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Editor:
Tonya Allen
allen@pop.psu.edu
PRInformation
Fall 2002
Faculty Focus
Appointments
Dr. George Vogler, professor of biobehavioral health, has been appointed Director of the Center for Developmental and Health Genetics.
Promotions
Dr. Rukmalie Jayakody, to associate professor of human development and family studies and demography
Dr. Valarie E. King, to associate professor of sociology, demography, and human development and family studies
Dr. Diane K. McLaughlin, to associate professor of rural sociology and demography
New Faculty Associates
Dr. Duane Alwin (Ph.D., 1972, Sociology/Minor in Educational Psychology, University of Wisconsin), McCourtney Professor of Sociology, Family Studies and Human Development. Research interests: family, aging and the life course, social psychology, social change, and survey research methods.
Dr. Marianne Hillmeier (Ph.D., 1998, Demography, University of Michigan), assistant professor of health policy and administration. Research interests: disparities in child and adolescent health; effects of context on health and health-related behavior; disparities in children's health care access and utilization; differences by race, ethnicity and socioeconomic status in provider-family interaction in pediatric health care encounters; childhood obesity.
Dr. Linda A. Wray (Ph.D., 1995, Gerontology, University of Southern California), assistant professor of biobehavioral health. Research interests: links among social environment, health, and aging; chronic disease management; health risks and middle-age.
Awards and Recognition
Dr. Paul R. Amato, professor of sociology and demography, with Dr. David R. Johnson, director, Survey Research Center, and professor of sociology and human development and family studies, and Jody Van Laningham, received the Reuben Hill Award from the National Council on Family Relations for the best article published in 2001 to combine theory and research on the family. The article was entitled "Marital Happiness, Marital Duration, and the U-Shaped Curve: Evidence from a Five-Wave Panel Study" (Social Forces, 79(4):1313-1341.)
Dr. Alan Booth, Distinguished Professor of Sociology, Human Development, and Demography, has been selected by the Family Section of the American Sociological Association to receive the Distinguished Career of Scholarship and Service Award.
Dr. Gordon F. De Jong, Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Demography and director of the Graduate Program in Demography, was named Chair, Population Section, American Sociological Association, 2002-2003.
Dr. Glenn Firebaugh, professor of sociology and demography, was selected to be a member of the Visitation Committee to review the Department of Sociology, Harvard University, in April, 2002.
Dr. Barrett Lee, professor of sociology and demography, has been elected chair of the Community and Urban Sociology section of the American Sociological Association. His term runs from August 2002 through August 2004.
Dr. Sean F. Reardon, assistant professor of education and sociology, was awarded a National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship for his project, "Choosing Schools, Choosing Neighborhoods: Understanding the New Segregation."
Dr. David C. Ribar, associate professor of economics at George Washington University and PRI research affiliate, was awarded the Kuznets Prize for the 1998-2000 period. The Kuznets prize is awarded to the best article published in the Journal of Population Economics. Dr. Ribar received the prize for his article, "The Socioeconomic Consequences of Young Women's Childbearing: Reconciling Disparate Evidence," JPE 12:547-565.
Dr. Eric Silver, assistant professor of crime, law, and justice and sociology, has been selected by the American Society of Criminology to receive the 2002 Ruth Shonle Cavan Award for outstanding early career contributions to the discipline of criminology.
Dr. Elizabeth J. Susman, Shibley Professor of Biobehavorial Health and professor of human development and nursing, has been elected president-elect of the Society for Research on Adolescence. She will begin her two-year term as president in 2004.
Dr. Keith E. Whitfield, associate professor of biobehavioral health, has been appointed to the National Institute on Aging's Behavior and Social Science of Aging Review Committee.
Invited Speakers
Dr. Paul R. Amato, professor of sociology and demography, presented an invited address entitled "Divorce and Children's Well-Being: A Life Course Perspective" at the International Academy of Family Psychology, Heidelberg, Germany.
Dr. Gordon F. De Jong, Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Demography and director of the Graduate Program in Demography, and Deborah Roempke Graefe, PRI research associate, were invited to present their paper "Welfare Reform and Migration: Moving to Benefits; Moving from Restrictions" at the Joint Center for Poverty Research/Census Bureau Conference, Washington, DC., September 5, 2002.
