Welcome to the new quarterly newsletter of the Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy at Columbia University.

The ISERP newsletter is available in both print and electronic formats. Please write to iserp@columbia.edu or call 212-854-3081 to let us know which you prefer to receive.

You may download the complete newsletter in PDF format or choose from the following articles.

Welcome to the first of what we hope to be many newsletters featuring work and events at ISERP. As our fifth year comes to a close, I am struck by how much we have grown … » read more

The National Science Foundation has awarded Columbia a five-year $5.9 million dollar grant to establish a new Center for Research on Environmental Decisions. CRED will produce basic research on environmental decision making, drawing from recent progress in the descriptive decision sciences … » read more

To promote the use of geographic information systems (GIS) at Columbia, ISERP, in collaboration with partners on the Morningside campus and at the Earth Institute, developed a GIS initiative that was recently awarded funding from the Academic Quality Fund (AQF) … » read more

Quantitative Methods in the Social Sciences (QMSS), now in its sixth year as Columbia's interdisciplinary social science master's degree program, is launching a new Research Fellows Program this fall … » read more

Peter Bearman (Sociology)
The Social and Economic Consequences of Tobacco Control Policy
Funder: American Legacy Foundation

David Krantz (Psychology/Statistics), Elke Weber (Psychology/Business), Roberta Miller (CIESIN), and Kenneth Broad (IRI)
Center for Research on Environmental Decisions
Funder: National Science Foundation

Seymour Spilerman (Sociology) and Florencia Torche (CWI)
Institutional Structures, Asset Development Strategies, and Economic Vulnerability in Chile and Israel
Funder: Ford Foundation

David Stark (Sociology/International and Public Affairs)
SGER: Technologies of Civil Society in East Central Europe
Funder: National Science Foundation

David Stark (Sociology/International and Public Affairs) and Monique Girard (COI) in collaboration with Javed Mostafa (Indiana)
SGER: Collaborative Research: Computer-Assisted Interpretation of Citizen Input in Rebuilding Lower Manhattan
Funder: National Science Foundation

Joseph Stiglitz (Economics/International and Public Affairs/Business)
2004 Country Dialogue Support
Funder: United Nations Development Programme

Elke Weber (Psychology/Business)
Understanding and Modeling the Scope for Adaptive Management in Agroecosystems in the Pampas in Response to Interannual and Decadal Climate Variability
Funder: National Science Foundation subcontract through the University of Miami

For further details on current and past grants, visit the funded research section of the ISERP website.

ISERP Seed Grant proposals due October 15th.

Health & Society Scholars Seed Grant proposals due October 15th.

Dana R. Fisher (Sociology)
Rowman & Littlefield Publishers (July 2004)

How do domestic interests affect international policymaking? What is the role of the nation-state within multilateral regimes? … » read more

Virginia Page Fortna (Political Science)
Princeton University Press (March 2004)

Why do cease-fire agreements sometimes last for years while others flounder barely long enough to be announced? How to maintain peace in the aftermath of war is arguably one of the most important questions of the post-Cold War era. … » read more

Not all workshops meet every week. For further details on schedules, locations, speakers, and topics, visit the news and events section of the ISERP website.

Neela Chakravartula, former Communications Assistant; Ashley Tessier, former Program Assistant; and Elyse Cowgill, former Research Coordinator, left ISERP this past summer. Neela and Elyse are settling into their respective law schools. Neela is attending UC Hastings College of Law in San Francisco and Elyse remains nearby at NYU Law. Ashley is spending time with her family in Boston and applying to graduate school.

New faces include Betsy Arias, Grants Administrator; Lisa Ballard, Communications Assistant; and Grace Hong, Program Assistant. Betsy Arias is currently working towards a bachelor's degree in liberal arts. She works in all aspects of grants administration and has previously played financial and administrative roles in other Columbia institutions, including Electrical Engineering. Lisa Ballard is a 2004 graduate of the Gallatin School of Individualized Study, NYU. As the Communications Assistant, Lisa's responsibilities range from organizing all facets of new faculty and fellows' moves into the Institute to organizing ISERP workshops and seminars to maintaining ISERP's Working Paper Series. Grace Hong, a 2004 graduate of Columbia College in Comparative Literature and Art History, ventures across Amsterdam Avenue to ISERP. She is the Program Assistant for the Health and Society Scholars Program, handles GIS-related administration, and works on ISERP publications.

We are happy to announce that the ISERP website has been redesigned for greater ease of use and aesthetic pleasure. We invite you to partake of the new site (at the same old web address), http://www.iserp.columbia.edu/ Many thanks to Jonathan Phillips, ISERP Web Designer.

ISERP needs your support to maintain core research and programs as well as to continue paving new routes for social science research and policy formation. Gifts are tax-deductible. To learn more about how you can help contribute to ISERP's graduate programs, research seed grants, or overall endowment, please contact: Peter Bearman, tel: 212.854.3094, e-mail: psb17@columbia.edu

You can also visit the support ISERP page of our website.

To stay connected, please contact: Grace Hong, tel: 212.854.9489, e-mail: gh286@columbia.edu