Training Program in Population Studies

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This revised application requests a five-year Training Grant in Population Studies from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) to the Population Research Center (PRC) of the University of Texas at Austin (UT). The training program we propose seeks to enlarge and academically broaden our previous program of five pre-doctoral trainees to eight pre-doctoral traineeships and two post-doctoral fellowships, shared between the Departments of Sociology, Human Ecology, and Economics. The proposed expansion of our pre-doctoral training program aims to build upon our recent growth and productivity as a Center, as best evidenced by: a) the very enthusiastic response to our recent R24 center grant proposal; b) a grant portfolio that is, by far, the largest in PRC history; c) the significant number of new faculty members who are already active and productive members of the PRC; d) our research productivity in terms of journal articles, books, chapters, and conference presentations; and e) our recent substantial successes in placing our graduates in leading academic, postdoctoral, and research positions throughout the country. Indeed, over the 2001-2002 academic year, we have placed a number of graduates in very impressive academic and post-doctoral positions around the country. The proposed addition of two postdoctoral trainees is also consistent with our recent growth and productivity as a Center, the strong set of funded projects characterizing each of our five thematic research areas, our success in hosting Latin American postdoctoral researchers and visiting U.S. scholars in recent years, and our very recent success in recruiting our leading postdoctoral candidate in the Religion, Families, and Health area, using funds from the UT College of Liberal Arts and the PRC. We clearly see the potential of our Center to support postdoctoral fellows in each of our five research areas over the next five years. The broadening of our training program reflects the increasingly interdisciplinary nature of population research at the PRC and throughout the discipline. The PRC is currently characterized by a very productive and academically broad group of researchers, with the greatest concentration in the Departments of Sociology, Human Ecology, and Economics, in that order.