Dr. George Farkas, professor of sociology, demography, and education, presented an invited paper entitled "Noncognitive Behaviors and Cognitive Skills: Their Role in Getting and Keeping a Job" at the Conference on Welfare to Work, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, July 29, 2002; Dr. Farkas also presented an invited paper entitled "Racial Disparities and Discrimination in Education: What Do We Know, How Do We Know It, and What Do We Need to Know?" at the Workshop on Measuring Disparities in Education, Committee on National Statistics, National Academies of Science/National Research Council, July 1, 2002, Washington, D.C.; workshop papers are to be published by Teachers College Record.
Dr. Jill L. Findeis, professor of agricultural, environmental and regional economics and demography, presented a paper entitled "Subjective Equilibrium Theory of Farm Households: Theory Revisited and New Directions" at the Workshop on the Farm Household-Firm Unit at Wye-Imperial College, Wye, U.K. in April 2002. This paper followed an invited paper in February 2002 titled "Farm Women in the United States" presented at the 2002 Ag Update Forum held by USDA in Washington, DC. The latter reported on a new data set collected by Penn State in conjunction with the National Agricultural Statistics Service.
Dr. Glenn Firebaugh, professor of sociology and demography, was discussant for the session on Economic Inequality at the World Congress of the International Sociological Association, Brisbane, Australia. July, 2002.
Dr. Mark D. Hayward, director of the Social Science Research Institute, director of the Population Research Institute and professor of sociology and demography, was invited to present "Race Disparities in Men's Mortality: The Role of Childhood Social Conditions in a Process of Cumulative Disadvantage" on September 12, 2002 as part of the Population Studies and Training Center Colloquium Series at Brown University.
Dr. Valarie King, associate professor of sociology, demography, and human development and family studies, presented an invited address at the Brookdale Foundation National Fellowship Meeting on April 15, 2002, entitled "The Position of Older People in the American Family."
Dr. Stephen A. Matthews, senior research associate, associate professor of demography and sociology (adjunct geography), and director of the GIA Core, was invited to present at the Center for Spatially Integrated Social Science (CSISS) workshop on "Measuring Accessibility" at Ohio State University in July 2002.
Dr. Sean F. Reardon, assistant professor of education and sociology, presented "Trends in Public School Segregation in the South, 1987-2000" and "Integrating Neighborhoods, Segregating Schools: The Retreat from School Desegregation in the South, 1990-2000" with J.T. Yun at "The Resegregation of Southern Schools?" Conference, August 20, 2002, Chapel Hill, NC.
Dr. Eric Silver, assistant professor of crime, law, and justice and sociology, recently gave three invited presentations: "An Ecological Perspective on Mental Disorder and Violence," to the Habeas Assistance and Training Group of the Administrative Office of United States Courts, Nashville, TN; "The Usefulness of Risk Assessment Tools in Sentencing," at the National Association of Sentencing Commissions' National Conference on Sentencing and Justice, Williamsburg, PA; and "Violence and Mental Disorder: A Focus on Contexts Large and Small," at the Center for Violence Research and Prevention, New York, NY.
Dr. Keith E. Whitfield, associate professor of biobehavorial health, recently gave the following invited presentations: "Desegregation and Cognitive Aging among African Americans: Impact of Brown vs the Board of Education?" at the Life Course Inequality: Aging as the Link between History and Biography symposium, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, September, 19, 2002; "Sources of Individual Variability in Cognitive Functioning in African Americans" and "Minority Aging Research," at the Summer Institute for the American Psychological Association Minority Aging Networks Program, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, July, 2002; "Some Success in Studying African Americans," to the Nashville GRECC-FDA Take Time to Care Scholars Program, Nashville, TN, May, 2002; "Ethnicity, Neighborhoods, and Cognition," for the Context and Cognition workshop, National Institute on Aging, Bethesda, MD, April 8, 2002; and was invited discussant at the Racial/Ethnic Bias and Health: Scientific Evidence, Methods, and Research Implications conference, Office for Behavioral and Social Science Research of the National Institutes of Health, Tysons Corner, VA, April 17, 2002.
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