Recent Grants
This list includes recent Population Dynamics Branch Program grants awarded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute for Child Health and Human Development.
Center for Family and Demographic Research
Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH
The Center for Family and Demographic Research (CFDR) at Bowling Green State University (BGSU) seeks five years of renewed funding from the Population Dynamics Centers Research Infrastructure program (P2C). We request support for research infrastructure that will build on our momentum by continuing to generate cutting-edge research on families and the health and development of children, adolescents, and adults; shape the national research agenda; provide efficient support to affiliates engaged in population science research; mentor junior faculty and early stage investigators; and leverage strong institutional support and commitments.
We are currently supported as a Specialized Research Center with an emphasis in family demography and seek to broaden our scope beyond the limits set on specialized centers by expanding beyond one research theme, requesting support above the funding cap, and adding a Public Core. We are a relatively small center (42 affiliates) with a modest level of support, but CFDR research has had a major impact on population science. Since its inception in 2000, the CFDR has laid the groundwork for innovative research that moves beyond traditional discipline- and method-bound work. CFDR research is central to the Population Dynamics Branch scientific mission. CFDR affiliates research is award winning, published in the top journals, and heavily cited. A marker of our success and indicator of future productivity is an expanded grant portfolio with new teams of researchers. CFDR’s infrastructure has yielded outstanding returns, cementing our prominence in demography. The primary anticipated benefit of continued NIH support for the CFDR is very clear: the advancement of a top-quality interdisciplinary and mixed-method research tradition focused on family demography, fertility and reproductive health, and social contexts and well-being. Several emphases cut across these themes, such as life course stage, cohort change and period influences, subgroup variation, and measurement.
We pursue the following four goals in the current application: 1) Further increase the scientific impact, innovation, and productivity of CFDR; 2) Ensure CFDR affiliate competitiveness for external funding; 3) Support the development of CFDR affiliates with an emphasis on junior faculty; and 4) Ignite population science by providing new data and research tools for the broader community.
We accomplish those goals by supporting four efficient cores that complement one another: Administrative, Computing and Data, Development, and Public. The CFDR is already providing national leadership, and our vision is to continue to foster an environment of innovation and collaboration that yields high impact research on cutting-edge issues in demography including new work on same-sex couples, family trajectories of reproductive health, and the role of the criminal justice system in families and well-being. To further this vision, the CFDR long-term plan includes expanding our role in shaping the national research agenda and spearheading new demographic data collection efforts.
Type of award: Population Research Center Grant (P2C)
Project Leader: Manning, Wendy D.
Project start/end dates: 8/7/2005-5/31/2021
Total cost (most recent fiscal year): $225,997
Brown Population Studies and Training Center
Brown University, Providence, RI
The Population Studies and Training Center (PSTC) promotes innovative research on social, institutional, and environmental dimensions of population structures and processes fundamental to health and well-being. Established in 1964, the PSTC benefits from a deep, interdisciplinary network of committed scholars at Brown. This application describes how a new round of dedicated resources for this dynamic community of 49 faculty associates will advance knowledge within and across social science and public health fields, and leverage significant university investment for research activity.
The PSTC has three distinctive Signature Institutional Features: Anthropological Demography, Spatial Inquiry, and International Demography, especially African Demography. The PSTC will make distinctive intellectual contributions in each of five Primary Research Areas: Migration and Urbanization; Demographic Change and Economic Development; Children, Families, and Health; Reproductive Health and HIV/AIDS; and Population and Environment. The PSTC promotes theoretically creative, methodologically state of the art research that is appropriately relevant to real world challenges.
Type of award: Population Research Center Grant (P2C)
Project Leader: Short, Susan E.
Project start/end dates: 7/11/2001-5/31/2021
Total cost (most recent fiscal year): $528,783
Training in Demography
Brown University, Providence, RI
The Population Studies and Training Center of Brown University requests continuing support for its T32 National Research Service Award. The long-term goal of the PSTC Demography Training Program is to prepare predoctoral and postdoctoral social scientists to become internationally-renowned population investigators and scholars. More concretely, our objectives are to promote research, publication, and grant funding among trainees during and after training. We request support for five doctoral trainees and one postdoctoral trainee.
In this application, we provide evidence of a strong interdisciplinary training program, supported by productive, committed faculty, focused on training doctoral candidates and postdoctoral fellows from Anthropology, Economics, Sociology, and Public Health. We demonstrate that the PSTC T32 training program shows ample evidence of continued intellectual and organizational evolution, dynamic synergy across disciplines and career stages, from new trainee through senior scholar, and a commitment to excellence that will produce the highest quality population science scholars. We show excellent recruitment, retention and placement outcomes in the previous grant period, and we focus on maintaining this excellence while improving professionalization and enhancing young scholars’ paths to future independence with this new application. The PSTC training program proposed here builds on a dynamic research infrastructure, with recently reconfigured thematic foci reflecting dramatic growth in Center and training program faculty. The PSTC has three signature institutional features: Anthropological Demography; Spatial Inquiry; and International Demography. The PSTC makes distinctive intellectual contributions in each of five primary research areas: Migration and Urbanization; Demographic Change and Economic Development; Children, Families, and Health; Reproductive Health and HIV/AIDS; and Population and Environment.
Predoctoral and postdoctoral trainees are integrated into all institutional features and research areas. Their training is advanced through coursework, mentorship, working groups, a proseminar, colloquia, methods modules, and professionalization workshops. We show evidence of major institutional support in the form of physical space, significant investments in graduate education generally, and targeted funds to support trainees. An active Training Committee supervises the design of the program, coordinating with our affiliated departments. Co-PDs Qian and White with PSTC Assistant Director Wildman provide extensive support for the day-to-day operation of the program. We describe both continuing and innovative organizational and pedagogical efforts to secure the training goals we outline in this application.
Type of award: Institutional Training Grant (T32)
Project Leader: Qian, Zhenchao
Project start/end dates: 9/7/1987-4/30/2023
Total cost (most recent fiscal year): $248,805
Columbia Population Research Center
Columbia Univ New York Morningside, New York, NY
The Columbia Population Research Center (CPRC) seeks Research Infrastructure FY 2014 (P2C) funding from the Population Dynamics Branch at NICHD/NIH (RFA-HD-14-016). We request $1,297,874 in direct costs over the five-year period beginning September 1, 2014. The CPRC has four primary research areas: (1) children, youth, and families, (2) gender, sexuality, health, and HIV, (3) immigration/migration, and (4) urbanism. Research in these four areas is united by two cross-cutting themes: (1) the health and well-being of vulnerable populations; and (2) the formation, implementation, and evaluation of public health and social policies that address these vulnerabilities.
Our goals are to: (1) nourish a vibrant intellectual community of population researchers at Columbia University; (2) advance population research in our four signature areas; (3) become a leading population center specializing in research on the health and wellbeing of vulnerable populations locally, nationally, and internationally, and on public policies relevant to those populations; and (4) take advantage of Columbia’s location in New York City, both to address issues specific to or aggravated by its status as a global city, and also to exploit and further develop the many partnerships between Columbia researchers and local academic, city, and international institutions. We will accomplish these goals through three research infrastructure cores: Administrative, Computing and Methods, and a Development Core. The latter will foster cross-disciplinary and cross-campus research linkages among Columbia faculty whose work advances those goals. The CPRC is co-directed by Irwin Garfinkel, Mitchell I. Ginsberg Professor of Contemporary Urban Problems in the Faculty of Social Work, and Constance A. Nathanson, Professor of Sociomedical Sciences and of Population and Family Health in the Mailman School of Public Health.
