Decades of twin studies have established that any conceivable human trait has a heritable component, including biologically distal traits such as personality traits, educational attainment, and income. This insight, combined with a rapid increase in the availability of genetic data, has paved the way for the integration of genetics into the social sciences and conversely, better integration of social sciences into fields such as medicine and epidemiology.
In such interdisciplinary research, important gaps in knowledge are bound to exist. For those with a background in the social sciences, the very nature of genetic data, and how to organize and analyze such data requires a solid training in quite technical concepts in biology. Conversely, for those with a background in biology and medicine, learning to use genetic data from a social-scientific perspective can yield novel insights with medical and biological relevance.
Course leader
The 2022 lecturers are assistant professor Aysu Okbay, assistant professor Ronald de Vlaming, and Hermon Kweon, all affiliated to the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and Tinbergen Institute.
Target group
The summer course welcomes (research) master students, PhD students, post-docs, and professionals from various disciplines (e.g. behavioral genetics, economics, medicine, sociology, political sciences, and psychology) who are interested in learning state-of-the-art methods for genome-wide data analysis.
Course aim
This interdisciplinary summer course bridges knowledge gaps that participants from different backgrounds may have. Specifically, social scientists will get a formal introduction to genetics, while students from medicine and genetics will benefit from the formal treatment of statistical methods as well as the discussion of how investigating the genetics of social-scientific outcomes may lead to medically relevant insights.
Credits info: 3 EC
Participants who joined at least 80% of all sessions will receive a certificate of participation stating that the summer school is equivalent to a workload of 3 ECTS. Note that it is the student’s own responsibility to get these credits registered at their university.
Fee info
EUR 1000: PhD and Master Students
The course fee covers tuition, course materials, daily lunches and coffee/tea during short breaks, social event including a dinner and farewell drinks. The course fee does not include accommodation. Please ask us about discount options for a student hotel
EUR 1500: Academics (incl postdocs) € 1.500
Professionals € 2.000
For more information click "LINK TO ORIGINAL" below.