Leontine Alkema

2006-2008

As a graduate student in Statistics on the PhD track of Statistical Demography, I am interested in the development of statistical methodology for demographic research. I have worked on probabilistic projections of HIV prevalence using the Bayesian melding approach for UNAIDS. Currently I am working on uncertainty assessment of fertility estimates and projections for the UN Population Division, and identifying poverty groups in Nairobi's slum settlements using a Latent class analysis approach with the African Population and Health Research Center in Kenya.

For more information, please see my CV .

DEPT : Statistics
OFFICE : Padelford C-24
EMAIL : click here
WEB : http://www.stat.washington.edu/leontine/
SPONSOR : Shanahan Endowment

Elise Bowditch

2006-2008

I am interested in how rapid economic change affects families and how those effects, in turn, influence young people's transitions to adulthood. My focus is on the ways in which geography effects these transitions over time. Specifically, I want to examine the relationships between poverty, maltreatment, and local or regional mobility in the Pacific Northwest.

For more information, please see my CV .

DEPT : Geography
EMAIL : click here
SPONSOR : NICHD

Brian Houle

2007 - 2009

While pursuing his Master of Public Health degree at Boston University, Brian worked for a behavioral health science company researching and designing technology-based interventions for prescription drug abusers. During his studies, he also worked with a team of medical professionals to improve health systems delivery in the rural Philippines. Afterwards, he completed a US Department of Energy fellowship at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. His work there largely consisted of developing systematic reviews and meta-analyses of obesity interventions for the Community Guide to Preventive Services. Presently, Brian is a CSDE fellow in sociology. His interests include policy analyses of health disparities in marginalized populations, and modeling the emergence of complex social phenomena.

DEPT : Sociology
OFFICE : Raitt 218F
EMAIL : click here
WEB : https://students.washington.edu/bhoule/wordpress/
SPONSOR : NICHD

David Nolin

2007-2009

David is a doctoral candidate in the biocultural program of the Department of Anthropology. His theoretical background is in human behavioral ecology, an approach that views human behavior through the lens of evolutionary theory. His research interests include the evolution of cooperation, coalition formation, partner choice, parental investment, inheritance, and delayed reproduction.

Dave returned in December 2006 from his NSF-funded doctoral research on food-sharing behavior among the fishers and whalers of Lamalera, Indonesia. His dissertation tests hypotheses derived from evolutionary theory regarding the adaptive significance of food sharing behaviors. This project relies heavily on social network analysis to examine the role of kinship, residence, reciprocity, and social strategies in predicting the structure of the food-sharing network in Lamalera.

DEPT : Anthropology
OFFICE : 206-616-2085
EMAIL : click here
SPONSOR : NICHD

Tricia Ruiz

2007 - 2009

Tricia's research interests focus on the relationship between demography, housing and school quality in the U.S. During this first year in the Geography Ph.D. program, her work synthesizes ideas from spatial demography, political geography and the history of education to construct a theoretical framework for her research. Earlier this year, for her thesis, Tricia merged data from the National Center for Education Statistics Common Core of Data with Census data tabulated at the district level to model the relationship between school segregation and residential segregation.

In a recent project with Suzanne Withers (UW Geography) and William A.V. Clark (UCLA Geography), they have used data from the Census and PUMS (2000) to study the effects of housing affordability on the size, direction and demography of inter-metropolitan migration. This work has resulted in a paper which has been invited to be part of a special issue in the journal Population, Space and Place. Currently, the team is extending this analysis to examine Latino migration and housing status, and to consider what these results might suggest for Latino assimilation within the housing market. Also underway is a collaborative project with Mark Ellis (UW Geography) focusing on the use of scale in measuring school quality in the U.S.

DEPT : Geography
OFFICE : Raitt 218F
EMAIL : click here
WEB : http://students.washington.edu/truiz/
SPONSOR : NICHD

Nalina Varanasi

2007 - 2009 My research interests lie in the areas of Economics of the Family and Development Economics. I am interested in working on issues related to household decision making and its impact on demographic outcomes. Currently, I am working on developing a measure for female bargaining power within households and studying its impact on fertility using data from the Indonesia Family Life Survey (IFLS). I would also like to research the impact of changes in household structure on intra-household allocation in low-income groups.

DEPT : Economics
OFFICE : Raitt 218F
EMAIL : click here
SPONSOR : Shanahan Endowment

Susan Cassels

My principle area of interest is demographic and health outcomes of interactions between social and environmental change, human behavior, and disease transmission. I completed my doctorate in demography from the Office of Population Research at Princeton University in 2005. My dissertation modeled the process of labor migration and disease transmission to see which behavioral aspects were the most important determinants of disease transmission. While at CSDE, I will also be working with the sociobehavioral and prevention research core at the Center for AIDS Research. My work will focus on models of behavioral processes and population-level transmission dynamics of HIV.

DEPT : Center for AIDS Research
EMAIL : click here

Anthony (Tony) Perez

Tony recently arrived at the UW to begin a two year postdoc on Charles Hirschman's NICHD project "Concepts and Measures of Race and Ethnic Identities." Tony just completed a joint Ph.D. in Sociology and in Public Policy at the University of Michigan, where he studied with Yu Xie, David Harris, and Sheldon Danziger, among others. Tony's research interests include race and ethnicity, social demography, and statistical methods with a particular emphasis on causal inference. He just defended his dissertation, which is entitled "Muddy Waters: The Fluidity and Complexity of Racial and Ethnic Identification in the U.S." In his thesis, Tony tests a number of hypotheses from the social construction of race literature using Census, CPS, and Add Health data. He shows, for example, that the race, gender, and householder status of survey respondents has a strong influence on the racial classification of children in interracial households. He has published papers in the Journal of Black Studies and in Health, Education, and Behavior, and has several more under review, including one entitled "Hispanic Today, Gone Tomorrow: Locating Ethnic Identity among Latino/a Youth."

DEPT : Sociology
OFFICE : Savery 123D
EMAIL : click here
SPONSOR : Charles Hirschman
PHONE : (206) 543-4572