Type of award: Population Research Center Grant (P2C)
Project Leader: Waldfogel, Jane
Project start/end dates: 9/24/2014-8/31/2019
Total cost (most recent fiscal year): $281,600
Duke Population Research Institute
Duke University, Durham, NC
The Duke University Population Research Center (DPRC) is an interdisciplinary research organization bringing together scientists from the social sciences (demography, economics, psychology, sociology) and the biological, mathematical, and statistical sciences at Duke. The center seeks to catalyze cutting-edge research that speaks to fundamental questions of population well-being and expands the boundaries of demographic investigation and to foster the development of the next generation of researchers. DPRC’s impact will be greatest in three emerging areas: (a) Getting under the skin to understand the developmental processes of population health, (b) Understanding of the roles of social connections and network positions in population health, and (c) Identifying causal effects to advance understanding of behavior at the population level. We encourage and promote innovation in data collection and data analyses in pursuit of these questions.
DPRC currently has 53 faculty associates from 10 departments, schools and institutes. This application requests funding from the NICHD Population Dynamics Centers Research Infrastructure (P2C) to support three cores, administration, development and science cores. The proposed cores will lower the administrative costs of seeking and managing external funding freeing researchers to concentrate on science. Our goal is to increase external funding by developing science that would not be possible without DPRC, given the number and quality of population researchers at Duke, its recent record of recruiting top population scientists, and its unique data resources (e.g., the leadership on major international panel surveys). Over the past 10 years, DPRC has become a major contributor to the population research community.
Type of award: Population Research Center Grant (P2C)
Project Leader: Merli, Giovanna M.
Project start/end dates: 8/1/2010-8/31/2020
Total cost (most recent fiscal year): $343,871
Guttmacher Center for Population Research Innovation and Dissemination
Guttmacher Institute, New York, NY
The Guttmacher Institute, the leading independent research organization in the U.S. entirely focused on fertility and reproductive health, seeks an NICHD Specialized Research Infrastructure Grant in order to support and expand the Guttmacher Center for Population Research Innovation and Dissemination. With this support, the Center will enhance the Institute’s dissemination capabilities to serve and educate both researchers in the field and the general public, expand and formalize training and development activities for the Institute’s own researchers, and build collaborations with colleague organizations.
The Center includes 17 population scientists from the disciplines of demography, sociology, epidemiology, economics and public health, along with 19 other affiliates and technical contributors. The signature theme of the Center is fertility and reproductive health; Center affiliates have collectively made extensive contributions and publications to this area of study, including work on fertility preferences, pregnancy intentions and pregnancy outcomes; sexual behavior, contraceptive use and contraceptive services; and adolescent sexual and reproductive health. Thematic issue teams and a seminar series in which Center affiliates solicit feedback on their ongoing research, as well as collaborations with WHO, Columbia, Johns Hopkins and others, support the Institute’s research objectives and the work of Center affiliates. The Center’s Administrative Core makes the work of Center affiliates more efficient by shifting administrative tasks currently performed by researchers to administrative staff and improving project management skills through increased staff training.
The Developmental Infrastructure Core strengthens research collaborations with other institutions and provides professional development to Center affiliates at all levels. The Dissemination Core strengthens access to information by facilitating efficient creation of public-use datasets, providing public education o how to interpret research findings, guiding researchers on publishing in peer-reviewed journals, and enhancing mechanisms for the dissemination of research findings of Center affiliates.
Type of award: Population Research Center Grant (R24)
Project Leader: Finer, Lawrence B.
Project start/end dates: 9/14/2013-8/31/2018
Total cost (most recent fiscal year): $93,000
Research Infrastructure for the Hopkins Population Center
Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD
This application requests a renewal of support for the Hopkins Population Center (HPC) under the Research Infrastructure for Demographic and Behavioral Population Science Program as specified in RFA-HD-13- 007. The HPC is an interdisciplinary research center spanning four schools on two campuses of the Johns Hopkins University. It emphasizes innovative, interdisciplinary population research and support for new investigators. It has three signature themes: Its Poverty and Inequality theme supports research on the health and well-being of children from low- and moderate-income families.
Its Sexual and Reproductive Health theme includes studies of the social context of sexually-transmitted infections and diseases and of contraceptive usage and demand. Its Family Demography and the Transition to Adulthood theme studies demographic trends in American family life and the determinants of the life-transitions that adolescents and young adults make as they start family lives and have children. The HPC is unique among population centers in that the great majority of its faculty associates are based at the Hopkins medical institutions: Public Health, Medicine, and Nursing. It nevertheless has strength in the School of Arts and Sciences, including the current HPC Director, Andrew Cherlin, a former president of the Population Association of America and the current chair of the Social Sciences and Population A Study Section at NIH. The HPC provides seed grants to promising projects that could lead to NIH grant applications; it supports junior faculty for developing and writing proposals; and it supports working groups that are developing innovative research projects.
The HPC requests support for four cores. An Administrative Core will be responsible for the finances of the Center and will supervise activities, sponsor symposia, and perform other such tasks. A Computing Core will provide faculty associates with computing resources and information technology to fit their research needs. An Information Services Core will provide electronic information and bibliographic services. And a Developmental Infrastructure Core will encourage and develop research projects and proposals through pilot project grants, workshops, and other activities.
Type of award: Population Research Center Grant (R24)
Project Leader: Hao, Lingxin
Project start/end dates: 7/10/2003-8/31/2019
Total cost (most recent fiscal year): $243,000
Institute for Population Research
Ohio State University, Columbus, OH
This application describes our plans to continue the successful development of the Institute for Population Research [IPR] at Ohio State University as an interdisciplinary population science center. Defining features of IPR are: (i) Encouragement of the application to population phenomena of theory and models from multiple disciplines, resulting in far richer and more informative conceptualizations; (ii) Active support of innovative research methodologies which derive from rapidly emerging new research technologies; (iii) Favoring of collaborative research which crosses disciplinary boundaries, and research by junior scholars; (iv) Investment of maximum resources in new population science projects and, corresponding, a slim and efficient administrative structure.
IPR consists of three research infrastructure cores: Administrative Core; Development Core; Data & Computing Core. The Administrative Core will handle all routine administrative tasks required to maintain IPR’s ambitious and diverse program of activities and services. The largest administrative assignment is management of the IPR Seed Grant Program, an activity of the Development Core. The Administrative Core will also handle essential administrative tasks that include maintaining the IPR Database, conducting an annual evaluation of IPR’s success in meeting the goals specified in this application, disseminating research findings, and other routine administration.
The Development Core is the heart of IPR, as judged by its contribution to achieving the goals specified above and, more concretely, as judged by the allocation of IPR resources. In addition to the large IPR Seed Grant Program, this core will sponsor working groups, the weekly IPR Seminar, and didactic workshops. Jointly with the Administrative Core, it will offer IPR affiliates substantial assistance in constructing and submitting applications for external funding, and it will ensure that IPR affiliates are compliant with regulations regarding the conduct of research and the public accessibility of research results.
The Data & Computing Core is new. This core is designed to assist IPR affiliates in taking full advantage of innovations in data collection, data management, and high-end computing which open new doors for population science. A new staff position Data & Computing Manager will be created. IPR will offer data and computing services to assist affiliates in making best use of new masses of data and new technologies to gain better understanding of population and health outcomes. Our assessment is that IPR can be of maximum added value to OSU population scientists in two respects: first, by providing resources to get new projects off the ground; second, by directing these scientists to opportunities of which they may be unaware and/or assisting them in taking advantage of these opportunities. The first is achieved via the IPR Seed Grant Program and related activities/services. The second will be achieved via the new Data & Computing Core.
Type of award: Population Research Center Grant (P2C)
Project Leader: Casterline, John B.
Project start/end dates: 9/30/2014-8/31/2019
Total cost (most recent fiscal year): $447,798
Population Research Institute
Pennsylvania State University-Univ Park, University Park, PA
This application requests five years of infrastructure funding for the Population Research Institute (PRI). Established over four decades ago at the Pennsylvania State University (PSU) and funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) since 1992 with generous supplemental support from PSU, this vibrant, multidisciplinary community of scholars provides strategic resources to support innovative, high impact population research.
PRI’s overarching aim is to advance the scientific understanding of human population dynamics and processes, especially as they relate to PRI’s five primary research areas: Communities, Neighborhoods and Spatial Processes, Immigration and Immigrant Integration, Social Change and Changing Families, Population Health, and the Causes and Consequences of Crime.
