Interdisciplinary seminars have been an important component of ISPS’s programmatic activity throughout its history. These seminars generally involve several faculty members and a large number of graduate and professional students from a variety of disciplines, departments, and schools and the format depends upon the interests of its members. Seminars typically involve visiting speakers, discussion of published and unpublished papers, and presentation of seminar participants’ own work. Attendance at some seminars requires advance notice, and some distribute papers in advance. Seminars are free and open to interested members of the Yale community.
American & Comparative Political Behavior Workshop
Selected Fridays, 12:00-1:15 pm in ISPS Room A002 at 77 Prospect Street. (On hiatus for the 2025-2026 academic year.) This workshop is focused on political behavior broadly considered and invites speakers from a range of social science fields. The series is sponsored by the ISPS Center for the Study of American Politics and The Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale with support from the Edward J. and Dorothy Clarke Kempf Fund. Please link here to subscribe.
American Politics and Public Policy Workshop
Most Wednesdays, 12:00-1:15 pm in ISPS Room A002 at 77 Prospect Street. Sponsored jointly by the Institution for Social and Policy Studies (ISPS) and the Center for the Study of American Politics, each seminar features a presentation of current political science research by leading scholars in the field of American politics including distinguished faculty from other institutions, research fellows of the CSAP, and Ph.D. candidates at Yale. Please link here to subscribe.
Computational Social Sciences Workshop
Selected Mondays, 12:00-1:15 pm at Evans Hall, 165 Whitney Avenue. The Computational Social Science Workshop is an interdisciplinary seminar series featuring speakers of broad appeal in the social sciences who use computational techniques to analyze big data for research into human behavior. This workshop is cosponsored by the Institution for Social and Policy Studies, the Yale Department of Sociology, and the Yale School of Management (SOM) with support from the Initiative for Leadership and Organization at SOM. Please link here to subscribe.
Political Theory Workshop
Wednesdays, 4:15-6:00 pm in RKZ Room 202 at 115 Prospect Street. This workshop provides an informal, interdisciplinary forum for the presentation of work in progress. The workshop features papers by Yale faculty members, visiting scholars, and graduate students in the fields of political philosophy, social theory, ethics, intellectual history, and related disciplines. Papers are distributed in advance when available and participants come prepared to discuss them in detail. This workshop is cosponsored with the Department of Political Science and the Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies.
Population Studies Workshop
Selected Mondays and Fridays, 12:00-1:15 pm in ISPS Room A002 at 77 Prospect Street. The Population Studies Workshop, sponsored by the Yale Institution for Social and Policy Studies, is a new interdisciplinary initiative aimed at fostering scholarly exchange on key issues in demography, population health, social statistics, survey methodology, and population economics, broadly defined. The workshop will feature prominent external speakers from leading institutions who conduct cutting-edge research across disciplines such as sociology, economics, public health, political science, statistics, and related fields. The series will engage a wide array of Yale scholars, including faculty, students, and researchers from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, the School of Public Health, the School of Medicine, the Law School, the School of Nursing, the School of the Environment, and the School of Management.
Quantitative Research Methods Workshop
Selected Thursdays, 12:00-1:15 pm in ISPS Room A002 at 77 Prospect Street. This workshop features cutting-edge research engaged in developing and employing quantitative methods in the social sciences. The workshop will host prominent and up-and-coming scholars in a variety of disciplines, who will present work on a range of topics including experimental design, causal identification in observational studies, text analysis, and election forensics. The series is being sponsored by the ISPS Center for the Study of American Politics and The Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale with support from the Edward J. and Dorothy Clarke Kempf Fund. Please link here to subscribe.
Workshops sponsored by the Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics
Animal Ethics
Dates vary. The Animal Ethics group at the Yale Bioethics Center was formed in response to two phenomena: 1) the moral imperative to reassess the human treatment of other animals, and 2) the theoretical challenge to give nonhuman animals their due in ethics.
Technology & Ethics
Wednesdays, 4:30-6:15 pm. The Technology and Ethics study group examines crucial societal, ethical, and public policy questions arising from the adoption of new technologies.