Blooming Brushstrokes: A Spring Painting Experience
The “Blooming Brushstrokes: A Spring Painting Experience” event is designed to bring together students for an afternoon of creativity, relaxation, and team building, while celebrating the vibrant season of spring in Boston. As the city comes alive with blossoming flowers and warmer weather, this event offers a unique opportunity for students to engage in a fun, instructor-led painting session that fosters collaboration and creativity.
Note: The painting session is covered by the HCSGA. However, students are responsible for arranging their transportation. If using public transit, take the Green Line from Brigham Circle; at North Station, transfer to the Orange Line; exit the train at Assembly station. From there, it’s just an 8-minute walk to Muse PaintBar.
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Epidemiology of Autism: Substantive Results and Methodological Issues
Abstract: Since the mid 1960’s, 165 prevalence surveys of autism were conducted worldwide and their main findings will first be summarized. While the contribution of genetic factors to autism etiology is high, the increase in autism prevalence has raised concerns about additional contribution of environmental factors. Autism risk has been statistically associated with myriads of exposures but, with few exceptions, the causal nature of these associations remains unproven. Estimates are often confounded and results do not replicate across samples and study designs. We review recent findings on select risk factors to illustrate current methodological issues relevant to this research domain.
Bio: Dr. Eric Fombonne trained in child and adolescent psychiatry in France. He held academic appointments at INSERM (Paris, France), at the Institute of Psychiatry (London, UK), at McGill University (Canada), and at OHSU (Portland, Oregon, USA). He has a long experience of clinical work with children with autism and their families, and of research on this population, especially using epidemiological methods. He published over 380 articles and 50 chapters in books. He was Associate Editor of the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders (1994-2004) and is currently Joint Editor of Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry.
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Eric Fombonne, MD
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Fine-Mapping Causal Tissues and Genes at Disease-Associated Loci
Abstract: Complex diseases often have distinct mechanisms spanning multiple tissues. We propose Tissue-Gene Fine-Mapping (TGFM), which infers the posterior probability (PIP) for each gene-tissue pair to mediate a disease locus by analyzing summary statistics and eQTL data; TGFM also assigns PIPs to non-mediated variants. TGFM accounts for co-regulation across genes and tissues and models uncertainty in cis-predicted expression models, enabling correct calibration. We applied TGFM to 45 UK Biobank diseases/traits using eQTL data from 38 GTEx tissues. TGFM identified an average of 147 PIP>0.5 causal genetic elements per disease/trait, of which 11% were gene-tissue pairs. Causal gene-tissue pairs identified by TGFM reflected both known biology (e.g., TPO-thyroid for Hypothyroidism) and biologically plausible findings (e.g., SLC20A2-artery aorta for Diastolic blood pressure). Application of TGFM to single-cell eQTL data from 9 cell types in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC), analyzed jointly with GTEx tissues, identified 30 additional causal gene-PBMC cell type pairs.
Bio:
Alkes Price
Dr. Price is a professor in the Program in Genetic Epidemiology and Statistical Genetics in the Department of Epidemiology at Harvard Chan, with a secondary appointment in the Department of Biostatistics. He is an associate member of the Program in Medical and Population Genetics at the Broad Institute, and a member of the Program in Quantitative Genomics at Harvard Chan. Dr. Price received a Ph.D. in mathematics and M.S.E. in computer science from the University of Pennsylvania. His post-doctoral training was mentored by Dr. Pavel Pevzner in the department of computer science at UCSD and Dr. David Reich in the department of genetics at Harvard Medical School. He has been a faculty member at Harvard Chan since 2008. Dr. Price’s research focuses on the development of statistical methods for uncovering the genetic basis of human disease, and on the population genetics underlying these methods. Areas of interest include functional components of disease heritability, common vs. rare variant architectures of disease, and disease mapping in structured populations.
Ben Strober
Dr. Strober is a post-doctoral researcher in the Department of Epidemiology at Harvard School of Public Health supervised by Dr. Alkes Price. He completed his Ph.D. in 2021 in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Johns Hopkins University with Dr. Alexis Battle. Dr. Strober’s research focuses on context-specific genetic regulation of gene expression, and understanding its contribution to the genetic architecture of complex traits and disease.
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Alkes Price, PhD
Ben Strober
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Harvard Pop Center Social Demography Seminar: “Digital data for demographic estimation: Applications to the study of environmental hazards”
Jenna Nobles, PhD, professor of demography, University of California-Berkeley, presents at this Social Demography Seminar.
The Social Demography Seminar (SDS) series at the Center for Population and Development Studies provides a lively forum for scholars from across the university to discuss in-progress social scientific and population research. Social demography includes work that uses demographic methods to describe and explain the distribution of social goods across populations. The hybrid series offers presentations on a wide variety of topics such as family, gender, race/ethnicity, population health—including mortality, morbidity, and functional health—inequality, immigration, fertility, and the institutional arrangements that shape and respond to population processes.
