Speakers, Workshops & Events
Research in Process Speaker Series
ISSR presents a speaker and panel series featuring social science university faculty and invited guests during the academic year. The Research in Process Speaker Series covers various aspects of social science research methods, design, analysis and funding. Topics have a broad range, from “Designing Web Surveys” to “Unorthodox Data Sources” to “Mixed Methods in Practice” to “Best Practices for Talking to Your Grant Officer.”
"Social Science Research in Springfield"
Event Date: February 7, 2013
Time: 11:30 am
Location: Amherst Room, Campus Center
Panelists: Sylvia Brandt, Associate Professor of Resource Economics and Public Policy
Frank Sleegers, Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture
Fred Rose a researcher and lecturer in the Center for Public Policy and Administration and Co-Director of the Wellspring Initiative in Springfield
Description: In 2010 officials from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and the City of Springfield formalized a new Greater Springfield-UMass Partnership designed to promote collaborations that will lead to the revitalization of Springfield’s economy. The partnership aims to position the city in the long term as a center for environmentally beneficial green industries, boost the city’s arts and creative economy, and expand relevant university teaching and outreach initiatives. From the creation of a skilled workforce for the knowledge economy to the transfer of innovation and research from the university to real-life settings, UMass-Amherst and Springfield are working together in many ways to accomplish these goals. This panel features three social scientists who are engaged in research and engagement projects in Springfield. The will address the needs and strengths of Springfield, share advice on connecting with city residents and institutions through research and engagement projects, and share their visions of how the UMass-Springfield partnership might grow in the future.
"Mixed Methods Research Design"
Event Date: February 21, 2013
Time: 12 pm
Location: W32 Machmer Hall
Panelists:Amel Ahmed, Assistant Professor of Political Science
Mary Fechner, Proposal Development Specialist in the Office of Research Development
Gretchen Rossman, Professor and Chair, Department of Educational Policy, Research & Administration
Description: The panelists will demystify mixed methods research design by drawing on their scholarship and experience with multi-method studies. They will address the strengths and weaknesses of mixed methods approaches, when it’s appropriate to use mixed methods in a study, and how to construct a strong mixed methods design.
"Comparing Qualitative Research Software Packages"
Event Date: March 7, 2013
Time: 12:30-2 pm
Location: W32 Machmer Hall
Panelists: Krista Harper, Associate Professor, Anthropology; Stuart Shulman, Assistant Professor, Political Science; Jackie Stein, doctoral student, Sociology; and Bridget Macdonald, master's student, Environmental Conservation
Description: This panel will introduce qualitative computing as scholars familiar with different software packages describe their various strengths and capabilities and demonstrate their interfaces. The featured software packages are MaxQDA, WeftQDA, Atlas.TI, DiscoverText, CAT, NVivo, and Dedoose.
"Computational Social Science Mini-Conference/Mixer"
Event Date: March 8, 2013
Time: 12:30-3 pm
Location: Marriott Room, 11th Floor, Campus Center
Description: Faculty will give brief presentations and discuss their research interests related to computational social science (CSS), in some cases using posters or other materials. The “mixer” setting will foster interdisciplinary conversations about CSS and Big Data research. Co-sponsored with the Computational Social Science Initiative and Office of Research Development.
Qualitative Discussion Series: "Research Collaborations with Native Communities: New Directions in Social Science Ethics"
Event Date: March 12, 2013
Time: 12:30-2 pm
Location: W32 Machmer Hall
Panelists: Sonya Atalay, Assistant Professor of Anthropology
Lisa Wexler, Assistant Professor of Public Health
Description: Some of the most innovative experiments in participatory and collaborative research have occurred in Native, First Nations, Maori, and Aboriginal contexts. The panelists will lead a discussion on these innovations drawing on their own experiences working as a tribal research partner with Alaskan Natives on resilience and suicide prevention (Lisa Wexler), and using community based participatory research as an approach in archaeology in the Near East and North America (Atalay).
"Using MTurk for Survey and Experimental Research"
Event Date: April 4, 2013
Time: 11 am-12:30 pm
Location: W32 Machmer Hall
Panelists: Emery Berger, Associate Professor of Computer Science; Bill Diamond, Associate Professor of Marketing; Berni Leidner, Assistant Professor of Psychology; Brian Schaffner, Associate Professor and Chair of Political Science; John Spraggon, Associate Professor of Resource Economics
Description: Scholars are increasingly using Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, known as MTurk, as a tool to recruit subjects for survey and experimental research online. The panelists will describe their experiences using MTurk in their own work, and discuss its strengths and weaknesses relative to other methods of recruiting research subjects.
