Affiliates Receive UW Professorships, Grants

Four CDE faculty affiliates have received prestigious UW awards. Christine Schwartz, professor of sociology, received a Vilas Faculty Mid-Career Investigator Award, which recognizes research and teaching excellence. Since joining the university in 2006, Schwartz has produced numerous papers on assortative mating, spousal earnings inequality, and marriage dissolution. Schwartz regularly teaches both graduate and undergraduate courses focused on marriage, family, and research methods.

Jenny Higgins, associate professor of gender and women’s studies, received a Vilas Faculty Early Career Investigator Award, which provides flexible research funding. Higgins, who is also a faculty affiliate in population health sciences and the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, conducts mixed-methods research on sexuality, gender, and reproductive health.

Felix Elwert, professor of sociology, and Jason Fletcher, professor of public affairs and sociology, were awarded Romnes Faculty Fellowships. Supported by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, the fellowships recognize exceptional faculty who have received tenure within the last six years.

CDE affiliate Malia Jones, assistant scientist at the Applied Population Laboratory, was the recipient of a grant from the Ira and Ineva Reilly Baldwin Wisconsin Idea Endowment. The project, “Translational Data-Rich Journalism for the People,” is a collaboration between the population lab and the multimedia news outlet WisContext that aims to connect non-academic audiences to university-led social science research.