Grad students in CSSS statistics courses present research projects in June 5 poster session
Graduate students from three advanced CSSS statistics courses presented their final course projects to the UW community on Monday, June 5, from 3-5 p.m. in HUB 334.
The three classes presenting at the session included:
- STAT/BIOST/CSSS 529: Sample Survey Techniques, taught Dr. Elena Erosheva
- STAT/CSSS 567: Statistical Analysis of Networks, taught by Dr. Tyler McCormick
- STAT/CSSS: Causal Modeling, taught by Dr. Thomas Richardson
More than 30 projects on display drew on statistical methodology taught in these courses to address a wide range of research questions in the social and health sciences. For example, in the Networks course, one student’s project was using statistical network analysis to identify patterns of social frailty among older Kenyan women living with HIV. Another student was examining the willingness of the University of Washington faculty to engage in interdisciplinary research.
In the Sample Survey course, projects included design or analyses of complex sample surveys. For example, one student presented a survey design for a study that will explore impacts to lower income parents of the 2021 U.S. federal expanded child tax credits (CTC). Specifically, the following questions will be explored: Did lower-income parents work more or less because of the Expanded CTC? Did lower-income parents spend the Expanded CTC differently than the various stimulus payments?
Another student designed a survey to study Rwandans snakebite cases in 2022; bites from venomous snakes are among the most common ailments in tropical regions, affecting about 2.7 million people per year. One other student was studying factors affecting public support for government surveillance in China using World Values Survey data obtained with GIS/GPS-assisted sampling.
Student projects using causal modeling included a model of how gender and race affect earnings. Another such project explored how tobacco legislation has impacted smoking prevalence.
The poster session was open to the UW community. We invited everyone to explore fascinating student projects while learning more about the many ways statistics can enrich social science research.