PRI fosters collaborative research partnerships and the development of junior scholars through the activities and seed grant program of its Development Core (DC). The institute further supports the development and application of novel approaches and methods that can make important and cutting edge contributions to population research through its Computational and Spatial Analysis (CSA) Core. Finally, the Institute increases faculty research productivity by reducing the barriers and burdens associated with research administration through its Administrative Core (AC).
PRI provides a highly supportive environment for conducting population research. It is located at a university with a strong commitment to and rich tradition of facilitating interdisciplinary research. An example of this is PSU’s generous financial and infrastructure support provided to PRI. Across all levels of seniority, PRI faculty are highly productive and nearly all receive external funding. Population science at PSU would not have achieved this level of impact, were it not for its P2C/R24/P30 infrastructure grants, which have had a multiplier effect. The investments from NIH have rallied institutional and faculty commitment to population science, enabled PSU to recruit top-notch faculty, and led to the development of an intellectual community that is more productive than the sum of its parts. These faculty contribute to PRI’s existing strengths in family, immigration, and spatial demography, and have built bridges to other exceptional faculty groups at PSU, namely population health scholars, criminologists, and geographers. Researchers have also helped to advance population research through the application and analysis of new forms of data (including restricted, spatial, social network, and other forms of big data).
Type of award: Population Research Center Grant (P2C)
Project Leader: Glick, Jennifer E.
Project start/end dates: 9/21/2001-5/31/2021
Total cost (most recent fiscal year): $703,363
Family Demography Training
Pennsylvania State University-Univ Park, University Park, PA
This proposal requests a five-year renewal of the Penn State NICHD National Research Service Awards Institutional Training grant for Family Demography Training: Contextual, Developmental, and Biobehavioral Processes. We request continued support for the current four predoctoral and one postdoctoral training slots. This program builds on our nationally ranked and Graduate School awarded dual-discipline Ph.D. program in Human Development and Family Studies (developmental psychology) and Demography and in Sociology and Demography. Specifically, our predoctoral program integrates individual developmental science and biobehavioral science with our strong (eight-course minimum) training in core demography/population science (methods, theory, and population processes – fertility, health/mortality, migration/immigration, aging, family status change) for a manifestly interdisciplinary training experience for a new generation of family demography research scientists.
The postdoctoral program is focused on enhancing research in family demography and individual development. The training program brings together 29 research-active, primarily advanced, academic-rank population faculty with expertise in contextual, developmental, and biobehavioral scholarship related to family demography, and whose grant activity is supported by the strong research infrastructure of Penn State’s Population Research Institute.
This intellectual environment provides rich opportunities for pre- and postdoctoral trainee research apprenticeships. Predoctoral trainees are recruited from the approximately 315 annual applicants to, and students currently enrolled in, the two participating academic departments. Over the past ten years of our T32 grant, 100 percent of all NICHD pre- and postdoctoral trainees have either been awarded their dual-Ph.D in Demography or completed their program, or are currently enrolled and on track to successfully complete their program. Our trainees have moved into positions in academia, government, and research and policy organizations, where they continue to produce high quality research and publications, and influence national programs and policies that affect the health and well-being of families, communities, and societies.
Type of award: Institutional Training Grant (T32)
Project Leader: King, Valarie E.
Project start/end dates: 5/1/1999-8/31/2019
Total cost (most recent fiscal year): $228,695
Center for Public Information on Population Research
Population Reference Bureau, Washington, DC
PRB will create a Coordinating Center for the NICHD Population Dynamics Centers Research Infrastructure Programs to improve the translation and dissemination of major findings from population dynamics research, and to improve communication and cooperation across the Centers.
The Coordinating Center will accomplish these objectives through a complementary set of activities: 1) Developing an All-Centers website that includes concise, nontechnical summaries of recent research funded by NICHD’s Population Dynamics Branch (PDB)that are promoted through social media; 2) Establishing a Coordinating Center Advisory Committee and arranging the annual grantee meeting of the Population Dynamics Centers PD/PIs with NICHD program officials; 3) Creating a standardized reporting template for the Centers to share program results, productivity, and plans with each other and with NICHD program officials; 4) Empowering Population Dynamics Centers researchers to publicize and translate their own research for policymakers and journalists through training activities and resources; and 5) Evaluating the success and impact of Coordinating Center activities through web performance measures, A/B testing of email campaigns, and feedback from Population Dynamics Centers Directors and researchers through in-person and virtual meetings, and online surveys.
Type of award: Population Research Center Grant (R24)
Project Leader: Jacobsen, Linda A.
Project start/end dates: 7/5/2002-6/30/2022
Total cost (most recent fiscal year): $161,414
Infrastructure for the Office of Population Research
Princeton University, Princeton, NJ
OPR seeks to build on its long history of distinguished demographic research by achieving the following: to foster interdisciplinary collaboration among population researchers at Princeton and other institutions; to promote the development of young scientists and the creation of opportunities for collaboration across ranks and disciplines; to develop new methods and data for population research; to incorporate new knowledge from allied fields into demographic research and expanding the array of topics investigated by population scientists; and to disseminate data, methods, and resources developed at OPR to population researchers throughout the nation and the world.
Research at OPR is now characterized by six research areas: (1) biosocial interactions, (2) health and wellbeing, (3) migration and development, (4) children and families, (5) education and stratification, and (6) data and methods. Each element of the core infrastructure program will advance the quality, productivity, and innovation of OPR’s research activities. The Administrative Core will support intellectual interaction through the Notestein Seminar Series and will support individual research associates primarily by providing vital services, including grant preparation and management.
The Scientific Core consists of three components: The Computing Core, The Statistics Core and The Information Core. The Computing and Statistics Cores will support individual research by maintaining a state-of-the-art computing infrastructure, by providing statistical and econometric consulting, and by increasing access to data sources. These Cores will also offer technical training and workshops for OPR associates, researchers, students and postdoctoral fellows.
The Information Core will support individual research associates by helping them identify and retrieve scholarly publications and data and will support the entire population community by continuing to build and maintain the Ansley J. Coale Population Research Collection in the Donald E. Stokes Library, the largest demography library in the world.
The Development Core will promote interdisciplinary research and foster an intellectual community. The Public Infrastructure Core seeks to disseminate OPR-managed datasets to population researchers throughout the world, to produce Research Briefs that describe findings from the Fragile Families Study to a general audience, to edit and disseminate the journal of The Future of Children, and to maintain the Emergency Contraception Website.
Type of award: Population Research Center Grant (P2C)
Project Leader: Massey, Douglas S.
Project start/end dates: 9/24/2014-8/31/2019
Total cost (most recent fiscal year): $398,520
Demography
Princeton University, Princeton, NJ
This is an application for a five-year competing continuation of Princeton University’s institutional Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) training program in population. The training objectives of Princeton’s graduate program in demography are to provide interdisciplinary instruction with a firm base in the social sciences and strong training in the technical aspects of demographic and statistical methods for careers in demographic research and teaching. This training is accomplished through formal coursework, one-on-one mentoring and advising, and involvement in the research projects of the training faculty. Of particular note are the expanded course offerings in health.
In this application we request funds for six predoctoral trainees and two postdoctoral trainees annually for the period of 5/1/2011 – 4/30/2016. The 22 members of the training faculty at the Office of Population Research mentor students in research characterized by five signature themes: (1) health and wellbeing, (2) migration and development, (3) children and families, (4) social inequality, and (5) data/methods.
NRSA funds provide invaluable financial aid for training the next generation of American demographers, who will dedicate their careers to teaching population studies in both developed and developing countries, and who will reshape the contours of the field through their own research programs.
The funds from this training grant permit the program in demography to expand beyond the small number of students who could be supported through individual departments and to attract the best students in the field. The OPR training program has had a remarkable record in placing trainees in leading academic and research institutions. Of the 42 trainees who have received the PhD in the past decade, 23 have faculty positions and another 14 have research positions. Of the 36 postdoctoral fellows who have completed their training in the past decade, 26 have faculty positions and 8 have research positions.
