• University of Wisconsin-Madison
• College of Letters and Science
• MyUW

Hiram received his PhD in Demography at the University of Pennsylvania and has been a research fellow at USC and Harvard. His research focuses on developing and applying demographic methodologies to the study of adult population health at both national and individual levels. Specific foci include national trends in adult morbidity, mortality and longevity, and health, health behaviors, and biomarkers in the adult Mexican population, and physiological and health patterns in the adult Mexican population and their links with earlier life conditions.

Merlin received his PhD in History and a Master's in Public Health at the University of Pennsylvania. His work centers on three themes: the history of public health and health policy; racial inequality; and social movements. His dissertation examined the development of post-WWII medical care and environmental health hazards in four regions (Los Angeles, Cleveland, Central Appalachia, and New York).

Justin received his PhD in Economics at LSU in 2012. His research is primarily focused on genetic adaptations such as lactose tolerance and resistance to infectious disease occurring since the Neolithic Revolution, or since the initiation of agriculture. He is also exploring the differential susceptibility of environmental shocks based on genomic differences.

Tova received her PhD in Social Work and Psychology at the University of Michigan. Her research focuses on the role that expectant and new fathers play in the health and wellbeing of their partners and children, and the influence of parenthood on men’s health. She is currently investigating opportunities to improve individual and family health through appropriately timed and tailored intervention with fathers during the transition to parenthood. She will join the School of Social Work as an Assistant Professor in fall 2015.

Jayanti received her PhD in Sociology and Demography at Princeton. Her dissertation examined (a) the growing, female-favoring gender gap in educational attainment in the United States; (b) the evolution of the female-favoring gender gap in childhood behavioral skills across cohorts, and (c) the uneven career penalties that males and females receive for early behavior problems. She is currently investigating social and medical explanations for the rise in diagnosed ADHD prevalence across cohorts in the U.S.

Michal is a demographer and gerontologist studying the dynamics of population aging and the determinants of longevity and well-being at older ages. Her work examines trajectories of health throughout the life course and their connection with changing aggregate patterns of mortality and morbidity over time. She is currently analyzing the implications of historical population change for contemporary health inequalities and developing a conceptual framework linking demographic and clinical notions of frailty and resilience with the sociological concept of cumulative disadvantage.

Jason is an Economist by training and his research blends methods, research designs, and topics across disciplines. He is currently working with geneticists in examining whether genetic variation explains heterogenous treatment effects from social and economic policies, working with political scientists exploring the intersection of politics (voting behaviors) and health, working with sociologists and economists in examining social and genetic determinants of social network ties, and using quasi-natural experiments to identify the long term impacts of early conditions.

Jan's work examines the challenges faced by families of persons with severe and persistent mental illness. One line of research investigates differences in the mental health of aging parents caring for an adult child with mental illness and of those caring for an adult child with developmental disabilities. Another study of aging parents caring for an adult son or daughter with schizophrenia examines the long-term toll that coping with mental illness takes on parental and family well-being.

Sarah came to UW this fall from UW-Milwaukee where she was an Assistant Professor of Sociology. Her research interests include romantic and family relationships, relationship education, and welfare policy (especially the Earned Income Tax Credit). She is currently working on studies of relationship churning, relationship trajectories and marital quality, and is completing a book on family financial well-being.

Marsha's research focuses on the life course impacts of developmental disabilities on the family. She is interested in how lifelong caregiving affects the well-being of parents and siblings of individuals with disabilities, including autism, Down syndrome, schizophrenia, and fragile X syndrome. In addition, she has studied how the family environment affects the development of individuals with disabilities during adolescence and adulthood.

Javier's main areas of research interest include cardiovascular disease epidemiology, markers of subclinical atherosclerosis, emerging risk factors for cardiovascular disease (homocysteine, inflammation markers, chronic infections), health consequences of sleep disorders and psychosocial stress. He is also interested in methodological issues in survey research and epidemiology and in the teaching of epidemiologic methods.

Yang recently completed his PhD in Sociology at UCLA and is currently a Anna Julia Cooper Post-Doctoral Fellow. Next fall, he will transition to Assistant Professor in the School of Social Work. His research focuses on poverty and population health with strong interest in the poverty and health issues confronting immigrant communities, particularly the Hmong population.

Jun's research focuses on developing statistical methodology for analyzing spatially referenced data (spatial statistics) and spatial data repeatedly sampled over time (spatial-temporal statistics) that arise often in the physical, biological, and social sciences. She is engaged in collaborate efforts to apply modern statistical methods, especially spatial and spatial-temporal statistics, to studies of agricultural, biological, and ecological systems.