH will hold a webinar to gather input from the research community, stakeholders, and the public on the framework that will inform development of the plan: April 8, 2026, 2:30 to 3:30 PM ET – Registration Link
NIH’s Implementation of Common Forms for Biographical Sketch and Current and Pending (Other) Support.
NIH is now requiring the use of SciENcv to create biographical sketches and current and pending documents. You can read more about the process here.
See further announcements and opportunities below.
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EVENTS
March 31 | 12:10-1pm | UC Berkeley School of Public Health | Jay Graham, Associate Professor, UC Berkeley. “Zoonotic and Environmental Dimensions of Human Urinary Tract Infections.” Event details and zoom link here.
April 1 | 12-1pm | Demography Brownbag Seminar | Juana Montoya Murillo, PhD candidate in Demography at UC Berkeley, who will present, “After Legalization: Fertility and the Persistence of Abortion Stigma in Colombia.” Room 310, Social Sciences Building and via Zoom. Meeting ID: 985 2901 0198; Password: DEMOG_BB.
Registration is now open for the Berkeley Initiative for Transparency in the Social Sciences (BITSS) Annual Meeting. Join us in Berkeley on April 16, 2026, for a full day of in-person sessions on strengthening research rigor across disciplines. This year’s agenda includes talks on the use of AI in social science research, reproducibility, and balancing data privacy and transparency. The conference will take place at Spieker Forum, Chou Hall on the UC Berkeley campus. Register here.
OPPORTUNITIES
The CITRIS Seed Funding program issues short-term, competitive awards of $40,000–$60,000 per project to advance information technology research and catalyze early work that can benefit industry, the public sector and society at large. Awardees embody the university’s public mission and the innovative spirit of California, with a focus on interdisciplinary solutions.
Team-based proposals are invited from principal investigators from UC Berkeley, UC Davis, UC Davis Health, UC Merced and UC Santa Cruz. To encourage collaboration, proposals should engage at least two investigators from different CITRIS campuses. Deadline: April 22, 2026. Learn more and apply.
Interdisciplinary Network on Rural Population Health and Aging (INRPHA)
- Proposal Due Date: April 10, 2026
- Funded by the National Institute on Aging
- Invites investigators to submit proposals for pilot research that enhances understanding of the multilevel and multidimensional drivers of rural health and aging trends and disparities
- Investigators may request up to $35,000
- Access the RFP
Gateway Exposome Coordinating Center Pilot Projects
- Proposal Due Date: April 13, 2026
- The Gateway Exposome Coordinating Center (GECC) is seeking pilot projects that advance research on environmental exposures over the life course — the “exposome” — that affect Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) and AD-Related Dementias (ADRD) risk, resilience, and disparities
- GECC’s pilot project webpage for more information
National Dementia Workforce Study (NDWS) Cycle 3 Pilot Grants
- Application Deadline: April 27, 2026, 11:59 PM EST
- Expected Award Date: October 1, 2026
- Proposals accepted for high-impact research studies using NDWS survey data and linked data sources
- Two categories of awards available:
- Small Awards: Up to $80,000 total costs per award (direct costs not to exceed $50,000); best for projects that only use NDWS survey data and/or are primarily descriptive
- Large Awards: Up to $160,000 total costs per award (direct costs not to exceed $100,000); best for more complicated projects, particularly those involving linked data and/or CMS data
- The number of each award type will be determined based on the quality of applications
- Learn more and apply
PSID Data User Workshop
- Application Deadline: April 15, 2026
- Workshop: June 15-19, 2026 | In-person only (Ann Arbor, MI)
- Five-day workshop on the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), the world’s longest-running multigenerational household panel study
Call for Papers: 2026 International Conference on Aging in the Americas.
September 23–25, 2026
Deadline: May 31, 2026