Please meet Elisabeth Wrigley-Field, a PANSOC Visiting Research Program Scholar 2023-24

The PANSOC visiting researcher program for the academic year 2023-24 have selected two researchers. Elizabeth Wrigley-Field | Minnesota Population Center (umn.edu) and Merle Eisenberg | Oklahoma State University (okstate.edu).

While Merle Eisenberg is joining us in May 2024, Elizabeth Wrigley-Field has been visiting PANSOC for the past few weeks and is staying a total of one month this fall. Wrigley-Field is a mortality demographer who studies social stratification in United States mortality in two contexts where infectious disease risk changed radically: the early twentieth century, when disease risk was falling but was punctuated by the terribly destructive 1918 flu pandemic, and the Covid-19 pandemic as it has evolved over the past several years.

Here at OsloMet, she is working with PANSOC researchers to develop new strategies to unravel an old puzzle: why did mortality to many other respiratory diseases, especially tuberculosis, fall so dramatically after the 1918 flu? Wrigley-Field is using her skills in social history and mathematical modeling to identify new empirical and modeling tests of the leading hypotheses, and is benefitting from the broad interdisciplinary discussions at PANSOC: its webinar series, journal club, and regular brainstorming sessions with pandemic researchers from across the social and biological sciences.

While here, she was awarded the Milbank Quarterly Early Career Award in Population Health from the Interdisciplinary Association for Population Health Science in the United States.

New guest researcher: Lauren Steele

Laureen Steele is PhD candidate at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia.

Her PhD thesis is looking at how host factors impacted disease severity during historical influenza pandemics, to inform on future pandemic preparedness. Steele is interested in host factors such as age, BMI, indigeneity, and prior infection history.

In the Fall of 2022, Steele was invited to join the project Social Science Meets Biology | CAS (cas-nor.no) at CAS (Centre for Advanced Study) in Oslo for several months to work on a paper describing the effect of measles on 1918 influenza outcomes in soldiers who fought in WW1.

This Fall, Steele has been invited back to Oslo to collaborate with researchers at PANSOC looking at age patterns of mortality during the influenza pandemics of the 20th Century.

Evi Juuti has been visiting us in August

Evi Juuti has been visiting PANSOC for two weeks in August.

Eevi Juuti is an architect, urban planner and a doctoral researcher at the University of Oulu specializing in the use of service design and design thinking in the context of built environment. She has also been working with topics concerning environmental health. Now she is working with RECIPE (Resistant Cities. Urban Planning as Means for Pandemic Prevention) project, which explores the relationship between built environments and pandemics.

Evi hold a talk at our webinar while here. You can read more about Evi and her projects here: First Fall 2023 Webinar: Built Environments and Pandemics – Centre for Research on Pandemics & Society (PANSOC) (oslomet.no) and also watch the recordings of her webinar talk here: Webinar Recording: Built Environments and Pandemics – Centre for Research on Pandemics & Society (PANSOC) (oslomet.no)

Natalie Bennett is visiting us 22-26 May, 2023.

Dr. Bennett is our second PANSOC visiting scholar this semester. Bennett is at the Population Health Sciences Institute, Faculty of Medical Sciences, Newcastle University.

Dr. Bennett is presenting two times this week at the Centre for Advanced study at the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. The first presentation is titled “Geographical inequalities in COVID-19 vaccination and mortality” and the second is a workshop on Structural Equation Modelling.

PANSOC centre leader, Svenn-Erik Mamelund, and Dr. Natalie Bennett

 

Call for Applications: Visiting Researcher Program 2023-2024

PANSOC welcomes applications for our Visiting Researcher program during the 2023-2024 academic year. Preference will be given to senior researchers with demonstrated potential for obtaining external funding.

Two applicants will be selected based on their research experience and interests and the requirement that they contribute concrete ideas for – and at least initial drafting of – grant proposals during their stay (minimum 2 weeks, preferably up to 4 weeks). These proposals will be led by the candidates with PANSOC as a partner and submitted to local funding bodies corresponding to the researchers’ affiliations/countries or to the Research Council of Norway or NordForsk with us as PI, as appropriate.

We encourage applications from researchers in all fields with interests in the social and biological aspects of historical, current, and future pandemics. We are particularly interested in topics such as:

  • Disparities in disease outcomes or impacts of public health measures based on socioeconomic, ethnic, health, and/or other inequalities.
  • Syndemic interactions with non-communicable diseases and chronic health conditions, including long-term health impacts of pandemics.
  • Relationships between infectious disease epidemics and other crises such as wars or extreme climate events/climate change.

The visiting researcher program will cover transportation costs to Oslo and accommodations up to 50,000 NOK.

