CSDE Computational Demography Working Group-Yue Chu, The Ohio State University
Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Raitt Hall (RAI). Online Meeting Link: https://csde.washington.edu/computational-demography-working-group/. Campus room: 223. Accessibility Contact: csde-prgm-coord@uw.edu. Event Types: Workshops.
Wednesday, February 25, 2026, 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM.
For more info visit csde.washington.edu. Generalized Raking: Formulation, Extensions, and Software | UW CSSS SEMINAR
Center for Statistics and Social Sciences
Abstract: Raking is a critical tool for adjusting inputs to match known totals—arising naturally in calibrating survey weights to census data and reconciling estimates in complex workflows. We review the underlying optimization problem, casting raking as minimizing entropic distance subject to linear constraints, and leverage this perspective to develop an efficient and versatile computational framework for modern applications. We discuss practical extensions, including (1) differential weighting to account for varying input uncertainty, (2) raking bounded quantities using logistic distances, (3) raking inputs with incompatible margins, and (4) handling high dimensional applications. We illustrate using synthetics and show how the new raking package applies to a large-scale LSAE application recently presented at CSSS. The methods are implemented in a pip-installable python package with an intuitive API (and easy access through R). Dr. Aleksandr Aravkin received his PhD in Mathematics…
Event Types: Academics. Lectures/Seminars.
Wednesday, February 25, 2026, 12:30 PM – 1:30 PM.
SAV 409.
For more info visit csss.uw.edu. CSSS Seminar - Estimating Global Age- and Sex-Specific All-Cause Mortality in 204 Countries and Territories and 660 Subnational Locations from 1950–2025 for the Global Burden of Disease Study - Austin Schumacher
Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology
Comprehensive, comparable, and timely estimates of age-specific mortality are essential for evaluating, understanding, and addressing trends in population health. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the importance of timely all-cause mortality estimates for being able to respond to changing trends in health outcomes, showing a strong need for analysis tools that can produce all-cause mortality estimates more rapidly with more readily available all-age vital registration data. The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) is an ongoing research effort that quantifies human health by estimating a range of epidemiological quantities of interest across time, age, sex, location, cause, and risk. This seminar will cover the methodology used to estimate all-cause mortality for the GBD. Specifically, it will explain the novel statistical model developed as part of the latest release (GBD 2023). This model accounts for complex correlation structures in demographic data across age and time, and fl…
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Savery Hall (SAV). Online Meeting Link: https://washington.zoom.us/s/91612004486. Campus room: 409. Accessibility Contact: csss@uw.edu. Event Types: Lectures/Seminars.
Wednesday, February 25, 2026, 12:30 PM – 1:30 PM.
CSDE Workshop - Probabilistic Population Projections II: Practice
Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology
Instructor: Hana Ševčíková
Probabilistic Population Projections II: Practice
Implementing subnational Bayesian population projections in R.
Prior knowledge of R programming beneficial.
Event interval: Single day event. Accessibility Contact: CSDE Program Coordinator (csde-prgm-coord@uw.edu). Event Types: Workshops. Target Audience: Those interested in learning about Bayesian population projections.
Thursday, February 26, 2026, 9:00 AM – 11:00 AM.
For more info visit csde.washington.edu. Simpson Center Lecture: Heng-hao Chang, "Post-Colonial Reflections on International Disability Rights: Adaptation and Localization in Taiwan"
Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology
Taiwan is a unique site of innovation in disability rights. Despite being barred from becoming a States Party to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) according to the diplomatic exclusion faced by Taiwan, it has become a model for the localization of the CRPD through its use “domestic review mechanisms.” Furthermore, Taiwan demonstrates the ways in which fundamental divides within human rights discourse, such as Western individualism and East Asian familialism, can be bridged using strategic adaptation that reimagine disability rights as a post-colonial hybrid.
Heng-hao Chang is a Professor of Sociology and former Dean of the College of Social Sciences at National Taipei University. A dedicated advocate for disability studies and the disability rights movement, Chang is a co-founder and past Chairman of the Taiwan Society for Disability Studies and currently serves as the Executive Editor of the International Journal of Disability and Social Justice.
