TAMU Sociology Department was impressively represented at the Southern Demographic Association’s (SDA) Annual Meeting in Lexington, Kentucky.
SDA is currently led by our very own Dr. Joseph Lariscy as the President and Dr. Mary Campbell as the President Elect. Dr. Luna Chandna, our recent graduate, won the Everett S. Lee Graduate Paper Award.
Our current and former graduate students and an undergraduate student presented on their research. Undergraduate student from our department, Steven Yang, presented on his research together with Dr. Mary Campbell. First year PhD students, Chang Lu and Rafia Akter both presented on their research. Chang Lu's presentation was titled "Marital Assimilation Reconsidered: Intergenerational Socioeconomic Implications of Racial Intermarriage and Immigrant-Status Intermarriage for Asian Immigrants.”
Rafia Akter presented her collaborative project with Dr. Joseph Lariscy, examining lifespan variability across Canadian provinces and territories from 1950 to 2019 using the Canadian Human Mortality Database. She explored how lifespan variability differs across Canadian provinces and by sex, how each province and territory varies in lifespan inequality, and finally compared lifespan inequality between U.S. states and Canadian provinces and territories. She also reported some fascinating findings: nationally, variability declined over time, with women consistently showing lower variability than men. Compared with U.S. states, Canada generally has higher life expectancy and lower lifespan inequality, highlighting regional health disparities. Rafia also presided over the session on Migration.
Other presenters included graduate student Nereyda Y. Ortiz Osejo and Dr. Ernesto Amaral presenting their paper titled "Associated Factors to County-level U.S. Internal Migration using Exogenous and Endogenous Spatial Specifications" and a recent graduate student Dr. Megumi Sakamoto presenting two different papers on the role of organization type in emergency medical services. Dr. Mary Campbell also presented a co-authored work on intersectional inequities in cardiovascular health. Several talks were given by former graduate students who are now faculty at various universities.
Way to go to represent our department! Congratulations to everyone who presided, led, presented and won awards!