Selected updates on research, awards, conferences, and press. Older announcements are listed under Archive.

Recent

  • The Long Shadow of Early Life — NBER Reporter

    Jason Fletcher’s NBER Reporter article outlines the American Mortality Project research program with Hamid Noghanibehambari: how early-life exposures and interventions shape old-age longevity, and what linked census–death records reveal about U.S. mortality.

  • American Mortality Project site and NBER grant

    The American Mortality Project site gathers studies on how historical events, public health policies, family factors, and structural racism shape U.S. lifespan. The project received NBER support (roughly $2 million) for research from September 2026 through April 2031.

    · NBER project page

  • 2025 Kohl Competition award

    Héctor Pifarré i Arolas and Jason Fletcher received a 2025 Herb Kohl Public Research Competition award to refine how health interventions are evaluated—moving beyond “lives saved” toward better measures of gains in longevity.

  • Advances in Social Genomics Conference

    More than 100 researchers gathered in Madison for the Advances in Social Genomics Conference (June 5–7, 2024). Fletcher and Lauren Schmitz helped organize the event for the Initiative in Social Genomics at the La Follette School.

  • Early pesticide exposure and later-life longevity

    New research with Hamid Noghanibehambari finds that males with early-life exposure to cicada-targeting pesticides in the early 20th century lived roughly 2.2 months less on average—and nearly a year less when fathers were farmers.

  • 2023 Guggenheim Fellowship

    Fletcher was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship—one of three UW–Madison faculty selected and the only Sociology-discipline recipient in the 2023 class—to advance work on early-life conditions and U.S. mortality, including a book proposal. Also covered by UW–Madison News.

  • Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professorship

    Fletcher received a Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professorship, recognizing research, teaching, and service, with five years of research support for work on social genomics and early-life determinants of later-life health and mortality.

Archive

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