Event made pos…
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Communications Building (CMU). Campus room: 120. Accessibility Contact: Simpson Center for the Humanities, 206-543-3920, schadmin@uw.edu. Event Types: Lectures/Seminars.
Thursday, February 26, 2026, 4:00 PM – 5:30 PM.
2026 Black History Month Speaker Series - "Migrating Mariners of the African Diaspora" by Dr. Matthew Randolph
Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology
The University of Washington Chapter of AVELA - A Vision for Engineering Literacy & Access is partnering with Black Graduate Student Association (BGSA) to host the speakers listed below for our FOURTH annual Black History Month Speaker series! The events will be in person.
Friday, February 27th, 2026 - "Migrating Mariners of the African Diaspora" by Dr. Matthew Randolph
Please fill out this form with the expected days and times you plan to attend, so that we can order an appropriate amount of food for everyone.
Thank you to our sponsors, SPEEA ACE and the UW Computer Science Department for their support in making this event possible.
Also, feel free to reach out to us if you have any questions about the event: AVELAUW@uw.edu, BGSA@uw.edu.
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Paul G. Allen Center for Computer Science & Engineering (CSE). Campus room: Bill and Melinda Gates Commons: Room 691. Accessibility Contact: AVELAUW@uw.edu, BGSA@uw.edu. Event Types: Lectures/Seminars.
Friday, February 27, 2026, 10:30 AM – 1:00 PM.
For more info visit docs.google.com. CSDE Seminar - The Journey into Adulthood in Uncertain Times - Robert Crosnoe
Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology
Speaker: Robert Crosnoe, Sociology, The University of Texas at Austin
Abstract: This presentation will provide an overview of a new book, The Journey into Adulthood in Uncertain Times, co-authored with Shannon Cavanagh and published in 2025 by Russell Sage. It tackles some key questions of interests to population scientists, developmental scientists, and the public, including: Is the lengthening span of time that young people in the U.S. take to transition into adult roles creating a new generation of “adultolescents”? How has the decades-long reshaping of this critical period of life been complicated by specific historical crises? The answers to these questions come from What does this interplay between long-term trends and short-term shocks mean for the cycle of inequality across American generations? The answers come from integrated analyses of multiple sources of population and qualitative data that consider how: 1) key aspects of socioeconomic attainment, family-building, and socioemotional development…
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Parrington Hall (PAR). Online Meeting Link: https://washington.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Ikj70nK6RkCLLMCjIwsOkA#/registration. Campus room: 360. Accessibility Contact: Maddie Farris - CSDE Program Coordinator (csde-prgm-coord@uw.edu). Event Types: Lectures/Seminars.
Friday, February 27, 2026, 12:30 PM – 1:30 PM.
For more info visit washington.zoom.us. Simpson Center: Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar Lecture: Michael Pruett, "Why Classical Chinese Philosophy Still Matters"
Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology
What is the best way to live a flourishing life? How does one make ethical choices? And what should we concretely do to live in a fuller and more inspiring way? Questions such as these were at the heart of philosophical debates in China. The answers that classical Chinese thinkers developed in response to these questions are among the most powerful in human history. The goal of this talk is to ask what we can learn if we take some of these ideas seriously.
Michael Puett is the Walter C. Klein Professor of Chinese History and Anthropology and the Victor and William Fung Director of the Asia Center at Harvard University. He is a 2025-2026 Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar.
Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholars travel to more than 100 colleges and universities each year, spending two days on each campus and taking full part in the academic life of the institution. They meet informally with students and faculty members, participate in classroom discussions and seminars, and give a public lecture open to the academic c…
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Communications Building (CMU). Campus room: 120. Accessibility Contact: Caitlin Palo, cpalo@uw.edu, 206-685-5260. Event Types: Lectures/Seminars.
Monday, March 2, 2026, 4:00 PM – 5:30 PM.
For more info visit simpsoncenter.org. CSDE Computational Demography Working Group-Jessica Godwin, CSDE, University of Washington & Lauren Woyczynski
Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Raitt Hall (RAI). Online Meeting Link: https://csde.washington.edu/computational-demography-working-group/. Campus room: 223. Accessibility Contact: csde-prgm-coord@uw.edu. Event Types: Workshops.
Wednesday, March 4, 2026, 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM.
