18th NIH Matilda White Riley Distinguished Lecture, Presented by Robert Hummer
2025-08-28 14:30 - 16:00 (America/New_York)
Register for the Webinar
CPC Fellow Robert Hummer will deliver the 18th National Institutes of Health (NIH) Matilda White Riley Distinguished Lecture on August 28.
This presentation will focus on the history, theoretical and substantive motivations, empirical contributions, innovations in recent data collection, and preliminary descriptive findings from Wave VI of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health).
Add Health is one of the most innovative and widely used nationally representative longitudinal studies of Americans ever undertaken. It provides data for thousands of researchers around the world to more fully understand the multilevel (biological, survey, contextual) life course factors that contribute to health and health disparities among U.S. adolescents and adults.
The presentation will describe the origins of Add Health and how it has evolved over 30 years. Significant attention will be given to the recently completed wave (Wave VI) of data collection and the preliminary descriptive insights from this new dataset, which will soon be publicly available. The presentation will conclude with information on how to access Add Health data.
Robert A. Hummer, Ph.D., is the Howard W. Odum Distinguished Professor of Sociology and fellow of the Carolina Population Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He served as the 2021 president of the Population Association of America and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2023. His research focuses on the accurate documentation and more complete understanding of health and mortality disparities in the United States. He is currently director and principal investigator of the long-running Add Health study.
His teaching interests mirror those of his research. He teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on population health, health disparities, and the life course. Over his career, he has chaired 36 Ph.D. dissertations to completion and his students have gone on to positions in leading academic and government institutions throughout the United States, Latin America, and Asia.

Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series: Giovanna Merli
2025-09-05 12:00 - 13:00 | Carolina Square Room 2002, 123 W. Franklin St, Chapel Hill, NC, 27516
Giovanna Merli will present as part of the Carolina Population Center’s 2025-2026 Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series.
Topic: Ghanaian Migrant Health Study: Findings from a Feasibility Study
M. Giovanna Merli is Professor of Public Policy, Sociology and Global Health and Director of the Duke University Population Research Institute. Her work straddles demography, Chinese population, society and Chinese diasporas, migration, global health. Her research interests include population and health issues that intersect frontline public policy; the social and behavioral determinants of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases; the evaluation of network-based methods to recruit population representative samples of hard-to-survey, hidden or rare populations; and the application of network sampling approaches to the study of migration and health.

Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series: Lisa Pearce
2025-09-12 12:00 - 13:00 | Carolina Square Room 2002, 123 W. Franklin St, Chapel Hill, NC, 27516
Lisa Pearce will present as part of the Carolina Population Center’s 2025-2026 Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series.
Topic: Specifying Family as a Context for Health during Pregnancy
Lisa D. Pearce is Professor and Chair in the Department of Sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is also a Faculty Fellow at the Carolina Population Center. Her research examines how religions and families shape ideas and actions in youth and through the transition to adulthood–in the U.S. and Nepal.

Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series: Libby McClure
2025-09-19 12:00 - 13:00 | Carolina Square Room 2002, 123 W. Franklin St, Chapel Hill, NC, 27516
Libby McClure will present as part of the Carolina Population Center’s 2025-2026 Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series.
Topic: Epidemiology as a Tool for Environmental Justice
Libby McClure is an occupational epidemiologist with several years of experience conducting community-engaged research projects as well as large-scale records-based disease and mortality studies. McClure’s research background is rooted in environmental justice and addresses community concerns. She employs collaborative methodologies to engage with stakeholders and study how communities facing occupational and environmental hazards experience and challenge oppression in their daily lives.