Type of award: Institutional Training Grant (T32)
Project Leader: Massey, Douglas S.
Project start/end dates: 7/1/1979-4/30/2016
Total cost (most recent fiscal year): $261,130
Center for Social and Demographic Analysis at the University at Albany; SUNY
State University Of New York At Albany, Albany, NY
The Center for Social and Demographic Analysis (CSDA) at the University at Albany, SUNY is applying for a continuation of its Population-Research Infrastructure Award for the period 2012-2017. Past awards, in combination with high levels of support from the University, have enabled CSDA to provide an intellectual home to a productive and interdisciplinary group of 47 population researchers, drawn from five Colleges and 11 Departments. A five-year award will allow the Center to: advance its research agenda in population science that bears its signature themes of vulnerable populations and spatial inequalities; foster the intellectual and professional development of its many young researchers; and continue to support and strengthen population-research activities and intellectual community among its associates.
The research of CSDA’s associates advances population and public health science by addressing critical questions about 1. Health, health disparities and biodemography, 2. Life Course transitions, 3. Immigration and migration, and 4. Spatial demography. Our associates also add to knowledge through their data-collection efforts and methodological innovations. Research in these areas is facilitated by three research infrastructural cores: Administrative, Computer and Data Services, and Developmental Infrastructure. These cores provide cost effective services to CSDA associates that are not available to University at Albany faculty.
The proposed infrastructure award will allow us to take full advantage of the University at Albany’s plan to hire 170 faculty over the next five years and reorganize our research-support cores to more efficiently serve our associates. In particular, we plan to eliminate the public infrastructure core, moving those contributions that have proven useful to CSDA associates to the other cores and begin developing a comprehensive statistical initiative. CSDA is increasingly characterized by strengths in health and biodemography and a general focus on the wellbeing of children; it has expanded the breadth of faculty to be more interdisciplinary.
Type of award: Population Research Center Grant (R24)
Project Leader: Shaw, Benjamin A.
Project start/end dates: 7/15/2004-6/30/2018
Total cost (most recent fiscal year): $345,040
Maryland Population Research Center
Univ Of Maryland, College Park, College Park, MD
This application requests a fourth consecutive five-year cycle of NICHD Population Research Infrastructure Program support to the Maryland Population Research Center (MPRC) at the University of Maryland (UMD). The MPRC is an interdisciplinary center at the University of Maryland-College Park that supports the research of 82 population researchers across 6 different schools or colleges and 16 departments. Over the next five-year period, MPRC will support the Primary Research Areas of Gender, Family, and Social Change, Social and Economic Inequality, Health in Social Context, and Migration and Immigrant Processes, and will support innovations in data and methods for population research across these substantive areas.
This support will be provided by three cores that are central to increasing the pace and impact of population science research: Administrative, Scientific and Technical, and Development. Their missions are to meet the infrastructure needs of population scientists, to foster an interdisciplinary intellectual environment, and to promote the development of junior and underrepresented minority scholars in population research.
The Administrative core will support the preparation of grant applications, post-award project management, and will assist other cores. It will deploy web-based tools to enhance Center activities and will provide scholars effective means of managing research collaborations and disseminating research.
The Scientific and Technical Core will manage the computing resources, provide confidential data access including the National Survey of Adolescent to Adult Health, and will provide statistical computing short courses and consulting, all vitally supporting empirically-focused population research. The Core will also expand associates’ research using restricted data access across the federal statistics agencies by participation in the leadership of, and sponsoring symposia on the use of data within, the new Federal Statistics Research Data Center (FSRDC) recently established at UMD.
The Development Core will promote the intellectual community of population research at UMD through seed grant programs and by organizing a weekly seminar series, workshops, and by organizing and co-sponsoring conferences and symposia. The Core also supports resident population scientist and visiting population scientist programs that provide a primary institutional and physical home for population researchers permanently and temporarily based at UMD.
Taking advantage of our location in the Washington, DC area, MPRC will promote the research of our associates through linking to the research and data activities of federal agencies in the Washington, D.C., including through support to biennial workshops and conferences on time use research using the American Time Use Survey and its international counterpart surveys. Infrastructural support for data collection encompasses the large-scale survey research of the India Human Development Survey through to smaller-scale data collections on the reproductive health among women in Delaware and on kin support to low-income single mothers in Nairobi.
Type of award: Population Research Center Grant (P2C)
Project Leader: Rendall, Michael S.
Project start/end dates: 7/5/2001-8/31/2023
Total cost (most recent fiscal year): $435,127
Carolina Population Center
Univ Of North Carolina Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC
The Carolina Population Center (CPC) requests infrastructure support for the innovative and interdisciplinary study of social, biological, and environmental influences on population processes and health. The large CPC research portfolio (over 250 million dollars expended in the last 5 years) has three Primary Research Areas (PRAs): Demography, Sexual and Reproductive Health, and Population Health. Each PRA addresses a set of important contemporary research questions.
CPC’s contributions in these PRAs are linked and strengthened by three cross-cutting ‘signature’ research approaches that have historically distinguished, and continue to define, CPC research: (1) multiple level in approach and multidisciplinary in collaboration, (2) use of longitudinal research design and analysis, and (3) the evaluation of interventions in complex settings. Each of these signature approaches addresses a critical barrier in population science. The support requested in this application will facilitate research in the PRAs by strengthening infrastructure that supports CPC’s signature research approaches.
Frequently the work in the PRAs and the signature research approaches are employed in the design, collection, dissemination, and analysis of large, population-based, longitudinal public use datasets (e.g., representing cohorts in the U.S., Russia, China, and the Philippines) that include factors from multiple levels (‘from cells to society’). These data overcome a critical barrier in population science – data that did not include information at the genetic and cellular level.
The infrastructure for which CPC requests support contributes to four cores that collectively produce an environment conducive to innovative population science research and an institutional infrastructure that empowers CPC Fellows to tackle challenging questions. The Administrative Core provides the Center’s leadership and oversees efficient and cost-effective management of Center resources while building synergies across cores and reducing administrative burden so researchers can focus on science.
The Development Core supports CPC Fellows and research projects through seed grants at key junctures in the career life course and project life cycle, respectively. This core channels a large share of resources to junior Fellows; a key mechanism is the Summer-in-Residence Program which offers structured assistance to junior Fellows as they prepare their first NIH applications.
The Research Services Core enables the Fellows to address complex and important population research issues by providing access to state-of-the-art research tools and professional technical support. The Public Core is a ‘virtual center’ aimed at an external global constituency of population scientists, policy makers, and the public at large. This core responds to contemporary expectations that research should be linked to real-world problems, that potential solutions should be considered, and that the methods and data used as evidence should be widely accessible. CPC has a long history of collecting and sharing important population data. The Public Core’s central aim is to develop tools and best practices for data dissemination while ensuring data security.
Type of award: Population Research Center Grant (P2C)
Project Leader: Morgan, Samuel Philip
Project start/end dates: 7/11/2005-8/31/2020
Total cost (most recent fiscal year): $922,570
Population Research Training
Univ Of North Carolina Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC
The Carolina Population Center (CPC) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH) requests a five-year continuation of NICHD support for its training program in demography and the social and health sciences. The CPC training program combines a firm base in a social science or health discipline with formal training in core demography and research-based training in population. Hallmarks of the program are its multidisciplinarity, the integration of the social and health sciences, and the interdisciplinary and team orientation of much of the training and research.
Continued support is requested for 10 predoctoral and 4 postdoctoral traineeships per year. Sixty-five faculty fellows of the Carolina Population Center, holding primary appointments in 16 UNC-CH departments, provide an unusually rich environment for interdisciplinary research as training faculty and potential preceptors. In addition, Center research support services for trainees and faculty are truly outstanding. CPC’s predoctoral training program combines disciplinary degrees with training in population research. Predoctoral trainees meet the course, dissertation, and other requirements of their home departments. They also meet Center requirements, including: a research practicum supervised by a CPC faculty fellow; completion of at least four approved graduate-level population and population-focused methods courses; training in the responsible conduct of research; participation in interdisciplinary population seminars and workshops; and attendance at the annual meeting of the Population Association of America (PAA).