Please send 1) a CV, 2) a description (1-2 pages) of your idea for a joint proposal, 3) tentative budget for the visit, and 4) anticipated timing or availability for travel to Oslo to Svenn-Erik Mamelund (masv@oslomet.no).

APPLICATION DEADLINE: 15 June 2023

Visiting Researcher Kristina Thompson

We were very happy to welcome Kristina Thompson, Assistant Professor of Health and Society at Wageningen University & Research, early this month as part of our Visiting Researchers Program. In addition to learning more about Kristina’s research, we also talked about potential future collaborations and enjoyed Oslo in winter.

Call for applications for Visiting Researcher Program to do research on Indigenous Peoples & Pandemics

The 1918-20 influenza pandemic hit the native communities in Alaska hard. These children in an orphanage in Nushagak, Alaska, lost their parents. Summer of 1919. Source: Alaska Historical Library
The 1918-20 influenza pandemic hit the native communities in Alaska hard. These children in an orphanage in Nushagak, Alaska, lost their parents. Summer of 1919. Source: Alaska Historical Library

Pandemics are one of the most pressing global threats to human life and security, and they have especially serious impacts on Indigenous people throughout the world.

The Centre for Advanced Study (CAS) funded project Social Science Meets Biology: Indigenous People and Severe Influenza Outcomes – CAS, to be held from August 2022 to June 2023, will bring together interdisciplinary researchers to foster conversations that integrate medical, epidemiological and social perspectives. The primary aims are to increase understanding of the commonalities and varieties of Indigenous experiences when faced with pandemic diseases and better appreciate the diversity of pandemic consequences faced by Indigenous vs. non-indigenous peoples.

As part of this project, we welcome applications from advanced PhD students and post-PhD academics at all career stages for a short visit to Oslo during the 2022-2023 academic year. The venue is CAS at the The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters | Det Norske Videnskaps-Akademi (dnva.no) in Oslo.

Applicants with Indigenous background are especially welcomed, but non-Indigenous researchers are also encouraged to apply. Visiting researchers will be expected to give a talk on their research and will have the opportunity to discuss potential collaborations and proposals with CAS fellows.

We encourage applications from science-oriented researchers with interests in Indigenous people’s experiences with historical, current, and future pandemics. Examples of topics of interest are:

  • Disparities in disease outcomes or impacts of public health measures based on Indigenous status, taking socioeconomic and other types of inequalities into account.
  • Syndemic interactions among multiple infectious conditions or with non-communicable diseases, chronic health conditions, intergenerational trauma and colonization.
  • Relationships between infectious disease epidemics and other crises such as financial crisis, wars, extreme climate events and climate change.

The visiting researcher program will cover transportation costs to Oslo and hotel accommodations for 1-2 weeks.

Please send a CV and cover letter with a short description (1-2 pages) of your research interests and objectives for a visit to Oslo, as well as anticipated timing or availability for travel, to Professor and group leader Svenn-Erik Mamelund (masv@oslomet.no).

APPLICATION DEADLINE: 15 August, 2022

Call for applications for Visiting Researcher Program

Centre for Research on Pandemics & Society (PANSOC)

PANSOC welcomes applications from advanced PhD students and post-PhD academics at all career stages for a short visit to Oslo during the 2022-2023 academic year.

Visiting researchers will be expected to give one public talk on their research and one internal talk (for example, a methods workshop or discussion of current or future work). Visitors will also have the opportunity to discuss potential collaborations and proposals with PANSOC-affiliated researchers.

We encourage applications from researchers in all fields of social sciences and humanities with interests in the social aspects of historical, current, and future pandemics. We are particularly interested in topics such as:

  • Disparities in disease outcomes or impacts of public health measures based on socioeconomic and other inequalities.
  • Syndemic interactions with non-communicable diseases and chronic health conditions.
  • Relationships between infectious disease epidemics and other crises such as wars or extreme climate events.

The visiting researcher program will cover transportation costs to Oslo and hotel accommodations for one week.

Please send a CV and cover letter with a short description (1-2 pages) of your research interests and objectives for a visit to Oslo, as well as anticipated timing or availability for travel, to Svenn-Erik Mamelund (masv@oslomet.no).

APPLICATION DEADLINE: 31 July, 2022

Dr. Kaspar Staub guest researcher at PANSOC in May

In week 20 (16-19 May), PANSOC will host Kaspar Staub | LinkedIn (Dr. PhD and head of Institute of evolutionary medicine, University of Zürich) as a guest researcher. We will discuss ongoing and future research collaborations, and Dr. Staub will among other things, also give a public lecture at OsloMet University library on May 18th from 11:30-12:00. You can read more here: (3) Excess mortality during past and present pandemics | Facebook