Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology
CSDE is a community of faculty and students associated to advance population science through research and training.
CSDE scholars develop new demographic measures and methods, advance knowledge about population dynamics, generate new data and evidence to support population science, and train the next generation of demographers.
CSDE supports five primary research areas: demographic measurements & methods; migration & settlement; well being of families & households; environments & population; health of people & populations.
Our work seeks to address two world trends that are powerfully reshaping human existence:
- The degradation if not destruction of large parts of the natural world, and
- Unprecedented technological development, both in terms of its computational sophistication and pervasiveness.
Some of our research questions:
- Are frequent interactions with diverse nature important, or even necessary, for children to develop well — physically and psychologically?
- Do we need interaction not just with domestic nature but more wild nature – that which is often big, untamed, unmanaged, self-organizing, and unencumbered by human artifice?
- What are the psychological effects of interacting with “Technological Nature” – technologies that mediate, augment, or simulate nature (e.g., robot pets, real-time digital windows of nature, and tele-operated gardening)?
- How can personified computational systems (e.g., humanoid robots, androids, and “smart homes”) be designed to enhance children’s social and moral development?
- How can technological systems be designed to enhance the world and human flourishing?
Innovations in System-wide Professional Improvement and Redesigns in Education’s (INSPIRE) ultimate goal is to improve educational opportunities and outcomes for students in poverty-impacted, culturally and linguistically diverse public schools.
They achieve this by partnering with schools and districts, collaborating on goals, and setting up research-based professional learning routines that will continue long after our formal engagement has ended.
The mission of the Women’s Center is to create a more inclusive and compassionate society by promoting gender equity and social justice through educational programs and services that allows all participants to succeed in life.
The Center works to understand the mechanisms that define children’s susceptibility to pesticides and air pollution. Identifying the implications of this susceptibility for developmental and learning trajectories, and partnering with communities to translate the Center’s findings into risk communication, risk management and public health prevention strategies.
The Pacific Northwest Agricultural Safety and Health Center conducts research and promotes best health and safety practices for Northwest producers and workers in farming, fishing and forestry.
Affiliated with the UW School of Public Health, PNASH integrates expertise from multiple disciplines, institutions and community partners. Areas of emphasis include new production technologies and the needs of under-served and vulnerable populations.
Based at the University of Washington Bothell, the Center for Education Data and Research (CEDR) will focus on studying the complex relationships between K-12 education policies and practices, social services geared toward students, and student outcomes.
While it will not focus exclusively on Washington State, CEDR will concentrate its efforts on helping build the capacity across Washington State to ask the right questions, frame issues and policy options, and engage in research and data analyses that make good use of the state’s expanding databases.
The Center for Environmental Politics’ mission is to play a leadership role in producing and disseminating empirical social science research on new modes of environmental politics, policy and governance at local, regional, national, and global levels.
Within the UW, the Center facilitates faculty and graduate students to build connections, establish networks, and initiate multi‐disciplinary conversations about the political and institutional dimensions of environmental challenges.
Externally, the Center is at the forefront of creating and nurturing a community of social science scholars committed to theoretically informed and empirically rigorous research on environmental politics and governance.
The Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies supports a network of scholars in cutting-edge research, education, and outreach about work, workers and their organizations.
The Center engages students in labor studies through courses and field work. It promotes connections between students, faculty, and labor communities locally and around the world, and inform policy makers about issues confronting workers.
The University and its affiliated institutions, the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, and Seattle Children’s Hospital, are widely regarded as leaders among the premiere biomedical research institutions in the world, with great strengths in the constellation of areas crucial for success in stem cell research and regenerative medicine.
Their strategy is to bring these interdisciplinary strengths together, and to leverage their basic research to develop therapies. ISCRM integrates diverse scientific and clinical disciplines.
The overarching mission of the School Mental Health Assessment, Research, and Training (SMART) Center is to promote quality improvement of school-based mental/behavioral health services, thereby preventing or ameliorating mental health problems more effectively and promoting the social-emotional and academic development and success of youth across school, home, and community contexts.
Since 1996, CAYAC has been training law students to advocate for children and youth in a variety of state-involved contexts.
Today, CAYAC students represent children and youth in the child welfare and immigration systems. It also represents youth who are homeless and work to advocate for the civil legal needs of queer youth.