For more info visit csde.washington.edu. Individual and Collective Human Agency in the Face of ‘AI’ | UW CSSS SEMINAR
Center for Statistics and Social Sciences
Abstract: As AI systems increasingly shape our personal, professional, and societal lives, the question is not only what machines can do, but who controls the values and outcomes they produce. This talk examines both individual agency — the capacity to think, judge, and act — and collective agency, where communities define norms, resist imposed standards, and guide AI deployment. Drawing on research in trustworthy AI, decolonial alignment, and human–AI collaboration, I will explore technical and governance approaches that preserve human autonomy, including transparency tools, scoped alignment methods, and collaborative task structures. I will introduce AI platform cooperatives as a counterweight to tech‑company dominance, fostering community ownership, shared governance, and technological self-determination. Ultimately, AI should be a tool that empowers humans, singly and together. Kush R. Varshney is an IBM Fellow based at the T. J. Watson Research Center where he is responsible for innovations in AI…
Event Types: Academics. Lectures/Seminars.
Wednesday, March 4, 2026, 12:30 PM – 1:30 PM.
SAV 409.
For more info visit csss.uw.edu. CSSS Seminar - Individual and Collective Human Agency in the Face of ‘AI’ - Kush Varshney
Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology
As AI systems increasingly shape our personal, professional, and societal lives, the question is not only what machines can do, but who controls the values and outcomes they produce. This talk examines both individual agency — the capacity to think, judge, and act — and collective agency, where communities define norms, resist imposed standards, and guide AI deployment. Drawing on research in trustworthy AI, decolonial alignment, and human–AI collaboration, I will explore technical and governance approaches that preserve human autonomy, including transparency tools, scoped alignment methods, and collaborative task structures. I will introduce AI platform cooperatives as a counterweight to tech‑company dominance, fostering community ownership, shared governance, and technological self-determination. Ultimately, AI should be a tool that empowers humans, singly and together.
Kush R. Varshney is an IBM Fellow based at the T. J. Watson Research Center where he is responsible for innovations in AI governance and…
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Savery Hall (SAV). Online Meeting Link: https://washington.zoom.us/s/91612004486. Campus room: 409. Accessibility Contact: csss@uw.edu. Event Types: Lectures/Seminars.
Wednesday, March 4, 2026, 12:30 PM – 1:30 PM.
CSDE Biodemography Working Group Meeting
Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Raitt Hall (RAI). Campus room: 223. Accessibility Contact: csde-prgm-coord@uw.edu. Event Types: Workshops.
Thursday, March 5, 2026, 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM.
Simpson Center Evo-Hub Lecture: Gregory Radick, "Nurturing Science: An Enhanced Role for the Humanities"
Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology
The traditional role of history and philosophy of science (HPS) in the science classroom is to stir some “human interest” into the pedagogic mix. HPS has been the stuff of the sidebar, where textbook authors put information that they regard as interesting, yet non-essential. Radick will advocate for the potential of HPS to enliven the creative critical thinking from which science benefits. He will describe how his HPS research has opened up a new option for teaching introductory genetics, more in line with present-day emphases on the modifying roles of internal and external environments than the standard start-with-Mendel curriculum. Radick will leave us with a sketch of how to broadly extend this more radical integration of HPS perspectives into science education.
Gregory Radick is Professor of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Leeds, Editor-in-Chief of the journal Metascience, and a Trustee of the Science Museum. In 2025, he became the first humanities scholar to win the J. B. S.…
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Communications Building (CMU). Campus room: 120. Accessibility Contact: Simpson Center for the Humanities, 206-543-3920, schadmin@uw.edu. Event Types: Lectures/Seminars.
Thursday, March 5, 2026, 4:00 PM – 5:30 PM.
Hold for Recruitment Day for 2026 Graduate Students
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Savery Hall (SAV). Online Meeting Link: https://washington.zoom.us/j/97653316579. Campus room: SAV 409. Accessibility Contact: To request disability accommodation, contact the Disability Services Office at least ten days in advance at: (206) 543-6450/V, (206) 543-6452/TTY, (206) 685-7264 (FAX), or dso@u.washington.edu. Event Types: Information Sessions. Special Events. Target Audience: Sociology Faculty and Graduate Students.
