Dr. Julie Olander earned a dual-title Ph.D. in Demography and Sociology from the Pennsylvania State University and a M.A. in Demographic and Social Analysis from the University of California at Irvine. 

She approaches research from an interdisciplinary background and has published on a variety of topics in public health, criminology, and sociology, including family structure and the risk of child abuse, tort reforms and physician sanctioning, the impact of education on attitudes toward deviance, and changes in suicide rates. 

Dr. Olander specializes in mixed methods and longitudinal statistical analysis and has used survival analysis (i.e., Cox proportional hazards regression), time series regression, panel regression, Poisson and negative binomial regression, and logistic regression.  She is also experienced in factor analysis, structural equation modeling, analysis of survey data, period effects, the handling of clustered/dependent observations, interaction effects, and descriptive statistics. 

She teaches graduate-level Demographic Analysis courses and is skilled in demographic methods such as standardization, life tables, and cohort decomposition (cohort analysis).  Her dissertation analysis on the decline of suicide in Sweden (1950-2000) was unique in that she combined qualitative methods (interviews) with attitudinal data from multiple waves of surveys and a variety of demographic and population data.  She lived in Sweden as a Fulbright graduate student researcher to collect her data. 

She uses U.S. and international population data sources and analyzes large, longitudinal data sets, including the World Values Surveys and the U.S. General Social Survey.  Dr. Olander takes a hands-on mentoring approach with students and prides herself on making complex statistical analyses accessible to less-technical audiences.

Ph.D. Sociology and Demography, The Pennsylvania State University (2010). Dissertation: "The Decline of Suicide in Sweden; 1950-2000"

M.A. Social Sciences, Program in Demographic and Social Analysis, University of California, Irvine (2000). Thesis: "Why We Should Consider Survival Techniques in Analyzing Child Abuse Data"

B.S. Social Ecology, School of Social Ecology, University of California, Irvine (1999)

Visiting Lecturer, "Demographic Analysis", Sociology, University of California (Irvine), 2010-2011

• Taught core methods course fo the University of California's M.A. program in Demographic and Social Analysis (graduate-level; 20 M.A. and Ph.D. students)
• Research and authored course content (lectures, assignments, exams, study guides)
• Initially taught course on 1.5 month notice and received positive reviews from students
• Taught and organized material on sources of demographic data, standardization, decomposition, rates, mortality, fertility, migration, population projection, and more)
• Created and maintained course website

Visiting Lecturer, "Homicide and Suicide", Criminology, Law and Society, University of California (Irvine), 2005-2009

• Taught upper-division course in top-ranked Criminology program (100-120 undergraduate students)
• Supervised and directed 1-2 graduate teaching assistants for grading and administrative duties
• Research and authorsed course content (lectures, assignments, exams, study guides), created lectures in PowerPoint
• Taught and organized material on historical background, theories, trends, family violence, child abuse, elder abuse, euthanasia, mass murder, antidepressants and other drugs, seasonal effects, statistics and more
• Created and maintained course website

Fulbright-funded Graduate Student Researcher, Fulbright - International Educational Exchange Program, Uppsala, Sweden, 2002-2003

• Recruited, arranged, and interviewed 25-30 health care professionals and researchers throughout Sweden to determine appropriate hypotheses for decline of suicide
• Presented findings of interview data to research group at The Swedish national Centre for Suicide Research and Prevention of Mental Ill-Health (Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm)(invited)
• Identified and compiled data on population health and health care, mortality, antidepressant medication, alcohol consumption, marital status, immigration, religion, trade union membership, voting behavior, and economic indicators from Statistics Sweden, National Board of Health and Welfare, and Church of Sweden
• Translated Swedish National Election Studies (~14 waves, 1952-2002) and identified variables for analysis; recoded and condensed data using factor analysis; organized variables by demographic groups; extensive data mining
• Created longitudinal data set spanning 51 years
• Innovated a strategy for including longitudinal attitude variables in larger data set; imputed missing data between survey waves using regression method
• Assisted in spouses' interviews and data collection for separate, Fulbright-funded faculty research on the regulation of Swedish health care and health care fraud

Predoctoral Interdisciplinary Trainee in Demography, National Institute of Child Health and Development (NICHD), Rober Schoen (supervisor), through Population Research Institute, Pennsylvania State University, 2001-2003

• Developed proposal for Ph.D. dissertation on explanations for decline of suicide in Sweden
• Completed various courses in Demography, Statistics, and Sociology

Research Assistant/Data Manager, Judith Treas (supervisor), Department of Sociology, University of California, Irvine, 2001

• Obtained, cleaned, and analyzed longitudinal attitude data (cohort decomposition and regression) and created graphs and tables of results using the U.S. General Social Survey

Research Assistant/Data Manager, David Meyer (supervisor, University of California, Irvine) funded through Research Foundation, City University of New York, 2000

• Cleaned data (searched, identified, and remedied errors)
• Performed univariate analyses

