The Population Research Center (PRC) of the University of Texas at Austin (UT) requests a 6th renewal of its T32 NICHD Training Grant in Population Studies. The PRC has outstanding research and training programs, addressing a broad array of health-related issues. Its focus falls particularly in five thematic areas: Health Disparities, Children, Families and Youth, Religion and Families, Education and the Transition to Adulthood, and Latin American Demography. Building on our recent growth and tremendous productivity, the proposed training program continues to seek to enlarge and academically broaden our previous program, and we request six pre-doctoral trainees and two post-doctoral trainees to be shared between the Departments of Sociology and Human Ecology. Our request is a modest expansion of our current program of 5 pre-doctoral and 1 post-doctoral trainees. The PRC offers an outstanding training environment, and the center's accomplishments are evidenced by: a) the very enthusiastic response to our recent R24 center grant renewal;b) a grant portfolio that is, by far, the largest in PRC history;c) the significant number of new faculty members who are active and productive members;d) our research productivity in terms of journal articles, books, chapters, and conference presentations;e) the training program's success in recruiting minority faculty and students, and f) our recent substantial successes in placing our graduates in leading academic, postdoctoral, and research positions throughout the country. The proposed addition of a second postdoctoral trainee is also consistent with the strong set of funded projects characterizing each of our five thematic research areas, and our substantial successes in hosting and placing seven postdoctoral scholars over the past five years. The potential of the PRC to continue to support and place postdoctoral fellows over the next five years is outstanding. The broadening of our training program reflects the increasingly interdisciplinary nature of population research at the PRC and throughout the discipline. The PRC has a very productive and academically broad group of researchers, with the greatest concentration in the Departments of Sociology and Human Ecology, in that order, but also enjoys strong faculty participation from a number of other campus units. The student talent at the PRC is extensive and diverse, with a current set of 72 pre-doctoral trainees participating in the PRC's graduate training program. This application outlines the structure of the training program, including coursework and ethics training, and our plans to build on the PRC's outstanding record in the professional development and training of minority scholars. In sum, we request support to continue our success in serving the PRC training mission to generate highly trained, and highly ethical, researchers in Population Studies.
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