Friday, March 6, 2026.
Simpson Center Event - Partition and Solidarity: Anticolonial Struggles in the Colonial Present Conference
Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology
About the Conference
Over the past five centuries, empires have used partition and division to justify and advance colonialism. We can see that ongoing history of colonial rule and racial violence exploding around the world today—from Palestine to Minnesota and beyond.
Join us at this one-day symposium where scholars and activists will gather to engage in conversations about anticolonial struggles of the past and the present. How might we forge diasporic imaginaries and solidarity movements to contest the colonial world order toward collective liberation?
The symposium will include a keynote address by Adam Hanieh of the University of Exeter (UK), who has been selected to deliver a Walker-Ames public lecture. He is a leading scholar of Middle East politics and political economy who is framing and exploring the most urgent issue of our current moment. His talk on petroleum and capitalism, including the migrant workers behind the industry, will stress the inextricable links between global capitalism, colonial…
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Student Union Building (HUB). Accessibility Contact: hbcls@uw.edu. Event Types: Conferences.
Friday, March 6, 2026, 9:30 AM – 5:30 PM.
For more info visit labor.washington.edu. CSDE Winter 2026 Lightning Talks & Poster Session
Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Raitt Hall (RAI). Campus room: 221. Accessibility Contact: Maddie Farris - CSDE Program Coordinator (csde-prgm-coord@uw.edu). Event Types: Lectures/Seminars.
Friday, March 6, 2026, 12:30 PM – 1:30 PM.
SocSem: Hyungmin Cha
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Savery Hall (SAV). Campus room: 409. Accessibility Contact: To request disability accommodation, contact the Disability Services Office at least ten days in advance at: (206) 543-6450/V, (206) 543-6452/TTY, (206) 685-7264 (FAX), or dso@u.washington.edu. Event Types: Lectures/Seminars. Target Audience: Sociology Faculty and Graduate Students, Visiting Prospective Graduate Students.
Friday, March 6, 2026, 3:00 PM – 4:30 PM.
CSDE Computational Demography Working Group-Elizabeth Nova, PhD Student, Sociology, University of Washington
Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Raitt Hall (RAI). Online Meeting Link: https://csde.washington.edu/computational-demography-working-group/. Campus room: 223. Accessibility Contact: csde-prgm-coord@uw.edu. Event Types: Workshops.
Wednesday, March 11, 2026, 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM.
For more info visit csde.washington.edu. Big and Small Data for Understanding the Demographics and Health of People Experiencing Homelessness in King County | UW CSSS SEMINAR
Center for Statistics and Social Sciences
Seminar abstract coming soon! Zack W. Almquist is an Associate Professor of Sociology, an Adjunct Associate Professor of Statistics, and a Senior Data Science Fellow at the eScience Institute at the University of Washington. His research develops and applies innovative statistical, survey, and social network methodologies to address critical social issues, including housing and homelessness, population health, and environmental governance, with a particular focus on improving data collection for marginalized and hard-to-reach populations. Prior to joining UW, he held faculty positions at the University of Minnesota and worked as a Research Scientist at Facebook. Prof. Almquist has received numerous honors, including the NSF CAREER Award, the ARO Young Investigator Award, and two major awards from the American Sociological Association. He serves as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Mathematical Sociology and in elected chair of the Section on Mathematical Sociology for the American Sociological Association…
Event Types: Academics. Lectures/Seminars.
Wednesday, March 11, 2026, 12:30 PM – 1:30 PM.
SAV 409.
For more info visit csss.uw.edu. CSSS Seminar - Big and Small Data for Understanding the Demographics and Health of People Experiencing Homelessness in King County - Zack Almquist
Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology
Zack W. Almquist is an Associate Professor of Sociology, an Adjunct Associate Professor of Statistics, and a Senior Data Science Fellow at the eScience Institute at the University of Washington. His research develops and applies innovative statistical, survey, and social network methodologies to address critical social issues, including housing and homelessness, population health, and environmental governance, with a particular focus on improving data collection for marginalized and hard-to-reach populations. Prior to joining UW, he held faculty positions at the University of Minnesota and worked as a Research Scientist at Facebook. Prof. Almquist has received numerous honors, including the NSF CAREER Award, the ARO Young Investigator Award, and two major awards from the American Sociological Association. He serves as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Mathematical Sociology and in elected chair of the Section on Mathematical Sociology for the American Sociological Association and Chair of the Caucus on Homele…
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Savery Hall (SAV). Online Meeting Link: https://washington.zoom.us/s/91612004486. Campus room: 409. Accessibility Contact: csss@uw.edu. Event Types: Lectures/Seminars.
