Pamela Herd, Professor of Public Affairs and Sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Director of the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study, presented a public lecture on March 16 entitled “Promises and Pitfalls of Integrating Biological Data into Social Science Studies.”  Professor Herd’s visit was sponsored by the Provost’s Office through the Academic Careers in Engineering & Science (ACES) program and the CWRU Department of Sociology, and was organized by Professor Jessica Kelley-Moore.

One of the first and most well known of such studies, the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (WLS) continues to follow a cohort of the state’s high school graduating class of 1957.  During recent waves of the study, Professor Herd’s research team has collected biological data from study participants. Given the increasing interest in integrating social and biological data in sociology and other basic sciences and in public health and epidemiology, Dr. Herd’s lecture generated interest across academic disciplines at CWRU.

In addition to her ACES+ lecture, Dr. Herd participated in several other events sponsored by the Department of Sociology, including a workshop on how to use the WLS and a mentoring lunch with graduate students.  At this even, she both learned about the research projects and interests of graduate students, and offered them career advice.