Feb 15, 2019

On Friday, February 8^th, the Carolina Population Center hosted a Hackathon for pre- and postdoctoral scholars to compete in designing a research project proposal. The four teams, each comprised of four trainees from different disciplines and at different levels of study, convened for just over two hours to propose a research design to address the following prompt:

In-migrants often exhibit better health than destination populations. Identify one instance in which you think this is true and propose a study that answers the following questions:
–              To what extent is the health advantage due to self-selection?
–              What might account for this selection?
–              Identify and measure one of the mechanisms involved.

Dr. Barbara Entwisle, CPC Training Programs Director, introduced the distinguished panel of judges: Dr. Joanna Asia Maselko, Associate Professor of Epidemiology; Dr. Paul Leslie, Professor of Anthropology; and Dr. Ted Mouw, Professor of Sociology.  She also described the criteria upon which teams would be scored. Teams then broke off into conference rooms to develop the potential research project, and prepare a 5-minute presentation, followed by 5 minutes of Q&A. The following teams competed:

Teams:

1)      The Biosocial Squad
2)      Mr. Robot on Life Tables
3)      Sea Peace Seers
4)      Hack Life

Judging criteria:

• Does the presentation effectively address the question?
• How creative is the research design?
• What is the likelihood that the design actually has the potential to push population science forward in this area of study?
• How clear and focused is the research design?

The top prize went to the Biosocial Squad (Paul Zivich, Natalie Smith, Andi Goodwin, and Rae Anne Martinez) for their study proposal to examine migration from Venezuela to Colombia following economic disruption, using date cut points as a proxy for voluntary versus involuntary migration.  The runner-up was the Sea Peace Seers for their proposal to study asthma in a prospective cohort of Polish immigrants following BREXIT.

Prizes:

• Certificates of recognition
• Dinner at a Chapel Hill restaurant of team’s choice ($200 value)
• Select a speaker for the Fall 2019 Friday Seminar Series
• Lunch with selected Friday Seminar Series Speaker ($100 value)
• $25 gift cards to a local Chapel Hill coffee shop to top prize winners and runners up