Demography Daze
2025-09-26 13:00 - 17:00 | Gross Hall, Duke University, 140 Science Dr, Durham, NC, 27708, United States
11th Annual Demography Daze
Duke University Population Research Institute (DUPRI) and Carolina Population Center (CPC)
Gross Hall, Room 330, Duke University
Conference Moderators: Hedwig Lee (DUPRI) and Karen Guzzo (CPC)

Schedule
1:00-2:15: General Session I. Social, Economic, and Health Disparities

Jessie West • Duke • Assistant Professor of Head and Neck Surgery & Communication Sciences
The Impact of Hearing Loss on Hospitalizations among U.S. Adults with Heart Failure
Lisa Pearce • UNC • Professor and Chair of Sociology
Measuring Families as Networks
Hanzhang Xu • Duke • Associate Professor in the School of Nursing
Characterizing Family Structure, Care Utilization, and Well-Being among Persons with ADRD: A Global Perspective
Melanie Escue • UNC Pembroke • Assistant Professor of Sociology & Shaohu Zhang • NC A&T • Assistant Professor of Computer Science
Insights from an Interdisciplinary NC Collaboratory Project: The Influence of the Built Environment on Health in NC

2:15-2:30 Break
2:30-3:15: Flash Talk Session

Paul Delamater • UNC • Associate Professor of Geography
Enhancing an Individual-Level Synthetic Population Dataset for North Carolina
Hema Shah • Duke • PhD Candidate in Economics
Class Rank and Student Disability Classification
Taylor Riley • UNC • Postdoctoral Trainee at the Carolina Population Center
Population Health Consequences of Pregnancy Criminalization
Kate Bundorf • Duke • Professor in the Sanford School of Public Policy
How Does Managed Care Affect Contraception Use? The Case of North Carolina Medicaid
Jane Fruehwirth • UNC • Professor of Economics
Lasting Effects: An Econometric Framework for Resilience
Sarah Komisarow • Duke • Assistant Professor in the Sanford School of Public Policy
School-Based Support for Children’s Mental Health: Evidence from North Carolina

3:15-3:30 Break
3:30-5:00: General Session II: Policies and Demographic Processes

Wenhao Jiang • Duke • Assistant Professor of Sociology
Economic Crisis and the Discipline of Work Time
Justin Sola • UNC • Assistant Professor of Sociology
Won’t You Be my Neighbor? Mapping Spatial Preferences
Arkadev Ghosh • Duke • Assistant Professor of Economics
The Melting Pot: Industrialization and Integration in America
Tara Templin • UNC • Assistant Professor of Health Policy and Management
The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Food Prices, and Obesity in Mexico

Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series: Karen Guzzo
2025-10-10 12:00 - 13:00 | Carolina Square Room 2002, 123 W. Franklin St, Chapel Hill, NC, 27516
Carolina Population Center Director Karen Guzzo will present as part of the Carolina Population Center’s 2025-2026 Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series.
Topic: Low Fertility and Pronatalism in the U.S.
Karen Guzzo is a family demographer who studies family formation behaviors in the United States. Much of her work examines trends and patterns in childbearing goals and behaviors, primarily using survey data. She is interested in whether and when people have children and under what circumstances – and the factors that influences childbearing attitudes, preferences, and behaviors. She also studies changes in relationship formation and stability – why people do, or do not, date, live with a partner, or get married, and the stability of relationships among individuals and across cohorts over time.

University Research Week: Ted Mouw
2025-10-22 12:00 - 13:00 | Carolina Square Room 2002, 123 W. Franklin St, Chapel Hill, NC, 27516
Ted Mouw will give a presentation as part of University Research Week.
Topic: Using UNC’s Research Data Center to analyze local demographic micro data: An example using post-hurricane migration patterns
Ted Mouw is a sociologist who studies labor markets, immigration, and social networks. His current research involves the mobility of low-wage workers, the economic incorporation of immigrants, and methods to collect samples from rare or hidden populations using social networks.
Zoom Information:
https://unc.zoom.us/j/91688974418?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 916 8897 4418
Passcode: [REDACTED]

Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series: Kelly Giovanello
2025-10-24 12:00 - 13:00 | Carolina Square Room 2002, 123 W. Franklin St, Chapel Hill, NC, 27516
Kelly Giovanello will present as part of the Carolina Population Center’s 2025-2026 Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series.
Topic: Ultra-High Resolution Neuroimaging of Hippocampal Subfields in Healthy Aging
Kelly Giovanello is the Senior Associate Dean for Research and Innovation in the College of Arts and Sciences. The senior associate dean for research and innovation is a member of the dean’s senior leadership team and works closely with the senior associate deans in the College and with the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research, Innovate Carolina, the UNC Institute for Convergent Science and other units throughout the University to support College faculty and Carolina’s research mission as an R1 university. This position serves all parts of the College, including the natural sciences, social sciences and arts and humanities.

Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series: Sarah Petry
2025-10-31 12:00 - 13:00 | Carolina Square Room 2002, 123 W. Franklin St, Chapel Hill, NC, 27516
Sarah Petry will present as part of the Carolina Population Center’s 2025-2026 Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series.
Topic: The Years Before Medicare: Expected Health Insurance Transitions
Sarah Petry is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Population Science Training Program at the Carolina Population Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Sarah received her PhD in Public Policy with a concentration in Sociology from Duke University in 2023. Sarah is a mixed-methods demographer specializing in policy determinants of health and wellbeing across the life course. Her research investigates how state-level health and social policies replicate, worsen, or alleviate health inequities from birth until death, particularly for marginalized populations in the US. Her work has been published in journals including Social Policy and Administration, the Journal of Aging and Social Policy, and Public Administration Review.

Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series: Ross Boyce
2025-11-07 12:00 - 13:00 | Carolina Square Room 2002, 123 W. Franklin St, Chapel Hill, NC, 27516
Ross Boyce will present as part of the Carolina Population Center’s 2025-2026 Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series.
Topic: Without an ark: baseline demographics of residents living in a flood-prone area of rural western Uganda
Dr. Boyce’s research interests include the epidemiology and control of vector-borne diseases both in the United States and internationally (Uganda).
Dr. Ross Boyce is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine with a joint appointment in the Department of Epidemiology at the Gillings School of Global Public Health.

Webinar on Creating Visual Abstracts
2025-11-12 14:30 - 15:30 | Carolina Square Room 2002, 123 W. Franklin St, Chapel Hill, NC, 27516
CPC Communication Specialist Grayson Mendenhall will give a presentation on how to create a visual abstract for a research article from 2:30-3:30 p.m. on November 12 in Carolina Square 2002 and via Zoom.
Visual Abstracts are summaries of the information usually found in the abstract portion of a journal article. This workshop is open to faculty, staff, trainees, and external affiliates.
Zoom link

Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series: Jimi Adams
2025-11-14 12:00 - 13:00
University of South Carolina Professor Jimi Adams will present as part of the Carolina Population Center’s 2025-2026 Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series.
Topic: Multiplex Closure in Adolescent Romantic and Friendship Networks.
Adams studies how networks constrain or promote the diffusion of information and/or diseases through populations. Much of this work has focused on HIV/AIDS and Covid-19 among populations in the US and Sub-Saharan Africa. Recently, his work has focused more on the integrative patterns and processes in problem-focused areas of science that draw from many academic disciplines (e.g., HIV/AIDS, demography, the environment). In addition, his work entails a focus on using social network theory to improve strategies used in the design and implementation of primary data collection projects.

Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series: Neil O’Brian
2025-11-21 12:00 - 13:00 | Carolina Square Room 2002, 123 W. Franklin St, Chapel Hill, NC, 27516
University of North Carolina Assistant Professor of Political Science Neil O’Brian will present as part of the Carolina Population Center’s 2025-2026 Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series.
Topic: Partisan Prescriptions: Polarization of Trust and Health Outcomes
O’Brian’s research agenda focuses on political polarization ranging from its root causes in the 20th century to its material impacts on individuals’ welfare and experiences in the contemporary era.

