Data Science Training in Demography and Population Health

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Abstract The Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology (CSDE) at the University of Washington proposes a training program to create a new generation of population scientists and demographers equipped with skills to conduct data intensive research with advanced computational and statistical methods. Population science provides a crucial interdisciplinary framework for understanding the social, economic, political, and demographic dynamics affecting patterns of disease, mortality, fertility, and migration, but to extract signal from noise in the complex interplay of these processes the next generation requires a training in state-of-the-art methods. The program will prepare trainees to be leaders in problems involving a wide range of complex data, including data arising from multiple sources, data not intended for research (e.g. administrative data), dynamic or spatial data, network data, and “big data’’ sources. At the core of this program is a collaboration between CSDE, the eScience Institute (UW’s data science center), and the Center for Statistics and the Social Sciences (CSSS). These three institutes combine extensive expertise in demographic methods, data science, computer science and statistical methods and have a long, successful record of collaboration on research and training activities, including a BD2K track in Big Data for Demographic Research. Through this collaboration, trainees will take a series of coursework in the following areas: advanced statistical methods and machine learning, coding, databases, data visualization/communication, and data ethics. Trainees will also take part in team-mentoring processes, where they develop an apprenticeship relationship with a primary mentor but also learn directly from other faculty and trainees through collaborative projects and seminars. Mentors will come from all three centers, along with a variety of additional departments, selected to provide the most relevant expertise, including multiple faculty from the highly-ranked departments of Biostatistics, Statistics and Computer Science & Engineering. Further, trainees will get hands-on experience through rotations with on-campus and local partners. Each trainee will do a rotation in eScience’s Reproducibility and Open Science Special Interest Group (SIG), which develops resources that facilitate reproducible research. The training program will ensure trainees obtain the requisite theoretical and applied experience to take on whatever challenges and complexities the data revolution next provides. CSDE requests support for 5 pre-doctoral trainees per year, with total direct costs of $1,744,650.00, over 5 years.