Andrew Read to host conversation focused on executive action affecting research
The Penn State community is invited to attend a conversation hosted by Penn State Senior Vice President for Research Andrew Read at 1:45 p.m. on May 28 at the University Park campus and live online. The conversation will provide an opportunity for faculty, staff and students to engage in dialogue…
SSRI celebrates major accomplishments and staff awards
Faculty and staff from all of SSRI's units recently gathered at the Nittany Lion Inn to celebrate major accomplishments of the year and to announce staff awards.
The “Above and Beyond Award” was presented to Kassidy McElwee of the Child Maltreatment Solutions Network, and Valerie Keppenne and Mindi…
Ending Automatic Birthright Citizenship Would Significantly Increase the Size of the U.S. Unauthorized Population, New Projections Show
Ending birthright citizenship for babies born on U.S. soil to unauthorized immigrants or certain other non-citizens would have a contrary result from its stated aim of reducing the unauthorized immigrant population. New estimates from the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) and Penn State’s Population…
Groundbreaking survey conducted across three major US regions sheds light on household and community well-being
A new data initiative by the Regional Rural Development Centers has produced an open access dataset available to all researchers nationally. Collected in a groundbreaking, multi-region Baseline Survey 2024, the household-level dataset establishes a baseline to inform policy decisions, community…
Expanding Empathy Series returns for discussions on empathy and morality
The Consortium on Moral Decision-Making’s Expanding Empathy Speaker Series returns for its seventh consecutive year starting Thursday, May 8.
Organizer Daryl Cameron, Sherwin Early Career Professor in the Rock Ethics Institute and director of the Consortium on Moral…
Why Social Science? - Because We Need Good Data to Predict the Future
This month's Why Social Science? post comes from Mark Mather and Beth Jarosz from the Population Reference Bureau who write about the importance of demography and how it can help community leaders, policymakers, business leaders, advocates, and residents plan effectively for a…
SSRI celebrates two staff retirements
Betsy Beck and Joe Broniszewski recently celebrated their retirements from SSRI with a party to honor their years of service at Penn State.
Betsy spent the last five years of her 19-year Penn State career as a senior administrative coordinator at SSRI. Previously she was with IST, Smeal…
Kowalkowski Awarded the Lloyd Prize for Innovative Health Research
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The Social Science Research Institute (SSRI) is thrilled to announce Jennifer Kowalkowski is the winner of the 2025 Lloyd Prize for Innovative Health Research.
Kowalkowski is an assistant professor of nursing at the Penn State Ross and Carol Nese College of…
How safe is the air to breathe? 50 million people in the US don't know
In 2024, more than 50 million people in the United States lived in counties with no air-quality monitoring, according to a new study from researchers in the Penn State College of Health and Human Development.
Rural counties — especially counties in the Midwest and South — were less likely to have…
High school experiences linked to midlife body weight
High schools have long been recognized for shaping students’ futures. According to a new study by researchers from Penn State, the University of Texas, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Minnesota, high schools may even contribute to how much a person weighs later in life.…
Political Morality Conference to be held at Penn State
Penn State’s Consortium on Moral Decision-Making will be hosting a hybrid conference on political polarization and moral decision-making on Friday, April 25, at Foster Auditorium in Paterno Library and live-streamed on Zoom.
According to consortium director Daryl Cameron,…
Penn State social scientists support federal research funding at COSSA Day
A distinguished delegation of Penn State researchers traveled to Washington, D.C., March 24-25, to participate in the annual Consortium of Social Science Association's (COSSA) Social Science Advocacy Day. The event brought together social and behavioral scientists from across the nation to engage…
Latino Research Seed Grant Program
The Penn State Harrisburg, Penn State College of the Liberal Arts (CLA), Penn State Social Science Research Institute (SSRI) and Pennsylvania Center for Latino Research (PaCLR) are pleased to announce the 2025 Latino Research Seed Grant Program to support innovative interdisciplinary collaborations…
This Week in Immigration Podcast: "Estimating the Unauthorized Immigrant Population"
In this week’s episode, BPC Senior Advisor Theresa Cardinal Brown sits down with Robert Warren from the Center for Migration Studies, Jeffrey Passel from the Pew Research Center, and Jennifer Van Hook from Penn State's Migration Policy Institute to discuss methodologies used to estimate the…
In many of Appalachia’s flood-ravaged areas, residents have little choice but rebuild in risky locations
By Kristina Brant, Assistant Professor of Rural Sociology and SSRI cofund, for The Conversation
On Valentine’s Day 2025, heavy rains started to fall in parts of rural Appalachia. Over the course of a few days, residents in eastern Kentucky watched as river levels rose and surpassed flood levels.…
Thiede featured at PopTalks on climate shocks in population research
Megatrends met migration patterns as we launched the all-new PopTalks conversation series, hosted by Columbia’s own Thoai Ngo and featuring Brian Thiede of the Population Research Institute (PRI) at Penn State. On February 17, 2025, nearly 130 in-person and virtual attendees gathered for a spirited…
Andrew Read to host conversation focused on executive action affecting research
The Penn State community is invited to attend a conversation hosted by Penn State Senior Vice President for Research Andrew Read at 11 a.m. on Feb. 28 at University Park campus and online. The conversation will provide an opportunity for faculty, staff and students to engage in dialogue with Read…
SSRI faculty to present at Climate Solutions Symposium
The two-day Penn State Climate Solutions Symposium, taking place May 19-20 at The Penn Stater Hotel and Conference Center, will highlight innovations from numerous disciplines through dynamic breakout sessions, keynote talks from leaders in the climate solutions space, a poster session, and more.…
Penn State rises in NSF Higher Education Research and Development rankings
Penn State has moved up two spots to No. 26 in the 2023 U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) Higher Education Research and Development (HERD) Survey, the most recently released rankings. The University also earned top 10 rankings in key research fields, including engineering, mathematics,…
Consortium on Moral Decision-Making Seed Grants Now Open
We’re re-opening the call for submissions and highly encourage teams to apply
The Consortium on Moral Decision-Making is seeking proposals for seed grants to support interdisciplinary research related to the conceptual and empirical study of human morality and ethical decision-making. …
New estimates reveal size and heterogeneity of unauthorized immigrant population
The Migration Policy Institute (MPI) recently released its latest estimates of the size of the U.S. unauthorized immigrant population, finding that between 2019 and 2023, the unauthorized immigrant population grew by 3 million, or an average of 6 percent per year. According to the MPI,…
Saunders named as 2024-25 cohort member of the Health Equity Scholars Program
Tracee Saunders, assistant professor of political science and Social Science Research Institute co-funded faculty member, was announced in fall 2024 as a member of the 2024-25 cohort of the Scholars Strategy Network (SSN)’s Health Equity Scholars Program (HESP).
This fellowship supports…
NIH cost recovery update
On Friday, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) — the world’s leading public funder of biomedical research — announced that the agency is making cuts to grants that support research institutions across the country by limiting the amount of indirect cost recovery for research projects to 15%.…
Who are immigrants to the US, where do they come from and where do they live?
This article was originally written for The Conversation by Jennifer Van Hook, PRI Director & Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Demography.
Undocumented immigration is a key issue in American politics, but it can be hard to nail down the basic facts about who these immigrants are, where…
New website provides updates related to executive action
Penn State recently launched a website to provide our community with information related to executive orders issued beginning in January 2025.
The site is a landing page with basic information about what is known at this time, and it will be updated as developments arise. Please note, this is…