As part of his ongoing work with the Land Degradation Neutrality Project (Tools4LDN), Interim Director of Spatial Structures in the Social Sciences (S4) and Assistant Professor of Population Studies Kevin Mwenda and his colleagues hosted a series of virtual pilot workshops with collaborators in Colombia to assess how current datasets can be better used to monitor the impacts of global land degradation.

Today’s climate emergency is reminiscent of the past population growth crisis: Both represent existential challenges requiring sustained global efforts. Our success on the population issue holds key lessons for addressing the climate crisis as well.

School officials, educators, and public health experts discuss how to offset learning loss for America’s schoolchildren post-pandemic.

The nearly decade-old Veterans Affairs registry to track burn pit illnesses and help veterans get care for those injuries is achieving neither of those goals, according to research from independent health experts, who are recommending major changes to the effort.

PSTC Sociologist Emily Rauscher has received funding from the Gilead Foundation to study how specific uses of school funds affect education and health outcomes.

PSTC Economist Oded Galor discusses how ancient factors like geography, culture and diversity impact today’s wealth inequality.

Mark Lurie, Associate Professor of Epidemiology and Director of the International Health Institute at Brown University, has received funding from the National Science Foundation to develop a complex simulation model for predicting and preventing future pandemics.

Eric Loucks, Associate Professor of Epidemiology and Director of the Mindfulness Center at Brown University, offers ideas on how to begin a meditation regimen.

PSTC Economist Emily Oster highlights disparities within the overall decline in student test score growth due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Associate Professor of Education and Economics Matthew Kraft discusses compelling evidence for the implementation of high-cost, intensive, long-term tutoring as a tool in academic recovery from the pandemic.

PSTC Epidemiologist Mark Lurie explains how a major new Brown University initiative—the Center for Mobility Analysis for Pandemic Prevention Strategies, or MAPPS—could avoid another public health crisis like COVID-19.

PSTC Sociologist and Demographer Elizabeth Fussell explains why people remain in places threatened by climate crises, despite the hazards, in this USA Today investigative series.

Associate Professor of History Linford Fisher has received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to investigate and document Indigenous enslavement in the Americas between 1492 and 1900.

PSTC Economist Matthew Turner explains how proposed "congestion pricing" would disincentivize travel. “People reschedule their trips, or take them by a different mode, or don’t take them at all,” he said.

For the first time in the Center’s history, this semester, undergraduate students will be eligible to pursue the PSTC’s new Migration Studies Certificate.

Drawing upon his recent paper co-authored by Annenberg Institute post doc Josh Bleiberg, PSTC affiliate Matt Kraft explains the difficulty of studying the teacher labor market in real time and the need for better data systems.

The tribal collaborative database project, led by PSTC affiliate Linford Fisher, seeks to understand settler colonialism and its impact through the lens of Indigenous enslavement and unfreedom.

Professor Omar Galárraga's work is featured at the 24th International AIDS Conference on "Behavioral Economics and Conditional Incentives to Strengthen HIV Treatment and Prevention: Actioning the Science"

This summer, the Population Studies and Training Center (PSTC) launched a new undergraduate research initiative.

"Those who were deployed at bases where burn pits were used clearly had exposure to agents that are known to be harmful," said PSTC Epidemiologist David Savitz, speaking about the negative health outcomes associated with military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan where burn pits were used to dispose of waste from 2010 to 2015.

Assistant Professor of Population Studies Maria Steenland has received funding from the National Institutes of Health to investigate whether postpartum outcomes vary between foreign-born and U.S.-born low-income women.

Over the last year, the PSTC is pleased to have welcomed several new staff members.

PSTC faculty member & dean of public health Dr. Megan Ranney talks about the importance of treating gun violence the same way we treat other public health crises – before it lands people in the ER.

PSTC Researcher Elizabeth Fussell gave the keynote address at last month's meeting of the Geographical Sciences Committee at the National Academies of Sciences.

In a podcast produced by the Brookings Institution, PSTC Economist Anna Aizer discussed how economic shocks can have outsize effects on children, interrupting their growth and development.

PSTC Anthropologists Kate Mason and Andrea Flores, in collaboration with anthropologist Sarah Willen, are investigating the effects of the pandemic on first-generation college students and their parents.

Dear Graduates...

Brown researchers found that Ethiopian youth who develop high career expectations in early adolescence are more likely to delay first sex, a key predictor of age at first marriage for young women.

Dr. Megan Ranney says exposure to gun violence at school can have lifelong consequences for students and communities.

The PSTC Undergraduate Fellows Program is an eight-week, paid summer fellowship that aims to prepare current Brown undergraduates to engage in rigorous empirical research in population studies, public policy and related fields, in support of the center’s mission to produce evidence in support of efforts to improve public health and inform public policy. 

Anthropology trainee Argenis Hurtado Moreno has been named a 2022 Ford Foundation PreDoctoral Fellow.

In his recently published book, Daniel Jordan Smith highlights Nigerian resilience amidst inadequate government support.

Reducing congestion and its problems of pollution and carbon emissions won’t be easy or cheap. But transportation experts continue to search for answers.

Assistant Professor of International and Public Affairs and Sociology Jayanti Owens, who studies gender and racial disparities in education, says the lack of time for play in many schools can be tough on boys in particular.

PSTC economist Terry-Ann Craigie explores how mass incarceration negatively impacts the female partners of male inmates.

PSTC sociologist Elizabeth Fussell comments on environmental migrants.

PSTC economist John Friedman comments on persistent economic inequality in the context of the pandemic.

In her new book, The Succeeders: How Immigrant Youth Are Transforming What It Means to Belong in America, cultural anthropologist and PSTC Faculty Associate Andrea Flores examines the complex relationship between US immigrant communities and educational mobility.

PSTC epidemiologist Mark Lurie commented on the current state of the COVID-19 crisis and what the coming months might hold.

PSTC sociologist John Logan commented on the findings of the 2020 Census.

David Lindstrom presented work in late July to Ethiopian policymakers.

This opinion piece by David Brooks cites PSTC sociologist David Lindstrom's work on Mexican immigrant integration.

We checked in with the 2020-2021 T32 fellowship recipients to find out about their current research.

The New York Times profiles PSTC economist Emily Oster's research on reopening schools during the COVID-19 pandemic.