ISR helps lay a firm foundation for future studies

July 29, 2024

Contact: Jon Meerdink ([email protected])

ANN ARBOR — A strong foundation can make all the difference. Just ask Weidi Qin, Ph.D., who has begun to build a promising research career on an educational foundation that includes two years of work at the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research (ISR).

Qin did an NIA-funded postdoctoral work with ISR’s Population Studies Center from 2021-23, during which her collaboration with researchers across many different fields proved exceptionally valuable.

“The interdisciplinary environment at ISR is pretty unparalleled,” said Qin. “I had the opportunity to work with people in medicine, epidemiology, sociology, and psychology, and I collaborated with people from different disciplines. I was exposed to theories and methods from different subjects and those have been essential in my own research development.”

Her time in the ICPSR summer workshop has also proven to be a valuable asset.

“Prior to the workshop, I knew I had some basic knowledge of mixed effects modeling, but I did not fully understand the mathematical theories behind it. I wanted a more systematic and comprehensive training of this method.”

The summer workshop, though, came with a price tag — around $2,000 for the courses Qin wanted to take. But thanks to a grant from the Marshall Weinberg Endowment of the Next Generation Initiative, Qin was able to attend the workshop and complete her coursework. She has since used the methods in numerous publications.

These publications helped secure her current position as a tenure-track assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Sandra Rosenbaum School of Social Work, where Qin continues to study the topics that have defined her career to this point. She also continues to benefit from datasets from ISR, such as theHealth and Retirement Study and the National Health and Aging Trends Study, which dovetail nicely with her current research efforts.

“My research is focused on racial and ethnic disparities in the mechanism linking neighborhood context, cardiometabolic health, and functional disabilities, and it’s built upon some of my work at ISR.”

Her connections to ISR support Qin in other ways as well. Due to ISR’s heavily interdisciplinary nature, Qin cultivated a strong network of support, including both key mentors and collaborators, some of whom she works with to this day. Her support network also proved crucial during the late stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, which affected her postdoctoral cohort at ISR.

“All three of the people in my cohort did our work remotely because of the pandemic,” said Qin. “I think ISR did a great job in supporting and building cohesion during that challenging time. It’s much more difficult to network when everything is remote, but ISR did a great job of connecting us to professors across campus and facilitating collaboration.” 

And all of these experiences — the interdisciplinary research, the training, and key networking — have helped prepare Qin both for her present and her promising future. 

“My time at ISR definitely laid a solid foundation in multiple areas — networking, research competency, and also professional development. It laid a solid foundation for my subsequent career development.” 

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