The 42 predoctoral trainees during AY 2012-13 are registered in the PhD programs of 10 departments across campus. The postdoctoral training program is designed around the mutual population research interests of trainees and faculty fellows. The 12 postdoctoral scholars during AY 2012-13 hold doctorates in eight disciplines. Postdoctoral scholars are admitted directly to the Center and collaborate with individual faculty preceptors, generally for a period of two years. CPC support to predoctoral and postdoctoral trainees includes statistical consultation from professors in three disciplines, outstanding information services with an in-house library, graphics and publication assistance (e.g., poster preparation, editing), a state-of-the art spatial analysis uni, a large and experienced computer staff (e.g., research programming; web support; systems; data entry) and assistance with biomedical specimens (if needed). All trainees have office space at the Center and with it many opportunities for interdisciplinary exchange with faculty and other trainees.
Type of award: Institutional Training Grant (T32)
Project Leader: Entwisle, Barbara
Project start/end dates: 7/1/1979-4/30/2019
Total cost (most recent fiscal year): $422,901
Berkeley Population Center
University Of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA
This proposal requests the next stage in NICHD support for population research at UC Berkeley. The Berkeley Population Center (BPC) capitalized on R21 developmental infrastructure funding to create an awareness of the plentiful population research being conducted on campus among faculty, including junior faculty, who have been historically isolated by academic department. This awareness (and support) led to research and grant application activity. With a foundation firmly set, BPC now seeks to leverage the core strengths of the UC Berkeley campus, beginning with the teaching and research in the Demography Department, as well as population research conducted in the School of Public Health, Graduate School of Public Policy, Dept. of Economics, and other schools and departments. Synergistic ties with several research centers on campus further promote population research on campus, notably with the Center of Economics and Demography of Aging (CEDA), Institute for the Study of Social Issues (ISSI), the Robert Wood Johnson Scholars Program, and other centers.
BPC has attracted and connected with over 60 faculty members and other researchers on campus, as well as researchers in neighboring institutions such as UCSF, UC Davis and Stanford University. As a result, the thematic areas in population research emerged from the unique strengths of the UC Berkeley campus: Reproduction and HIV, Mortality, Health Disparities, Inequalities and Opportunities, Behavioral Economics, and Formal Demography. BPC research questions and methods utilized are cross-cutting and innovative. To foster our mission of population research, we propose 3 Research Infrastructure Cores. The Research Support Core consists of two subcores: (1) Administrative and (2) Data and Computing. Research Development is the third core. Implicit in all cores is public outreach. These cores will provide support for BPC affiliates by assisting with the identification of relevant grants, assistance with grant application preparation and administration, providing hardware and software for data analysis, and awarding pilot grants for projects with solid potential for external funding.
RELEVANCE: The Berkeley Population Center exists to foster and enhance the innovation and interdisciplinary collaboration in population research. BPC’s strengths are reflected in the research themes of Reproduction and HIV; Mortality; Health Disparities; Inequalities and Opportunities; Behavioral Economics; and Formal Demography. The goal of BPC research is to optimize population health at the individual and societal level.
Type of award: Population Research Center Grant (R24)
Project Leader: Goldstein, Joshua R.
Project start/end dates: 12/14/2013-11/30/2018
Total cost (most recent fiscal year): $117,750
Interdisciplinary Training in Demography
University Of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA
The aim of this grant is to continue providing high quality, interdisciplinary training in demography, with a focus on the relationships between population dynamics, socio-economic systems, and human health and welfare. Our objective is to recruit, train, and place high quality and diverse trainees across a range of disciplines. Many of the most important issues influencing child health and development in the contemporary world are demographic in nature. Examples include high rates of non-marital childbearing and marital disruption, especially in poor and minority communities; postponement of childbearing among highly educated women into the late 30s and beyond; and rising levels of income inequality, exacerbated by increasing residential segregation and marital sorting by education and income. Understanding and making progress on these kinds of problems requires a population perspective.
Berkeley has long occupied a unique niche in the population studies training ecosystem, with a strong focus on the formal analysis of population systems, their dynamics, causes, and effects. We have sustained a strong record of training and placement, with recent trainees accepting tenure-track positions at Princeton, NYU, Michigan, Stanford, Toronto, and others. Since the last competing renewal, the University has made eight hires in population studies, including national leaders in the areas of research design, policy & health, American family dynamics, and inequality. These hires give further luster to an already extraordinary faculty. Our trainees will continue to (1) learn core demographic method and theory, with a focus on formal and aggregate approaches; (2) learn to think in critical and theoretically rich ways about how population processes and dynamics effect critical domains of human welfare, especially population health, family change, and inequality; (3) apply their knowledge of population processes and dynamics to substantive areas, particularly in economics, public policy, public health, and sociology.
These aims are met through (1) core courses in demographic theory, demographic methods, research design, and statistical computing, (2) a broadened array of supplemental courses, including for example Fertility (Johnson- Hanks or Goldstein), Poverty and Inequality (Hoynes), Advanced Computational Methods (Wachter and Feehan), and Health Policy (Dow); (3) a weekly seminar in demography; (4) individual mentoring, especially through collaborative research projects. The proposed number of predoctoral trainees is 6, most of whom will receive 2 or 3 years of training grant support. This training grant complements our other NICHD- and NIH- funded initiatives, including the Berkeley Population Center, the Center for the Economics and Demography of Aging, the training grant in the Economics and Demography of Aging, the new Summer Workshop in Formal Demography, and the anticipated NIA-funded undergraduate diversity program Cal ADAR: Advancing Diversity in Aging Research at UC Berkeley.
Type of award: Institutional Training Grant (T32)
Project Leader: Johnson-Hanks, Jennifer
Project start/end dates: 7/1/1984-4/30/2021
Total cost (most recent fiscal year): $204,948
California Center for Population Research (CCPR) at UCLA
University Of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA
This application requests P2C infrastructure support for the California Center for Population Research (CCPR) at UCLA. With 95 faculty affiliates from across the university and 12,620 sq. ft. of research space, CCPR’s central goal is to stimulate and support innovative and ambitious interdisciplinary research on the most important issues in population science. To accomplish this goal, CCPR: (1) mentors and supports early stage investigators in population; (2) creates a supportive and intellectually stimulating environment for interdisciplinary interaction and collaborative research; (3) provides high quality services that increase the pace, efficiency, and impact of research; (4) encourages the development and use of novel research methods and approaches; (5) provides access to population data and supports new data collection; (6) assists affiliates in disseminating their research and data to a variety of audiences; (7) regularly and systematically evaluates Center services to improve efficiency and cost-effectiveness.
CCPR’s Primary Research Areas address fundamental questions about population dynamics. Affiliates’ research now and over the next five years will examine: Family demography, household dynamics and individual well-being; Population distribution, neighborhood dynamics and individual welfare; Reproductive health; Social dimensions of health; and Health over the life course and long-term trends in population health. We request funding for three Cores.
The Administrative Core prioritizes and coordinates all CCPR activities, creates and maintains the environment needed for interdisciplinary research, and provides efficient, cost-effective financial and administrative services. The Development Core develops innovative, ambitious population research and supports the careers of the next generation of population scientists through a coordinated set of programs. The Research Services Core provides essential tools for demographic research including cutting-edge statistical and methodological services, customer-oriented data and computing services to accelerate the pace and increase the quality of affiliates’ research; and professional support for effective communication of scientific results to diverse audiences.
Type of award: Population Research Center Grant (P2C)
Project Leader: Brand, Jennie E.
Project start/end dates: 9/3/2001-5/31/2021
Total cost (most recent fiscal year): $689,045
California Center for Population Research Training Proposal
University Of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA
This application requests a five-year renewal of the predoctoral training program in demographic and population studies focused on child health and human development at the California Center for Population Research (CCPR) at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). CCPR is the primary center for research and training in demography and population at UCLA. CCPR faculty are concentrated in Sociology, Economics, and Community Health Sciences, the three primary disciplines in which population scientists are trained in the U.S., as well as in related fields, e.g., geography, public policy. Recent hiring of population scientists has increased the number of CCPR affiliates and attracted increased numbers of students interested in demographic and population studies.