Student Editorial Board Member, The UCI Undergraduate Research Journal, Said Shokair (supervisor), Undergraduate Research and Opportunities Program, University of California, Irvine, 1999-2000

• Collaborated with editorial board members to review, select, and edit manuscripts for publication in multiple disciplines (social sciences, performing arts, biology)

Science Coordinator, National Nutritional Foods Association, Newport Beach, California, 1999-2001

• Maintained and updated database of nutritional supplement label ingredients for label integrity/industry enforcement purposes
• Located and summarized research articles on nutrional supplements for Science Director

Research Assistant, Kenneth Chew and Richard McLeary (supervisors), Child Abuse Research Education Team, University of California at Irvine, 1997-2000

• Handled sensitive, confidential archival records from Child Protective Services
• Conceptualized and created a data set of reported victims of physical and sexual abuse; coded demographic characteristics of the victim, their households, and the incident in relation to the victim
• Identified appropriate analysis and performed Cox proportional hazards regression on recurrent event data to examine effects of changing family structure and prior victimization on time to reported abuse

Data Supervisor, Paul Jesilow (supervisor), University of California at Irvine, 1997-1998

• Supervised undergraduate students in the collection of interview data on attitudes toward police

Jesilow, Paul & Ohlander, Julianne. 2010. The Impact of the National Practitioner Data Bank on Licensing Actions by State Medical Licensing Boards. Journal of Health and Human Services Administration. 33(1): 94-126.

• Analytical experience: pooled time-series data, ordinary least squares, data skewness, likelihood ratio testing, Chi-square, Poisson regression, negative binomial regression, period effects, incidence-rate ratios
  

Jesilow, Paul & Ohlander, Julianne. 2010. The impact of tort reforms on the sanctioning of physicians by state licensing boards. Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, 7(1), 117-140.

• Analytical experience: quasi-experimental design, use of state licensing action data, standardization of dependent variables, data collection, Phi correlation coefficient, use of data from Annual Survey of American Hospital Association, longitudinal panel (time series) design, general least squares, random-effects negative binomial regression
  

Ohlander, Julianne & Chew, Kenneth. 2008. Family structure and differential child abuse: the role of siblings. International Journal of Social Inquiry 1(1), 121-150, Special issue – Criminology and Criminal Justice.

• Analytical experience: random-effects Cox proportional hazards regression, construction of hazard rates from victimization data, interaction effects, handling clustered/dependent observations

Ohlander, Julianne, Batalova, Jeanne, & Treas, Judith. 2005. Explaining Educational Influences on Attitudes toward Homosexual Relations. Social Science Research, 34(4), 781-799.

• Analytical experience: General Social Survey 1988-1994 pooled data; hypothesis testing; logistic regression; creation of scaled variables; descriptive statistics; longitudinal analysis

• The Decline of Suicide in Sweden, 1950-2000,” Center for Demographic and Social Analysis (Population, Society, and Inequality Colloquium Series), University of California, Irvine, October 4, 2011.
• “The Decline of Suicide in Sweden,” Center for Demographic and Social Analysis (Population, Society, and Inequality Colloquium Series), University of California, Irvine, December 2, 2008.
• "The Relationship between Attitudes toward Work and Suicide in Sweden," Population Association of America, 2006, Los Angeles.
• "Who Gets It Next? The Impact of Family Structure on the Risk of Child Abuse in Abusive Multi-Child Households" with Kenneth Chew, Population Association of America, Minneapolis, 2003.
• "Max Weber and the Decline of Suicide in Sweden," The Swedish National Centre for Suicide Research and Prevention of Mental Ill-Health, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, 2002.
• "How Does Education Affect Attitudes toward Homosexual Sex?" with Jeanne Batalova and Judith Treas, Pacific Sociological Association, 2003, Pasadena.

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Poster Presentations

• "The Role of Demographic Changes in the Decline of Suicide in Sweden," Population Association of America, 2005, Philadelphia.
• "A Comparison of the Division of Household Labor in the United States and Sweden," Population Association of America, 2004, Boston.
• "The Application of Survival Analysis in Child Abuse Research" with Kenneth Chew, Population Association of America, 2002, Atlanta.
• "Educational Effects on Attitudes toward Homosexual Sex" with Jeanne Batalova & Judith Treas, Population Association of America, 2002, Atlanta.

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Selected Awards and Honors

• Fulbright graduate student grant for study in Sweden, 2002-2003
• Roth-Thomson travel grant to Sweden, 2002
• NICHD predoctoral traineeship, 2001-2003
• Certificate for course in "The scientific evaluation of suicide-preventive interventions and the British Defeat Depression Campaign," Swedish National Centre for Suicide Research and Prevention of Mental Ill-Health, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden, September 23-27, 2002.
  
• Undergraduate Research and Opportunities Program Grant Recipient, University of California at Irvine, 1998.
  
• Allergan, Inc. (Irvine) Scholarship Award, 1995 (4 year scholarship).