Speaker Information
Jenna Nobles, PhD
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Clitoris Class! by the Sexual and Reproductive Health Club
The Harvard Chan Sexual and Reproductive Health Club presents:
🔍 The Clitoris Class: A Public Health Mystery & Revolution 🎉
Did you know the first complete 3D map of the clitoris wasn’t published until 2005— after the iPhone, YouTube, and even Google Maps? From what your high school sex education and medical education may not have taught you to the science of how the clitoris actually works, this one-hour peer-to-peer class unpacks its history, function, and why it matters for public health. Get ready for a fun, eye-opening deep dive into the most misunderstood organ in medicine!
Lunch will be provided
Facilitated by Karishma Swarup, Mili Adhikari, Uma Gaddamanugu!
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Population Research Exchange: “Hong Kong’s Elderly Biobank: An invaluable resource for global healthy aging promotion”
Jane Zhao, PhD, assistant professor of epidemiology and biostatistics, Hong Kong University, and Takemi Fellow, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, presents at this Population Research Exchange (PRX).
PRX delivers timely information on population science research and resources in a variety of formats. Each event features a different topic/theme by way of a special event, seminar, work-in-progress, mini methods workshop, resource information session, etc. Affiliated faculty members, students, and researchers share their current and future work, and some weeks we welcome guests who present on important resources available to Harvard scholars. In a true “exchange” format, lively dialogue and interchange occurs among attendees.
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Jane Zhao, PhD
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Harvard Pop Center Social Demography Seminar: “Intergenerational education and cognitive performance among older adults: A comparison between rural Mexico and South Africa”
Erika Meza, PhD, Harvard Bell Postdoctoral Fellow, Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies, presents at this Social Demography Seminar.
The Social Demography Seminar (SDS) series at the Center for Population and Development Studies provides a lively forum for scholars from across the university to discuss in-progress social scientific and population research. Social demography includes work that uses demographic methods to describe and explain the distribution of social goods across populations. The hybrid series offers presentations on a wide variety of topics such as family, gender, race/ethnicity, population health—including mortality, morbidity, and functional health—inequality, immigration, fertility, and the institutional arrangements that shape and respond to population processes.
Speaker Information
Erika Meza, PhD
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Social Demography Seminar: “The impact of social services on the well-being and sense of belonging of older Hispanic immigrants”
Rocío Calvo, PhD, professor of global practice, Boston College School of Social Work presents at this Social Demography Seminar.
The Social Demography Seminar (SDS) series at the Center for Population and Development Studies provides a lively forum for scholars from across the university to discuss in-progress social scientific and population research. Social demography includes work that uses demographic methods to describe and explain the distribution of social goods across populations. The hybrid series offers presentations on a wide variety of topics such as family, gender, race/ethnicity, population health—including mortality, morbidity, and functional health—inequality, immigration, fertility, and the institutional arrangements that shape and respond to population processes.
Speaker Information
Rocío Calvo, PhD
Organizers
Building Foundations: Addressing Housing Insecurity to Improve Child Health
Abstract: The ongoing housing affordability crisis in the US poses significant challenges to the wellbeing of children. In this presentation, I will provide an overview of the relationship between housing instability and children’s health drawing on a range of recent studies. I will also describe evidence from both quasi-experimental and experimental research to demonstrate how housing interventions can mitigate negative impacts and promote healthier outcomes for children.
Bio: Dr. Natalie Slopen is a social epidemiologist with a focus on child development, health equity, and life course theory. She is an Associate Professor in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health. Dr. Slopen’s research focuses on how social and environmental factors influence health and well-being in childhood and across the lifespan. Her work, encompassing both observational and experimental studies, aims to generate insights that can shape effective policies and programs to promote health equity.
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Natalie Slopen, ScD
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Epidemiologic Methods and Data Science: Stronger Together
Abstract: Epidemiologic methods often focus on a statistical model as the main step to getting “the” result. This talk will attempt to widen the perspective on epidemiologic methods. How do we develop and communicate our research plans in a team? How do the numbers from a regression model make it into a table in a manuscript? Practical examples will be shown how standard approaches from data science and free software packages can speed up our work in epidemiology and improve its reproducibility. As a corollary, epidemiology-minded data science might not just need to be a core component in the training of the next generation of epidemiologists, but can in turn also help teach epidemiologic methods.
Bio: Konrad Stopsack leads the Department of Epidemiological Methods and Etiological Research at the Leibniz Institute for Prevention Research and Epidemiology – BIPS in Bremen, Germany. His applied research focuses on molecular and cancer epidemiology. His methodologic and teaching interests include application and further development of epidemiologic methods to improve reproducibility, interpretability, and efficiency of epidemiologic studies.