Accordingly, funding is requested for 6 predoctoral traineeships per year, an increase of 2 over our training grant award in 2001 and the renewal in 2006 and 2011. The training program that we seek to renew and expand plays a central role in CCPR-coordinated training at UCLA. It builds on strong graduate programs in sociology, economics, and public health; a distinguished multi-disciplinary faculty with a diverse portfolio of research than spans economic, social, and health demography and reflects the NICHD/PDB mission; and abundant resources for population research at UCLA.
We seek to train the next generation of population scientists to carry out theoretically informed, methodologically sophisticated research on topics of contemporary relevance that relate to population studies. We have built an innovative curriculum in each of the three core departments, Sociology, Economics, and Community Health Sciences (CHS), and integrated interdisciplinary training in population science into their programs.
For the renewal, we retain the existing features of the successful program, including a training seminar with presentations by invited speakers, trainee proseminar, mentorship, and cross-disciplinary coursework. Since the previous renewal, we added the trainee proseminar at which current and past trainees meet with invited faculty guests and discuss the speaker’s research and research trajectory. We also added the requirement that all trainees complete at least one course in demography from an approved list of courses. We will also add the requirement that all trainees complete at least one advanced methods course.
The program has a remarkable record of success at producing independent investigators who carry out cutting-edge research in social, economic, and public health topics that reflect the NICHD mission. Of the 29 trainees who have completed their PhD since 2005, 11 are now assistant or associate professors at major universities, 9 hold research intensive positions, 4 are postdoctoral researchers at major universities, and 4 hold appointments as lecturer (with 1 currently on the market). Thus, most trainees secure tenure-track faculty or other research intensive positions, often preceded by prestigious postdoctoral fellowships.
Type of award: Institutional Training Grant (T32)
Project Leader: Brand, Jennie E.
Project start/end dates: 5/4/2001-4/30/2022
Total cost (most recent fiscal year): $185,366
University of Colorado Population Center
University Of Colorado, Boulder, CO
In response to RFA-HD-15-009 for the Population Dynamics Centers Research Infrastructure FY 2015 (P2C), the University of Colorado at Boulder Population Center (CUPC) requests five years of funding from NICHD for infrastructure support. With its first center award in 2010, CUPC made substantial progress in the size and quality of the faculty affiliates, the number of external grants, and its professional presence and scholarly influence in population research. With continued center funding, we propose to build on this progress with innovative work in our primary research areas; collaborative ties across disciplines; institutional ties with colleagues in other universities and nations; mentoring and support for a group of promising junior faculty; center support for excellence in population science research; and increased external funding.
Toward these goals, the proposal describes the three primary research areas of the center: health and mortality; migration and spatial demography; and environmental demography. It also describes plans to scale up funding support, advance several new research initiatives, target novel and significant research with center funding, and bring in scholars with new expertise and shared interests in population topics. The activities all aim to increase the pace and impact of center research. The center requests three infrastructure cores: The Administrative Core provides crucial services to all affiliates, including clerical, bibliographic, editing, and grants management support for research projects. The Development Core provides seed awards to allow researchers – particularly junior affiliates – to begin and develop innovative research and improve chances for external funding. It further provides leadership for several new initiatives that expand our primary research areas. The Scientific/Technical (or Data) Core deals with issues relating to the access, management, processing, and analysis of data. It supports a first-rate computing and technology environment for handling large and complex data sets and makes use of affiliate expertise for statistical training and consultation.
Type of award: Population Research Center Grant (P2C)
Project Leader: Pampel, Fred C.
Project start/end dates: 7/1/2010-8/31/2020
Total cost (most recent fiscal year): $324,752
Michigan Research Infrastructure for Population Sciences
University Of Michigan At Ann Arbor, Ann Arbor, MI
This application requests five years of research infrastructure support for the University of Michigan’s Population Studies Center (PSC). Since its establishment in 1961, the focus of PSC’s approach has been a commitment to primary data collection to advance population science. The overarching theme of this Center is to build on this history by stimulating and supporting collaborative projects that design, create, and use new data to advance population science. Our faculty already collaborate on creating some of the longest-running and most widely used studies in population dynamics research such as the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG), Monitoring the Future (MTF), and the Chitwan Valley Family Study (CVFS). Together, PSID, NSFG, and CVFS all supported by NICHD’s Population Dynamics Branch (PDB) have produced more than 5,150 peer-reviewed publications, 299,000 citations, and thousands of data users.
These highly significant projects also play a critical role as sources of cohesion and engines of collaboration within PSC and they have helped spawn a new generation of innovative projects focused on PDB priorities, including the Relationship Dynamics and Social Life (RDSL) study, the Longitudinal Intergenerational Family Electronic Micro-Database (LIFE-M), and the Detroit Metropolitan Area Communities Study (DMACS).
Our objective in this application is to use P2C resources to stimulate and support new research on significant and emergent questions in population science, the use of innovative approaches to data collection and analysis, and the development of a new generation of population scientists within this productive environment, equipped with the tools to engage successfully in PDB research priorities.
Type of award: Population Research Center Grant (P2C)
Project Leader: Morenoff, Jeffrey D.
Project start/end dates: 8/21/2001-6/30/2022
Total cost (most recent fiscal year): $578,815
Social Science Training Program in Population Studies
University Of Michigan At Ann Arbor, Ann Arbor, MI
The Population Studies Center (PSC) of the University of Michigan requests a five-year renewal of our NICHD Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award Institutional Training Grant (T32) for training in demography. Established in 1961, PSC is one of the oldest population centers in the United States, with a distinguished record of domestic and international population research and training. This application requests funding for 10 pre-doctoral and 1 post-doctoral trainee slots. The University’s highly ranked social science departments and professional schools, in combination with the unique strengths of the Institute for Social Research, make the University of Michigan an exceptionally rich environment for demographic research and training. Supported by NICHD T32 training grants since 1969, the Center’s training program is integrally connected to its strong portfolio of individual research grants from NICHD, other NIH institutes, NSF, and major foundations.
The proposed training program is conducted in close collaboration with the departments of Economics, Public Health, Sociology, and Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy. It will provide specialized demographic training to selected predoctoral and postdoctoral trainees. Our research and training programs are characterized by a number of thematic areas of excellence, including fertility, children, and families; social inequality and stratification; aging and health; data collection methodologies; and statistical methodologies. The recent record of the program in trainee recruitment and professional placement is excellent, with trainees moving into top academic and non-academic positions and producing high-quality research published in leading journals.
Type of award: Institutional Training Grant (T32)
Project Leader: Morenoff, Jeffrey D.
Project start/end dates: 9/1/1987-4/30/2022
Total cost (most recent fiscal year): $535,243
Minnesota Population Center
University Of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN
The Minnesota Population Center (MPC) is a University-wide interdisciplinary cooperative for demographic research at the University of Minnesota. The central goal of the Center is to develop and support innovative research in population dynamics and health at the University of Minnesota and around the world. The Center fosters connections among population researchers across disciplines, develops leading-edge collaborative research projects, supplies technical and administrative support for demographic research, and provides training for the next generation of interdisciplinary population researchers. MPC serves 95 faculty members and research scientists from 10 colleges and 26 departments at the University of Minnesota. As a leading developer and disseminator of demographic data, we also serve a broader audience of over 100,000 researchers worldwide.
The Center has five primary research areas directly relevant to the NICHD Population Dynamics Branch mission statement: (1) population data science; (2) population health and health systems; (3) population mobility and spatial demography; (4) reproductive and sexual health; and (5) work, family, and time. To promote increased research in these and other areas of population dynamics research, MPC has five major goals: (1) Provide administrative support that maximizes the productivity of MPC researchers. (2) Provide scientific and technical support for MPC research. (3) Support early-career investigators as they develop independent research trajectories. (4) Foster new interdisciplinary collaborations in the five primary research areas. (5) Develop and disseminate integrated data pertaining to population and health.
