Weekly Seminar

The "Perspectives in Population Health" seminar is a key component of the Robert Wood Johnson Health & Society Scholars Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and is held weekly each fall and spring semester.

In order to create an inter- and cross-disciplinary intellectual community, our site keeps the Robert Wood Johnson Health & Society Seminar small. We include the 6 scholars, the 3 directors, and we invite one or more faculty members to participate as a regular seminar participant. For example, this year our faculty participants are Burt Singer (professor emeritus from Princeton University and current faculty member of Wisconsin's Institute on Aging), Pamela Herd (Sociology Department and La Follette School of Public Policy), and Tim Corden (Medical College of Wisconsin). We believe the small size and consistent participation in our seminar ensures ongoing dialogue that helps scholars discuss population health issues in more depth than a large and transient seminar would allow. We spend the beginning of the first semester in organized activities that allow us to learn about each others' previous and ongoing research and disciplinary (or interdisciplinary) perspectives, from which to build ongoing conversations about differences in conceptual and methodological approaches.

Examples of seminar syllabi:

• Fall 2005
• Spring 2006
• Fall 2006