PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] – The PSTC has awarded a record number of predoctoral fellows this year, with a total of seven trainees receiving full funding, in addition to other trainees who have received fellowship funding from other sources. Each year, support from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) enables the PSTC to support five predoctoral trainees and one postdoctoral trainee as part of the population studies training program. This year, for the first time, the PSTC, is also providing support for two international predoctoral trainees. These fellowships are generously funded by the Brown University Graduate School as a result of the PSTC’s successful renewal of the NICHD (of the National Institutes of Health) training grant. In addition, two PSTC trainees were selected as Brown University Interdisciplinary Fellows by the Graduate School and are being hosted at the Center.

“I have benefited greatly from the intellectual environment at the PSTC, especially the Thursday colloquium, method workshops, and academic guidance from not only my supervisor but also many other faculty members here,” said Yifan Shen, a second-year Sociology trainee and one of this year’s international fellows. “The PSTC has also generously supported my PAA travel and summer research experience this past year, both of which mean a lot to a first-year PhD student. As an international student, these opportunities and experiences have greatly broadened my horizons and enriched my understanding of both my own field of interest and of demography as a whole. ”

This year’s NICHD-funded trainees represent three of the disciplines engaged in the PSTC community:

• Hilary Barker (Sociology), who is currently researching paid parental leave policies and class divides in parental investments. Her research interests include family and work, gender and health, and inequality.
• Kira DiClemente (Public Health), whose work focuses on reproductive health as it pertains to culture, tradition, and economic development. With an eye towards global health, she is interested in how family planning and female empowerment contribute to sustainable development.
• Nicole Kreisberg (Sociology), who studies immigrant intra-generational mobility and labor market integration. Specifically, she is interested in the relationship between immigration laws and subsequent labor market outcomes in the United States.
• Erin Mellett (Anthropology), who is researching the Deaf culture and the American Deaf community. Specifically, she is interested in the experiences of deaf immigrants in the U.S. and more broadly, questions about what it means to be Deaf. 
• Madison Paulk (Anthropology), who is addressing the intimate labor practices of forced migrants in Durban, South Africa. More specifically, she is interested in the convergence of work, belonging, and gender in urban space.

This year’s international fellows are:

• Francesco Maria Esposito (Economics), who studies how Employment Protection Legislation (EPL) affects labor market outcomes and how voting laws may impact voter participation across socio-economic groups.
• Yifan Shen (Sociology), who researches the relationship between mate selection and social inequality. He studies why some people are better than others at entering into good romantic relationships and marriages and examines the impact of marriage patterns on social inequality.

The Interdisciplinary Fellows program supports advanced graduate students by providing an enhanced context for them to engage in the activities of interdisciplinary centers and institutes at Brown. The Interdisciplinary Fellows at the PSTC will support the Center’s research, teaching, and training activities throughout the year. They are:

• Bryan Moorefield (Anthropology), who studies migration between Mexico and the United States. His research focuses on the H-2A visa program and farm labor in Florida.
• Xuan Zhang (Economics), whose research focuses on human behavior and well-being in the healthcare industry. Her current projects examine patient-physician matching on patient welfare and how public health insurance affects people and firms directly and indirectly.

"I am very honored to have been awarded the PSTC international fellowship in the first year that it has been offered to non-U.S. native students," said Esposito. "I will be able to spend much more time carrying forward intensely my current research projects, as well as finding new innovative ideas to work on. This fellowship also offers me the possibility of accessing numerous and extremely valuable PSTC resources which are needed for pursuing my research goals."