Measured by number and quality of publications and contributions to shared demographic infrastructure, MPC has become one of the largest and most influential population research centers in the nation. MPC members are publishing transformative research in the most visible journals of population research. Minnesota has the largest portfolio of research grants administrated by the Population Dynamics Branch, whether measured as number of major research grants (R01, U01, P01), number of Principal Investigators, or total value of awards. MPC research and investigations based on MPC-produced data are advancing fundamental knowledge about health and population dynamics. This basic infrastructure is essential for answering core questions surrounding demographic change and population health that have been identified as the central research agenda for the Population Dynamics Branch.
Type of award: Population Research Center Grant (P2C)
Project Leader: Warren, John Robert
Project start/end dates: 7/11/2001-5/31/2021
Total cost (most recent fiscal year): $281,882
Population Dynamics Research Center
University Of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA
The goal under a new P2C award is for the Population Studies Center (PSC) at the U. of Pennsylvania to remain a national and world leader in research on the growth and structure of human populations and on the role of socioeconomic stratification and human and social diversity on the health of populations. The PSC is characterized by strong continuity in the production of high-quality research on the major themes of the Population Dynamics Branch (PDB): demography, population-based studies of health and human development, and behavioral and social science approaches to sexually transmitted diseases and reproductive health.
This application is for the continuation of a co-ordination infrastructure that will:
1. Support the production of innovative, high-quality research on human populations, the determinants and consequences of their structure and organization, and their health and well-being emphasizing: a) the new dynamics of population diversity, from (i) the role of migration and ethno-racial identity in population composition; (ii) and the relationship between socioeconomic inequality and health. b) demographic concepts and methods as important frames for interpreting the aggregation of diffuse individual characteristics; for the treatment of heterogeneity in human populations; and for the distribution of human capital (including health) and social status across generations; and c) a population perspective for undertaking and evaluating interventions related to human capital development that is sensitive to heterogeneity in underlying behaviors and endowments.
2. Develop synergistically emerging areas of shared interest within the PSC, including: a) interdisciplinary studies of environmental aspects of the health and well-being of populations; and b) the availability and technology of so-called big data and its congruence with population science perspectives on theory, data and measurement.
3. Extend and exploit the PSC’s strong scientific and professional international population engagement to address leading challenges at the intersection of global demographic change and global health.
4. Train and promote scientific, intellectual and professional leaders in the field of population studies by effective use of PSC support for a large cohort of early career scientists whose formative career stages will coincide with the duration of the award being requested.
Type of award: Population Research Center Grant (P2C)
Project Leader: Smith, Herbert L.
Project start/end dates: 7/10/2003-8/31/2023
Total cost (most recent fiscal year): $564,873
Graduate Training in Demography
University Of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA
We are requesting continuation of the NICHD training grant in Demography to the University of Pennsylvania (Penn). The proposed program continues Penn’s longstanding excellence in training in Demography and will be enhanced by (a) the creation of a new training workshop, (b) the formalization of a research apprenticeship program, (c) improved cross-fertilization with Penn’s graduate program in Sociology, (d) the recruitment of new training faculty from multiple disciplines, and (e) expanded activities to enhance diversity.
Six pre-doctoral positions (no post-doctoral positions) are requested. The principal aim of the Demography pre-doctoral program at Penn is to train independent researchers who are prepared to play leading roles in population analysis. This goal is achieved through (i) intensive instruction in the methods, theoretical approaches, and empirical substance of demography and allied disciplines; (ii) progressive incorporation of students into faculty research activities; and (iii) subsequent branching into independent research. The training in Demography described in this proposal reflects a vision of the population sciences and population health in which a strong background in the logic of demographic process is the gateway to the application of contributions from elsewhere in the social and behavioral sciences to an array of topics of public and scientific interest.
Type of award: Institutional Training Grant (T32)
Project Leader: Guillot, Michel
Project start/end dates: 7/1/1987-4/30/2023
Total cost (most recent fiscal year): $268,476
Population Research Center
University Of Texas, Austin, Austin, TX
The Population Research Center (PRC) of The University of Texas at Austin requests NICHD support from its population research infrastructure program. The overarching mission of the PRC is to promote the development of innovative, ambitious, and high-impact research in population dynamics that will ultimately advance knowledge in the field. Continued infrastructure support is essential in helping the PRC leverage extramural and university resources to provide outstanding services and sustain a dynamic interdisciplinary culture geared toward facilitating the highest level of population-related research among its faculty members.
The PRC’s specific aims are: (1) to foster an environment that promotes intellectual exchange, development of ideas, and interdisciplinary research with an emphasis on mentoring and supporting early-stage population scientists; (2) to enhance and promote innovative research strategies vital to developing and conducting policy-relevant research in population dynamics at all stages of the research project life cycle; and (3) to provide high-quality and efficient services to promote and support outstanding population research.
Over the next five years, PRC researchers will lead scientific advances in four interconnected research areas in population dynamics: Family Demography and Intergenerational Relationships; Education, Work, and Inequality; Reproductive Health; and Population Health.
P2C support is requested for 3 infrastructure cores. The Administrative Core sets programmatic and service priorities; builds an interdisciplinary community of population scientists at the University; provides outstanding services that facilitate the development of large-scale population research; and ensures coordination across cores. The Development Core promotes scientific development of early stage investigators as well as established scientists developing new lines of inquiry; fosters evolution of nascent ideas into proposals for extramural funding; and promotes an institutional culture wherein interdisciplinary collaboration is valued and common. The Scientific & Technical Core provides the methodological and statistical support, technical services, and computing infrastructure essential to the development of ambitious and high-impact research in the field of population dynamics.
Type of award: Population Research Center Grant (P2C)
Project Leader: Umberson, Debra J.
Project start/end dates: 7/5/2002-6/30/2022
Total cost (most recent fiscal year): $586,313
Training Program in Population Studies
University Of Texas, Austin, Austin, TX
The Population Research Center (PRC) of the University of Texas at Austin (UT) requests an 8th renewal of its T32 NICHD Training Grant in Population Studies. Our training program benefits from an outstanding and disciplinarily diverse faculty, from scientific depth in four key areas of Reproductive Health, Population Health, Family Demography, and Work, Education and Inequality, and from a strong extramural funding trajectory that provides the infrastructure, training opportunities, and professional culture necessary for the interdisciplinary training of the next generation of population scientists.
PRC trainees’ scientific and professional development is supported by: state-of-the-art administrative, computing, scientific, and program development resources; scientifically accomplished faculty collaborators and mentors; topical working groups; a brownbag series to encourage intellectual exchange and idea development; and dedicated space to encourage and facilitate training and research collaboration. We request funds for five pre-doctoral and two postdoctoral fellows for the 2018-2023 period of this grant, maintaining the current size of the program.
The PRC offers an outstanding training environment and the center’s accomplishments based on: a) the very enthusiastic response to our recent P2C center grant renewal; b) a grant portfolio of over $44 million; c) the significant number of new faculty members who are active and productive members; d) our research productivity in terms of journal articles, books, chapters, and conference presentations; e) the training program’s success in recruiting minority faculty and students; and f) our recent substantial successes in placing our graduates in leading academic, postdoctoral, and research positions throughout the country.
In a reflection of the increasingly interdisciplinary nature of population research at the PRC and throughout the discipline, we are expanding our training program to include predoctoral students from the department of Economics while continuing our training of students from Sociology, Human Development and Family Sciences (HDFS), and the LBJ School of Public Affairs. We expect the postdoctoral training program to continue to draw scholars from a range of disciplines, which in the past cycle included public health and social work.
This application outlines the structure of the training program, including coursework and ethics training, and the PRC’s outstanding record in the professional development and training of minority scholars. In sum, we request support to continue our success in serving the NICHD PDB’s training mission to mentor highly trained, ethical, and productive researchers who will impact our collective understanding of core aspects of reproductive health, population health, and demography.
