J. Michael Oakes, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Epidemiology and Community Health, University of Minnesota, and is affiliated with the Minnesota Population Center, the University’s Metropolitan Design Center, and its Institute for Advanced Study. His research interests include social epidemiology, research methodology, and human research subject protections. Originally trained in sociological methodology and microeconomics at the University of Massachusetts, Dr. Oakes has authored papers exploring neighborhood effects, the measurement of socioeconomic status in health research, and the role of political-economic theory in social epidemiology. His recent work concerns “identification problems,” especially in matched propensity score and regression models relying on observational designs. Dr. Oakes teaches graduate-level courses in secondary data analysis (with Stata), SAS programming, and group randomized trials, as well as a doctoral seminar on social epidemiology. He regularly attends National Institutes of Health study sections and consults with a number of not-for-profit community organizations. He established and currently directs the Social Epi Workgroup at the University of Minnesota.

Jay S. Kaufman, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Department of Epidemiology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a Fellow at the Carolina Population Center, and a Research Fellow at the Sheps Center for Health Services Research. Dr. Kaufman’s research interests include social epidemiology, minority health, statistical methodology, and health care. He has published widely on social epidemiology, causal inference, and international health, among other topics, and is an Associate Editor for Epidemiologic Perspectives and Innovations and serves on the editorial board of the journal Epidemiology. His current research projects include research on social and community factors in the etiology of adverse birth outcomes, social position over the life course in relation to cardiovascular disease, non-parametric methods for covariate control and identification of direct effects for social factors, and racial and ethnic disparities associated with provision of medical care. Dr. Kaufman teaches courses in regression analysis and epidemiologic methods.