This grant provides partial support for a longitudinal study of the microbiomes of dormitories and their inhabitants at the U.S. Air Force Academy (USAFA). Over the course of nine weeks, a University of Colorado research team led by principal investigator Christopher Lowry and Lt. Col. Andrew Hoisington will sample indoor and outdoor surfaces at USAFA dormitories, characterize environmental conditions, and take skin and stool samples from a cohort of 48 U.S. Air Force cadets. Samples will then be analyzed to determine the degree to which the dorm room locations of cadets and their interactions with each other influence the microbial profiles of the cadets and their dorm rooms. The uniformity of the dorm room construction and the unique standardization in diet, lifestyle, and age among cadets makes them a particularly attractive target for study that will maximize researchers’ ability to detect confounding factors that impact host-derived microbial colonization of the dormitories. The team plans to share its findings through conference presentations, open access peer-reviewed publications, social media, and websites. The team also plans a symposium to share findings and discuss how current and future research directions in human and built environment microbiomes might advance the aims of the Department of Defense.

This grant supports two additional years of research by a team at the Berkeley Indoor Microbial Research Consortium, which aims to expand our understanding of the microbial ecology of the built environment as mediated by interactions among organisms, particulate matter, and volatile and nonvolatile chemicals. Under the direction of principal investigator (PI) Thomas Bruns, professor of plant and microbial ecology at the University of California, Berkeley, the proposed work plan is organized around four objectives: Build an integrated understanding of the role of occupancy and occupant behaviors on bioaerosols and microbially derived chemical emissions in residential environments. The biological measurements will be made in collaboration with the Berkeley Chemistry of Indoor Environments (CIE) team (see Berkeley CIE proposal) as part of the intensive field campaign taking place in one-to-two residences. Characterize the chemistry of biological interactions among microorganisms on residential indoor surfaces, incorporating both mVOC measurements and the study of nonvolatile chemical compounds, as measured through nanospray desorption electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (NanoDESI MS). Determine the metabolic state and activity of indoor microbes. Develop improved methods for sampling and assaying microbial communities in built environments. Research findings will be shared through peer-reviewed publications, presentations at conferences and meetings, and through blogs on microBE.net. At least three postdoctoral fellows will be trained in the course of the project.

Funds from this grant support work by Gary Burtless to measure how employers’ benefit costs vary with age of employees. Burtless will use data from nationally representative microcensus files to obtain reliable estimates of the costs facing employers who hire or retain older workers rather than equally qualified younger workers who are paid the same wage. Cost differences to be examined include health insurance coverage for workers at different ages; compensation for scheduled and unscheduled leave, in particular for sickness; costs associated with the possibility that an older worker’s career will end sooner than that of an equally qualified younger worker; and retirement benefit costs, particularly under defined-benefit plans. Once calculated, these costs will be evaluated against a series of alternate policies that could reduce differences between older and younger workers.

This grant supports a third year of the Age Smart Employer Awards, an annual awards program that honors innovative New York City employers who have adopted effective strategies to recruit, engage, and retain older workers. Emerging research shows that older workers offer distinct advantages to employers. As a group, they are viewed by managers and human resource professionals as motivated, reliable, loyal, and superior in interpersonal communication skills compared to younger workers. Additional research suggests that workforces that are heterogeneous in terms of age are more creative than homogeneous ones. Additionally, because older workers mirror aging consumers, they relate to customers in a growing “silver economy.”  Yet, these advantages are often discounted or offset by employers’ concerns about the costs of employing older workers. The Age Smart Employer Awards aim to combat these concerns by honoring those employers who are successfully facilitating age-diverse workforces. Grant funds will support the administration of a third year of the awards; outreach and publicity efforts; the development of a new tool to help employers understand, identify, and articulate Age Smart practices and policies; expansion of the awards to three new localities; and efforts to expand the Awards’ institutional partners.