Carolina Center for Population Aging and Health Launch Event
2026-01-16 12:00 - 13:00 | Carolina Square Room 2002, 123 W. Franklin St, Chapel Hill, NC, 27516

Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series: Rafiuddin Najam
2026-01-23 12:00 - 13:00 | Carolina Square Room 2002, 123 W. Franklin St, Chapel Hill, NC, 27516
Rafiuddin Najam will present as part of the Carolina Population Center’s 2025-2026 Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series.
Topic: TBD

Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series: Vida Maralani
2026-01-30 12:00 - 13:00 | Carolina Square Room 2002, 123 W. Franklin St, Chapel Hill, NC, 27516
Vida Maralani will present as part of the Carolina Population Center’s 2025-2026 Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series.
Topic: Does Education Equalize? Racial Differences in Breastfeeding by Education from 1930 to 2015

Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series: Rui Jie Peng
2026-02-06 12:00 - 13:00 | Carolina Square Room 2002, 123 W. Franklin St, Chapel Hill, NC, 27516
Rui Jie Peng will present as part of the Carolina Population Center’s 2025-2026 Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series.
Topic: The Other Side of Migration: How Qiang Women Reproduce Migration from China’s Margins

Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series: Kate Harwood
2026-02-13 12:00 - 13:00 | Carolina Square Room 2002, 123 W. Franklin St, Chapel Hill, NC, 27516
Kate Harwood will present as part of the Carolina Population Center’s 2025-2026 Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series.
Topic: Forces of Change in Rental Housing: Implications for Tenants and Policy

Biosocial Symposium and Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series: Naomi Duke
2026-02-20 12:00 - 13:00
Naomi Duke will present as part of the Carolina Population Center’s 2025-2026 Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series and Biosocial Symposium.

Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series: Misa Graff
2026-02-27 12:00 - 13:00 | Carolina Square Room 2002, 123 W. Franklin St, Chapel Hill, NC, 27516
Misa Graff will present as part of the Carolina Population Center’s 2025-2026 Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series and Biosocial Symposium.
Topic: Multi-Omics of Aging Across the Life Course in the Border Health Research Cohort.

Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series: Alexis Dennis
2026-03-06 12:00 - 13:00
Alexis Dennis will present as part of the Carolina Population Center’s 2025-2026 Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series.
Topic: Colorblind Data, Racialized Outcomes: Urban Segregation, Health Inequality, and the Limits of Population Data in Canada

Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series: Bussarawan "Puk" Teerawichitchainan
2026-03-27 12:00 - 13:00
Bussarawan “Puk” Teerawichitchainan will present as part of the Carolina Population Center’s 2025-2026 Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series.
Topic: Aging with Limited Kin: Childlessness and Care Arrangements in Singapore and Thailand

J. Richard Udry Distinguished Lecture Series: Eileen Crimmins
2026-04-09 15:30 - 17:00 | Dey Hall 238
Eileen Cummins will present the 2026 J. Richard Udry Distinguished Lecture in Dey Hall’s Toy Lounge (Dey 238).
Topic: Hallmarks of Aging from Geroscience, Medical Science, and Social Science

Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series: Aresha Martinez-Cardoso
2026-04-17 12:00 - 13:00 | Carolina Square Room 2002, 123 W. Franklin St, Chapel Hill, NC, 27516
Aresha Martinez-Cardoso will present as part of the Carolina Population Center’s 2025-2026 Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series.
Topic: TBD

Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series: Emilio Parrado
2026-04-24 12:00 - 13:00 | Carolina Square Room 2002, 123 W. Franklin St, Chapel Hill, NC, 27516
Emilio Parrado will present as part of the Carolina Population Center’s 2025-2026 Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series.
Topic: The Great Dispersion: Geography, Diversity, and Opportunity among Latinos in the United States