The Center for Law, Science and Global Health was established in 1994. It provides the leadership, academic courses, academic advising, career counseling, practicums, externships and internships, for all of the University of Washington School of Law’s Health Law programs.
Health Law encompasses a broad range of topics, ranging from government regulation of health law to health care business transactions, telemedicine, finance and reimbursement, to the ethical controversies presented in various areas of medicine.
The Race and Justice Clinic works to disrupt the systemic over-representation of youth of color in school discipline and the juvenile justice system by empowering youth and their support networks through community education and direct representation.
The only resource of its kind in Washington State, the IPNW frees innocent prisoners using DNA and other new evidence.
IPNW was founded in 1997 to exonerate the innocent, remedy causes of wrongful conviction and offer law students an outstanding education.
Washington Medical-Legal Partnership (MLP) helps people in vulnerable populations understand and secure their legal rights regarding safe housing, adequate schooling, medical needs and more. It partners with lawyers, doctors, social workers, and other medical staff to remove barriers to good health.
The Native American Law Center promotes the development of Indian law, and encourages Native Americans, and others with an interest in Indian law, to attend law school.
It also acts as a resource to Indian tribes, other governments and individuals in the Pacific Northwest, Alaska and across the country.
The Center for Child and Family Well-being promotes the positive development and well-being of children, from infancy through adolescence, particularly those experiencing disadvantage and adversity. The center uses a bioecological approach to children’s well-being addressing the inter-dependence of children’s social, emotional, cognitive and physical development, as they are shaped by individual, interpersonal, community and broader socioeconomic, social and cultural forces. The interactions among these factors influence whether children have vulnerable or resilient responses to economic disadvantage and adversity. CCFW supports children’s resilience by infusing mindfulness, compassion, and social-emotional skills into the lives of children, their parents, caregivers, teachers and the professionals serving them.
CCFW accomplishes our goals by engendering, translating, applying and sharing knowledge that stems from our interdisciplinary research conducted by over 20 faculty affiliates from across the University of Washington. Our research serves as the foundation on which we build education, professional training, prevention, intervention, outreach and advocacy activities of the center. We are committed to serving as a resource and partner in promoting the well-being of children and families locally and globally.
The Relational Poverty Network convenes a community of scholars, teachers, policy makers and activists, working within and beyond academia, to develop conceptual frameworks, research methodologies, and pedagogies for the study of relational poverty.
Launched at a historical moment of dramatic income inequality and enforced austerity in the global North, the RPN thinks across geographical boundaries to foster a transnational and comparative approach to poverty research.
The Center for Statistics and the Social Sciences was founded in 1999 with the triple mission of galvanizing collaborative research between social scientists and statisticians, developing a menu of new graduate courses for social science students, and enhancing undergraduate statistics training for the social sciences.
Initiated with funding from the University Initiatives Fund, CSSS was the first center in the nation devoted to the interface of statistics and the social sciences.
The purpose of this research group is to examine social and racial inequalities that results in health disparities. This UW Bothell-based group examines the social context, and social predictors of poor health across multiple chronic health indicators across a diverse group of foreign born and native born respondents.
A key focus of this group is to examine the relationship between perceived and actual racial/ethnic discrimination in health.
The Center for Innovation in Sleep Self-Management is aimed at developing, testing and implementing self-management interventions to help adults and children with chronic illnesses sleep better and improve their health.
The center will leverage self-monitoring technologies, such as smart home sensors that track noise, light and temperature; mobile applications that measure dietary, exercise and caffeine intake; and wrist monitors that measure sleep-wake activity and light levels. These tools will allow patients to monitor their sleep behavior, set goals and receive feedback on adopting healthy behaviors.
The UW Superfund Research Program is comprised of an interdisciplinary team of faculty and graduate students from University of Washington departments of: Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, Epidemiology, Genome Sciences, Environmental Chemistry, Civil & Environmental Engineering and Pharmacology.
UW SRP investigators focus on neurotoxic metals cadmium, manganese and arsenic. These metals commonly occur at waterways and hazardous waste sites, negatively impacting human health and ecosystem functions
The West Coast Poverty Center works to bridge the gaps between antipoverty research, practice, and policy by connecting scholars, policymakers and practitioners; facilitating important social policy research; magnifying the reach of new knowledge; and fostering the next generation of antipoverty scholars.
