Center for Demography and Ecology

CDE Welcomes 10 New Affiliates for Fall 2020

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Although the halls of Sewell have been quiet this fall, CDE has remained as busy and collaborative as ever. Ten new faculty members from seven different schools and departments became affiliates of the Center. Please help us welcome:

  • Max Besbris (Department of Sociology) came to UW–Madison as an assistant professor of sociology in fall 2020, and this academic year he is also a visiting scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation in New York. Max was previously an assistant professor at Rice University from 2017 to 2020, after receiving his PhD in sociology from New York University. His research focuses on how individuals make decisions in economic markets and how these decisions are linked with broader inequalities. His 2020 book, UpSold: Real Estate Agents, Prices, and Neighborhood Inequality (University of Chicago Press), explores the role of real estate agents as intermediaries in housing markets, influencing buyers’ preferences and decisions.
  • Christine Durrance (La Follette School of Public Affairs) is an applied microeconomist concentrating in health economics and policy. Durrance’s work focuses on maternal, infant, and reproductive health; risky behavior (e.g. substance use and violence); and the legal and policy environment. For the past 13 years, she served on the faculty of the Department of Public Policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
  • Jennifer Dykema (Department of Sociology) became the faculty director of the University of Wisconsin Survey Center in 2020 after previously serving as distinguished scientist and senior survey methodologist. She conducts research on questionnaire design, interviewer-respondent interaction, and methods to increase response rates. She also advises a broad range of investigators across disciplines on all types of study design and data collection.
  • Tiffany Green (Departments of Population Health Sciences and Obstetrics & Gynecology) is an economist and population health scientist. Her research agenda focuses on understanding the causes and consequences of racial/ethnic and nativity disparities in maternal and child health. She is particularly driven to understand why Black women experience the worst maternal and child health outcomes of any racial/ethnic group, regardless of socioeconomic or education status. Using methods from economics, demography, and health services research, Green documents and unpacks the sources of these disparities.
  • Madelyne Greene (School of Nursing) received her PhD in nursing at the University of Pennsylvania in 2017 and completed her postdoctoral work in the Health Disparities Research Scholar program at UW in 2019. Her research examines mechanisms that cause and perpetuate disparities in sexual and reproductive health, with a focus on health providers and health systems.
  • Melody Harvey (Department of Consumer Science) studies how public policies affect financial capability among economically vulnerable populations. Her current research encompasses three main domains: (1) assessing the effects of K–12 financial education policies on youth and young adults’ financial outcomes; (2) investigating how financial regulations affect alternative financial services use; and (3) examining heterogeneities in consumer policy implementation. Previously, she was a National Poverty Fellow at the Institute for Research on Poverty (2018–20) working in residence at the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation in Washington, DC.
  • Tana Johnson (La Follette School of Public Affairs; Department of Political Science) came to UW–Madison in summer 2020 from Duke University. Using interviews, analyses of original data, archival research, formal models, and computer-assisted textual analysis, she examines the operations and design of international institutions, particularly those affiliated with the United Nations system. Her book, Organizational Progeny: Why Governments are Losing Control over the Proliferating Structures of Global Governance (Oxford University Press, 2014, 2017), won the International Studies Association’s Alger Prize for the best book on international organization and multilateralism.
  • Philipp Koellinger (La Follette School of Public Affairs) joined the UW–Madison faculty from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Koellinger’s research investigates how genes influence economic behavior, and how insights into the genetic architecture of behavioral outcomes can inform social and medical research. Some of his work also explores how the brain mediates relationships between genes and human behavior. He is one of the principal investigators and co-founders of the Social Science Genetic Association Consortium (SSGAC), the BIG BEAR Consortium, and the Externalizing Consortium.
  • Alejandra Ros Pilarz (Sandra Rosenbaum School of Social Work) came to UW in 2015 after receiving her PhD from the University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration. Her research examines how parental employment, child care, and early education experiences contribute to young children’s development. She is particularly interested in understanding these questions in the context of economic disadvantage and in the role of public policies in supporting low-income parents and children.
  • Kelly Marie Ward (Departments of Gender & Women’s Studies and Sociology) is an Anna Julia Cooper Postdoctoral Fellow. In fall 2021, she will begin her position as an assistant professor gender & women’s studies and sociology. Ward received her PhD in sociology from the University of California, Irvine in 2020. She works in the areas of the sociology of medicine, organizational sociology, and the sociology of race, class, and gender. Her current research draws on an ethnographic account of a standalone abortion clinic to explore the ways in which reproductive workers’ experience of abortion provision is shaped by competing institutional logics, as well as by cultural beliefs about bodies and intimacy in medical settings.

Eleven new students also joined the CDE’s training program:

  • Megan Agnew (Department of Population Health Sciences)
  • Sarah Bass (Department of Economics)
  • Elia Boschetti (Department of Sociology)
  • Jerome Choi (Department of Population Health Sciences)
  • Sharada Dharmasankar (Department of Economics)
  • Lauren Giurini (Department of Population Health Sciences)
  • Sara Ronnkvist (Department of Sociology)
  • Sarah Salas (Department of Sociology)
  • Sabrina Sanchez (Department of Sociology)
  • Michael Topping (Department of Sociology)
  • Fiona Weeks (Department of Population Health Sciences)

Although we weren’t able to say goodbye in person, several students received their PhDs and graduated at the winter commencement, held virtually on December 13, and have moved on to exciting new positions. We’d like to congratulate Maria Amelia Gibbons (Universidad de San Andrés), Jingying He (University of Pennsylvania), Michael King (Census Bureau), Amrita Kulka (New York University), and Jessica Polos (Northwestern)!