Type of award: Institutional Training Grant (T32)
Project Leader: Hayward, Mark D.
Project start/end dates: 7/15/1977-4/30/2023
Total cost (most recent fiscal year): $318,395
Demography Center
University Of Washington, Seattle, WA
The Center for Studies in Demography & Ecology (CSDE) requests renewal of its five-year research center infrastructure award (previously an R24). CSDE is a community of faculty and students associated to advance population science through research and training. CSDE scientists develop new demographic measures and methods, advance knowledge about population dynamics, generate new data and evidence to support population science inquiries, and train the next generation of demographers. CSDE aims to advance the scientific understanding of human population dynamics and processes, especially as they relate to five Primary Research Areas (PRA) where CSDE affiliates are making significant population science contributions: (1) Demographic Measurements and Methods, (2) Environments and Populations, (3) Health of People and Populations, (4) Migrations and Settlements, and (5) Wellbeing of Families and Households.
CSDE provides an intellectual home for collaborating and learning through its weekly seminar series, training program, workshops, program specific activities organized by the executive leadership team and PRA Chairs, staffing support for logistics, real and virtual meeting space, and information sharing. CSDE seeks to provide the very best support for all aspects of research administration from project inception to completion and allow investigators to spend more time on their research. CSDE advances population science through expert consultation on every stage of science and easy access to cutting-edge facilities that place CSDE affiliate researchers work at the very forefront of their fields, including high performance computing, a biodemography laboratory, and a secure federal statistics data enclave.
CSDE develops population science at the UW with its investments in: (1) opportunities and venues for intellectual exchanges and advancing affiliates’ research, (2) early career scientists’ research and (3) innovative multi-investigator faculty research initiatives with potential for high reward results significantly advancing population science.
CSDE fosters novel approaches for advancing population science through its faculty and staff whose methodological prowess includes expertise in Biodemography, Data Science and Demography, Spatial Demography, and Statistical Demography.
The UW values CSDE greatly and provides $733,205 annually through financial support from the UW Office of Research, College of Art and Sciences, and five other colleges, schools, and initiatives. This annual support totals $3.7 million over five years. Additionally, the UW provides $280,000 worth of facilities and physical infrastructure. These contributions represent a 50% increase in commitment from five years ago and reflect the UW’s recognition of CSDE’s productivity, innovation, and impact.
Type of award: Population Research Center Grant (P2C)
Project Leader: Curran, Sara R.
Project start/end dates: 7/5/2002-6/30/2022
Total cost (most recent fiscal year): $579,737
Big Data to Knowledge Supplement to Population Research Training
University Of Washington, Seattle, WA
The Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology (CSDE) at the University of Washington requests a five-year continuation of its pre-doctoral training program in demography from NICHD, beginning May 1, 2012. The proposed training program is carried out in conjunction with five disciplines in the College of Arts and Sciences – Anthropology, Economics, Geography, Sociology and Statistics, as well as PhD programs in the Daniel J. Evans School of Public Affairs and the School of Social Work. CSDE requests support for five pre-doctoral trainees per year, with total direct costs of $210,298 the first year and $1,051,492 for the period May 1, 2012 to April 30, 2017.
This request includes continuing renewal funds for four trainees and a request to fund one more trainee for a total of five trainees. The request for an additional trainee reflects our growing capacity and documented latent demand for demographic training across the UW campus. Predoctoral trainees are selected from applicants who are new or continuing graduate students in PhD programs with a population-related specialization. Annual admission rates to these departments is selective—29 percent across the departments. Among the trainees selected for funding from our collaborating programs, average GRE scores are 100 or more points higher and average GPAs are higher than for peers in their respective program. CSDE funded trainees also graduate faster than non-funded student peers by an average of one to four years depending on home department.
Type of award: Institutional Training Grant (T32)
Project Leader: Curran, Sara R.
Project start/end dates: 9/28/2016-4/30/2018
Total cost (most recent fiscal year): $90,000
Center for Demography and Ecology
University Of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI
This application requests five years of support for the Center for Demography and Ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. CDE is a highly-productive population research center, with 57 affiliates in 14 departments and 4 colleges conducting work that directly addresses the three components of the PDB scientific mission. It has held NICHD center grant funding continuously since 1972 and this application requests continuation of that support under NICHD’s Population Dynamics Centers Research Infrastructure (P2C).
Support is requested for an Administrative Core, a Development Core, and two research support cores — Computing and Data. The center grant would support an integrated and interdisciplinary collection of scholars whose research spans the field of population science. During the past five years, CDE has recruited a large number of excellent young scientists and established scholars and strengthened its ties across campus with departments, research centers and institutes in fields related to CDE’s existing and emerging research areas.
Our research portfolio is now more diverse, is more international in character, and covers a greater portion of the life course than in the past. CDE affiliates work in three established research areas: (1) Fertility, Families, & Households, (2) the Demography of Inequality, and (3) Health & Mortality and in two emerging research areas that we propose to develop further over the next five years: (4) Biodemography and (5) Environmental and Spatial Demography.
In addition to innovative research in each of these areas, CDE researchers continue to collect and produce high-quality data for the use by the population research community, including a growing body of genetic and biomarker data. Continued infrastructure support from NICHD will allow CDE to leverage substantial commitments from the University, a large portfolio of individual research grants, and outstanding human and organizational resources to promote innovative interdisciplinary research in population science.
Type of award: Population Research Center Grant (P2C)
Project Leader: Raymo, James M.
Project start/end dates: 9/24/2014-8/31/2019
Total cost (most recent fiscal year): $393,210
Demography and Ecology
University Of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI
This T32 renewal application requests funds over five years to support six (6) predoctoral traineeships in population research at the Center for Demography and Ecology (CDE) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Since 1962, CDE has offered a world-class training program in population science (with nearly continuous NICHD T32 funding since 1975). Our graduates are among the leaders in population research today, serving in a range of academic, government and applied research settings. Guided by the NICHD mission to ensure the health, productivity, independence, and well-being of all people, CDE research is organized around five major areas: 1) Fertility, families & households; 2) the Demography of Inequality; 3) Health & mortality; 4) Biodemography; and 5) Environmental and spatial demography.
Our training objectives and associated research activities fall squarely under the Population Dynamics Branch which supports research and research training in demography, reproductive health, and population health. The primary goals of the CDE training program in demography are: (1) to foster an interdisciplinary community of junior scholars in population research; (2) to build expertise in demographic theory, methods, and analysis; and (3) to cultivate students’ professional skills, including the organization, execution, presentation, publication, and critique of research.
Within the CDE training program, the process of developing this expertise involves four essential components:(1) formal training via coursework in students’ home departments and interdisciplinary coursework in other departments;(2) exposure to cutting-edge research of scholars in the broader community of population studies, primarily through the weekly Demography Seminar (`DemSem’); (3) participation and collaboration in substantive research projects of CDE training faculty through an apprenticeship model; and (4) professional socialization and integration into the field of population studies, especially via the weekly Demography Training Seminar.
Predoctoral T32 trainees are typically appointed in the second or third year in their PhD program, having shown clear academic promise and a strong commitment to pursuing a population research-related career; most students come from Sociology, Economics and Population Health (although we are increasingly recruiting from a broader range of disciplines), and they typically receive T32 funding for two to three years. We are requesting 6 predoctoral training slots (1 more than our current allocation) because our program has continued to grow in size, scope and quality.
Our training efforts have expanded to focus on interdisciplinary research areas at the forefront of social science (especially biodemography and spatial/environmental demography), and we have been very successful at recruiting even large numbers of highly-competitive students into our broader training program. For the 2016-17 academic year, 8 top-notch, first-year students in Sociology and several enrolled students in Economics and Population Health will join our existing group of 26 demography trainees. Having a critical mass of T32 traineeships ensures that we can continue to support our most outstanding students in what we believe is one of the best available environments for predoctoral training in population research.
Type of award: Institutional Training Grant (T32)
Project Leader: Carlson, Marcia Jeanne
Project start/end dates: 7/1/1975-4/30/2022
Total cost (most recent fiscal year): $204,730