Training in Demography

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Summary/Abstract 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.