The Innovative Programs Research Group (IPRG) conducts brief early interventions with youth and adults struggling with behavioral issues, but who have not yet accessed relevant services.
Its projects assess the effectiveness of innovative and accessible means to impact behavior change or reduce barriers to the delivery of effective social and mental health services.
The overarching goal of all studies within the Behavioral Medicine Research Group is to improve the lives of children and adults through research designed to explore the etiology and mechanisms of adverse health conditions, and to develop interventions designed to prevent or mitigate the impact of these conditions.
Innovations in System-wide Professional Improvement and Redesigns in Education’s (INSPIRE) ultimate goal is to improve educational opportunities and outcomes for students in poverty-impacted, culturally and linguistically diverse public schools.
They achieve this by partnering with schools and districts, collaborating on goals, and setting up research-based professional learning routines that will continue long after our formal engagement has ended.
Steve works on ethics, political philosophy and global environmental problems, especially as these concern duties to future generations. His recent work focuses on climate change, population growth, geoengineering, nuclear energy and the precautionary principle.
The Center for Communication, Difference, and Equity is committed to research and innovation by, with, and for minoritized and marginalized people. It is dedicated to leadership development, and foundationally community-centered in the desire to build a more equitable world in which our words, imagery, and institutions are infused with understanding, respect, and justice.
The Simpson Center for the Humanities fosters intellectual discovery across boundaries, supporting crossdisciplinary exchange among scholars at the University of Washington and beyond. It is known internationally for its leadership in the digital humanities and public scholarship.
As one of the largest and most comprehensive humanities centers in the United States, the Simpson Center offers University of Washington scholars a rich spectrum of opportunities for intellectual community. The Center supports research and collaboration that allows scholars to build networks nationally and internationally.
The Center’s mission supports four objectives:
- Crossdisciplinary research and inquiry
- Initiatives in the humanities at the leading edge of change
- Innovative study at the graduate level
- Scholarship that reaches audiences beyond the academy
The Simpson Center supports an expansive definition of the humanities that includes collaboration with social scientists, artists, and scholars across disciplines. Recent projects have examined global health partnerships, crowdfunding for health care, the urban environment, and many other topics related to population health.
The Center for Statistics and the Social Sciences was founded in 1999 with the triple mission of galvanizing collaborative research between social scientists and statisticians, developing a menu of new graduate courses for social science students, and enhancing undergraduate statistics training for the social sciences.
Initiated with funding from the University Initiatives Fund, CSSS was the first center in the nation devoted to the interface of statistics and the social sciences.
The Center for Law, Science and Global Health was established in 1994. It provides the leadership, academic courses, academic advising, career counseling, practicums, externships and internships, for all of the University of Washington School of Law’s Health Law programs.
Health Law encompasses a broad range of topics, ranging from government regulation of health law to health care business transactions, telemedicine, finance and reimbursement, to the ethical controversies presented in various areas of medicine.
Since 1996, CAYAC has been training law students to advocate for children and youth in a variety of state-involved contexts.
Today, CAYAC students represent children and youth in the child welfare and immigration systems. It also represents youth who are homeless and work to advocate for the civil legal needs of queer youth.
The Native American Law Center promotes the development of Indian law, and encourages Native Americans, and others with an interest in Indian law, to attend law school.
It also acts as a resource to Indian tribes, other governments and individuals in the Pacific Northwest, Alaska and across the country.
The only resource of its kind in Washington State, the IPNW frees innocent prisoners using DNA and other new evidence.
IPNW was founded in 1997 to exonerate the innocent, remedy causes of wrongful conviction and offer law students an outstanding education.
The Race and Justice Clinic works to disrupt the systemic over-representation of youth of color in school discipline and the juvenile justice system by empowering youth and their support networks through community education and direct representation.
The Barer Institute was established in 2010 by Stan and Alta Barer to provide specialized legal education focused on the multidisciplinary role of law in promoting health, education, and economic development.
The goal of the Institute is to utilize lawyers as leaders in providing advice and solutions to health, education, and economic development issues in lower and middle income developing countries.
The Molecular Engineering & Sciences Institute brings together faculty teams from across the University of Washington campus to catalyze translational research in the Clean Tech and Biotech areas.
It is intended to serve both as an intellectual accelerator to bring fresh approaches and ideas to societal challenges and as a physical incubator where interdisciplinary teams can come together in a shared space.
