IPR Offers Methodological Training Grounds

Fall, 2008, Volume 30, Number 2

Christopher Kuzawa and Emma Adam (center) show participants how to pack biomarker samples for transport.

Over the summer, more than 150 researchers from around the country participated in one of four sessions on methodological training offered by five IPR faculty organizers. In addition to the two-week workshop on randomized controlled trials for education researchers (see story on Methods), there were two weeklong sessions on quasi-experimental methods and another on biomarker training.

The sessions on quasi-experimental methods were run by Thomas D. Cook, Joan and Sarepta Harrison Chair in Ethics and Justice and IPR faculty fellow, and William Shadish of the University of California, Merced. The Spencer Foundation provided support for the workshops, which aim to share best practices on quasi-experimental design and analysis, especially in the field of education.

The Summer Biomarker Institute, sponsored by IPR’s Cells to Society (C2S): The Center on Social Disparities and Health, was held from June 9 to 11 at Northwestern. Three IPR faculty fellows and associate professors—Thomas McDade and Christopher Kuzawa in anthropology and Emma Adam in human development and social policy—organize the annual summer institute. Through a series of hands-on activities and workshops, participants learned state-of-the-art methods for integrating biomarkers into population-based social science research. The workshop also seeks to develop a community of scholars around these objective measures of health.