Though public sector workers make up 15 percent of the U.S. workforce, little is known about how public sector workers make retirement-related choices and transition from full-time employment to full retirement. Funds from this grant support research by North Carolina State University (NCSU) economist Robert Clark to address this knowledge gap. Using original panel survey data and extensive administrative data from the North Carolina Retirement System, Clark and his research team will examine several important issues, including how older public workers in North Carolina plan for work-to-retirement transitions; how they execute plans to leave career jobs; how they move into new types of employment; and how they ensure income security in complete retirement. In addition to producing research addressing these issues, the grant will also result in a longitudinal panel dataset that, upon application, will be available to scholars interested in the public sector workforce.

This grant continues support for efforts by the WNYC Health Unit to produce high-quality radio reporting on health care economics and policy. With Sloan funds, WNYC convenes an annual workshop with leading health care practitioners, economists, and policy experts to discuss health care reform and policy change resulting from the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and to identify subjects for news coverage that focus on health care policy and the economics of the health system in New York and the tristate region. Subjects identified for coverage are then often featured on WNYC’s weekly podcast, Only Human. Potential topics to be covered over the next two years include maternal health care costs in New York, how race and income affect costs and health outcomes, the funding crisis faced by New York City's public hospitals, comparing New York’s state-based health care exchanges to New Jersey’s federal exchange, millennials and mental health, and the Affordable Care Act after Obama. In addition to reporting, WNYC will also launch four community engagement projects that empower listeners with information and encourage beneficial behavioral changes and two to four public events aimed at raising public understanding and engagement with health issues.

Funds from this grant provide continued support for the production and distribution of Science Friday, the only regular weekly public radio program that devotes two hours to all things science. Grant funds will support the production of 50 radio segments per year, 5 digital videos per year, 12 articles per year produced and disseminated through the show’s website, an annual multimedia spotlight on a science topic, a yearly Book Club event, and a single special remote broadcast of the show. Science Friday’s audience—the program reaches over two million people each week via its radio show, web streaming, podcasts, blogs, online videos, mobile apps, and social media presence—makes it one of the single most effective channels for dissemination of high-quality, engaging content about the increasingly central role science plays in modern life.

This grant supports a project by data scientist Matthew Gee and labor economist Iona Marinescu to create an administrative data research facility that will compile high-quality private administrative data on various aspects of the U.S. labor force. Gee and Marinescu’s Workforce Data Initiative will partner with private firms that have valuable administrative data on U.S. workers, including ADP, LinkedIn, Glass Door, O*Net, and CareerBuilder, combine these datasets with relevant publicly available data, and modify and “munge” these data into forms useable by researchers. The resulting datasets will constitute a valuable new resource for economists looking to answer pertinent questions on a host of important issues, including the post-2008 economic recovery, the resilience of local job markets, patterns in layoffs, and wage stickiness.

This grant supports an initiative by Esther Duflo at the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) to infuse more rigorous methodology into empirical economics. Mobilizing J-PAL’s formidable research and training programs, Duflo will promote practices such as preregistration of experiment plans; prepublication re-analysis of results; and open sharing of datasets, code, and supporting documentation. Funded activities include a series of graduate fellowships for economics students who work on enhancing reproducibility and the development with MIT of a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on best economics research practices.

Funds from this grant provide three years of support for the continued development of QuantEcon.org, an online resource for code, data, tutorials, and lectures on quantitative economic modeling. The brainchild of economists John Stachurski of Australian National University and Thomas Sargent of New York University, QuantEcon provides open source modules for economists seeking to model a variety of economic phenomena, covering topics from asset pricing to optimal savings. Grant funds will support a variety of improvements to the site, including the addition of 20 new lectures, an innovative data portal, an open notebook archive, and expanded code libraries. Additional funds will support efforts to move the site toward independent sustainability and to connect its offerings to other economic research institutions. Funds for the development of QuantEcon have been granted to NUMFocus, a nonprofit organization that provides administrative, operational, and strategic support to scientific software projects.