Wednesday, March 11, 2026, 12:30 PM – 1:30 PM.
CSDE Seminar - Infrastructures of Resettlement: How Bureaucratic Legacies Shaped Racial Disparities in Post-Cold War Refugee Selection - Jake Watson
Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology
Speaker: Jake Watson, Sociology, University of California San Diego
Abstract: This paper draws on migration infrastructure perspectives to theorize how states select refugees. After the Cold War, the United States shifted its refugee admissions program from a focus on anticommunism toward more humanitarian criteria, marked by greater need-based selection and distributional equity – including explicit efforts to increase African admissions. Yet the 1990s saw the US resettle roughly 300,000 Europeans and just 40,000 Africans despite comparably large displacement crises in Yugoslavia and the Horn of Africa. Why? While scholars explain such disparities through explicit racial preferences or geopolitical interests, I show that inherited processing infrastructure shaped which humanitarian claims could be acted upon at scale. Decades of racist migration control and Cold War foreign policy had built networks of embassies, processing centers, and NGOs that could be rapidly deployed for Yugoslav displacement. African…
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Parrington Hall (PAR). Online Meeting Link: https://washington.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_mqjs5IEXRDCKhsKTyOYkMw#/registration. Campus room: 360. Accessibility Contact: Maddie Farris - CSDE Program Coordinator (csde-prgm-coord@uw.edu). Event Types: Lectures/Seminars.
Friday, March 13, 2026, 12:30 PM – 1:30 PM.
For more info visit washington.zoom.us. NIH OBSSR Director's Webinar: How Responsible Use of Mobile Device Data Can Advance Our Understanding of Fertility
Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology
OverviewFor millions of Americans, the pathway to parenthood includes conception failure and miscarriage. These experiences are difficult to capture in administrative or clinical data—and therefore, difficult to study in populations. Indeed, much of what we know about variation in conception and miscarriage is shaped by how we have studied them. New forms of mobile device data provide a rare window into early pregnancy in large populations. In this talk, Dr. Nobles argues that pregnancy success is sensitive to social, economic, and environmental exposures, and that our understanding of these relationships can be significantly advanced through responsible use of mobile device data. Understanding the upstream drivers of pregnancy success has implications for how we interpret, support, and reduce infertility and miscarriage. Jenna Nobles, Ph.D./University of California, Berkeley,
BiographyJenna Nobles is a Professor and Chair of Demography at the University of California, Berkeley. She studies the effects of…
Event interval: Single day event. Accessibility Contact: ahurst@scgcorp.com. Event Types: Lectures/Seminars.
Wednesday, March 25, 2026, 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM.
For more info visit obssr.od.nih.gov. SocSEM Speaker: Scott Allard
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Savery Hall (SAV). Online Meeting Link: https://washington.zoom.us/j/97653316579. Campus room: SAV 409. Accessibility Contact: To request disability accommodation, contact the Disability Services Office at least ten days in advance at: (206) 543-6450/V, (206) 543-6452/TTY, (206) 685-7264 (FAX), or dso@u.washington.edu. Event Types: Lectures/Seminars. Special Events. Target Audience: Sociology Faculty and Graduate Students.
Thursday, April 9, 2026, 12:00 PM – 1:30 PM.
Graduate Student Symposium
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Savery Hall (SAV). Online Meeting Link: https://washington.zoom.us/j/97653316579. Campus room: SAV 409. Accessibility Contact: To request disability accommodation, contact the Disability Services Office at least ten days in advance at: (206) 543-6450/V, (206) 543-6452/TTY, (206) 685-7264 (FAX), or dso@u.washington.edu. Event Types: Special Events. Lectures/Seminars. Target Audience: Sociology Faculty and Graduate Students.
Thursday, May 14, 2026, 12:00 PM – 1:30 PM.