The mission of the Women’s Center is to create a more inclusive and compassionate society by promoting gender equity and social justice through educational programs and services that allows all participants to succeed in life.
The CSNE’s mission is to develop innovative ways to connect a deep computational understanding of how the brain adapts and processes information with the design of implantable devices that interact seamlessly with the nervous system.
CSNE aspires to help people with disabilities and develop novel modes of human-computer interaction by connecting brains with technology.
They study signals from the brain and use that information to stimulate a part of the brain or spinal cord for neurorehabilitation, including the use of an assistive device.
The overarching goal of all studies within the Behavioral Medicine Research Group is to improve the lives of children and adults through research designed to explore the etiology and mechanisms of adverse health conditions, and to develop interventions designed to prevent or mitigate the impact of these conditions.
The mission of the Latino Center for Health is to provide leadership to promote the health and well-being of Latinos in Washington State, regionally and nationally, across the lifespan.
The Latino Center will bring about sustainable changes in health through innovative community-engaged research, and mentorship and training opportunities for students and faculty, drawing upon the multidisciplinary scholarship from the tri-campuses of the University of Washington.
The Indigenous Wellness Research Institute seeks to marshal community, tribal, academic, and governmental resources toward innovative, culture-centered interdisciplinary, collaborative social and behavioral research and education.
The West Coast Poverty Center works to bridge the gaps between antipoverty research, practice, and policy by connecting scholars, policymakers and practitioners; facilitating important social policy research; magnifying the reach of new knowledge; and fostering the next generation of antipoverty scholars.
I run the TransYouth Project, the first large-scale, national, longitudinal study of transgender and gender nonconforming children’s development. We recruit transgender and gender nonconforming children when they are 3-12 to participate in this study, along with their families, and will follow their development and mental health for 20 years.
We hope to discover how gender diverse youth differ and are similar to other youth at key points throughout development, the medical, familial, and broader social systems that contribute to resilience as well as disparities in well-being amongst these youth, and to work to educate the broader public about transgender and gender nonconforming people throughout the world.
Our Center focuses on developing interventions for trauma-related psychopathology such as PTSD and depression. We are working with local and international refugee populations to develop a brief Islam focused interview and are partnering with the Psychiatric Genetics Consortium-PTSD to conduct worldwide genome association studies.
Bill enjoys applying his clinical and technology backgrounds to address information management problems in clinical care, public health, and global health. He and his staff build information systems that are used both within academics, to understand and evaluate new approaches and methods, and outside of academics, to deliver real world value in health care.
He received his MD from the University of California, San Francisco, a Master of Health Sciences from the University of California, Berkeley, and a BSEE in Electrical Engineering from Tufts University. He completed a residency in Emergency Medicine at the University of Arizona, and the Royal Brisbane Hospital, Queensland, Australia, after which he joined the faculty in the Emergency Medicine at University of Washington. While at UW, he was awarded a F38 “mid-career” fellowship from the National Institutes of Health in Applied Medical Informatics. Currently he is a Professor in Health Informatics and Global Health, jointly appointed in UW’s Schools of Nursing, Medicine, and Public Health, and directs the UW Clinical Informatics Research Group.
Rapid advances in technology are transforming nearly every field from “data-poor” to “data-rich.” The ability to extract knowledge from this abundance of data is the cornerstone of 21st century discovery.
The mission of the University of Washington eScience Institute is to engage researchers across disciplines in developing and applying advanced computational methods and tools to real world problems in data-intensive discovery.
The Evans School Policy Analysis and Research Group (EPAR) uses an innovative student-faculty team model to provide ongoing rigorous, applied research and analysis to international development stakeholders.
EPAR’s work is founded on a multi-disciplinary framework for student- and faculty-led research contributing to more informed decision-making and better use of critical philanthropic dollars.
The Clinical Informatics Research Group designs, develops, and operates information systems to support research to improving individual and population health.
CIRG systems securely manage health information for projects in the Clinical, Public Health, and Global Health Informatics domains.
Its collaborators are based at the University of Washington, and at health care organizations across the US and around the world.
Partners for Our Children works to improve the lives of vulnerable children and families in Washington State, especially those touched by the child welfare system. But they can’t do that alone. That’s why they work closely with partners to get the right information into the right hands – those making important decisions about child welfare practice and policy.