For more information, inlcuding panelist slides, click here
Qualitative Discussion Series: "'Hear Our Stories': Digital Storytelling and the Ford Foundation"
Event Date: April 11, 2013
Time: 11 am-12:30 pm
Location: W32 Machmer Hall
Panelists: Aline Gubrium, Assistant Professor of Public Health
Betsy Krause, Professor of Anthropology
Description: Professors Gubrium and Krause will share their plans for their recently funded Ford Foundation Sexuality Research Initiative Grant, “Hear Our Stories,” for which they will use digital storytelling—a visual participatory method—as their main approach.
Qualitative Discussion Series: "Activist Research and Ethics"
Event Date: April 18, 2013
Time: 1-2:30 pm
Location: W32 Machmer Hall
Panelists: Olivia Geiger, doctoral candidate in Economics
Justin Helepololei, MA/PhD student in Anthropology
Description: What is involved in doing fieldwork on activist culture, or fieldwork that involves participation in activist projects? This discussion will feature tales from the field, including participatory research with activists in New York City and Barcelona, and consider the ethics and politics of this particular kind of fieldwork.
"NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program Session"
Event Date: April 18, 2013
Time: 4:30-6 pm
Location: W32 Machmer Hall
Description: Informational session for first-year graduate students interested in applying for the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program. This session is geared towards graduate students in STEM and the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Co-sponsored with the Graduate School.
ISSR Scholars Speaker Series
We also co-sponsor the ISSR Scholars Speaker Series, which brings in social science experts from around the country for a public talk.
Shelly Lundberg, Leonard Broom Endowed Chair in Demography, UC-Santa Barbara: "Lifting the Burden: State Care of the Elderly and the Location and Labor Supply of Adult Children"
Event Date: March 26, 2013
Time: 12:30 pm
Location: W32 Machmer Hall
Description: Using a 1998 reform in the federal funding of local home-based care for the elderly in Norway, the effects of formal care expansion on the labor supply decisions and mobility of middle-aged children, particularly women, are examined. In preliminary results, significant positive impacts of formal care expansion on the labor supply of adult children of single elderly parents are found, including decreases in the probability of work absences longer than two weeks, and increases in the probability of working. These effects are strongest for daughters (relative to sons), for first-born children,
and for daughters living in the same municipality as their parents. Our results provide evidence of substitution between formal home-based care and informal care by daughters. This event is co-sponsored with the Departments of Economics & Sociology, and the CIA, Sociology.
Paul Sniderman, Professor of Political Science, Stanford University: “Islam and Western Europe: Two Paradoxes of Liberal Democracy: A Study of the Danish Cartoon Crisis”
Event Date: April 18, 2013
Time: 3:30 pm
Location: 803 Campus Center
Description: How do Western Europeans react in the face of a clash between the values of liberal democracy and the requirements of religious faith? Taking the irruption over publication of cartoons mocking the Prophet, Mohammed, in a Danish newspaper as a focal point, Dr. Sniderman will examine the reactions of ordinary citizens to Muslims and to Islamic Fundamentalists. How powerful was the backlash? How solid was the support for their civil and social rights? This event is co-sponsored with the Department of Political Science.
Nancy Scheper-Hughes, Chancellor's Professor of Medical Anthropology, University of Clifornia, Berkeley: “Who's Got the Knife?: The Role of Surgeons in Transplant Trafficking”
Event Date: April 26, 2013
Time: 4:00 pm
Location: Bernie Dallas Room, Goodell Building
Description: Dr. Scheper-Hughes will introduce the Organs Watch project and its scholarly, anthropological, ethnographic, and “public”
engagements as an example of what Pierre Bourdieu called “scholarship with commitment.” She will discuss the thorny issue of anti-trafficking discourses-trafficking in persons-bearing in mind the powerful feminist and anthropological critiques of the unintentional harm caused by the aggressive criminalization of those caught up in sex trafficking schemes, including those who travel great distances to labor in the backyards and basements of the global economy. But human trafficking for organs is not about police raids on “kidney motels” in Chennai nor police raids on transplant units in Beverly Hills. Rather, it concerns the blasé indifference to this new and unique form of human trafficking. Dr. Scheper-Hughes will examine the obstacles to recognition of human trafficking for organs as crimes and, at worst, as crimes against humanity. This event is co-sponsored with the Department of Anthropology, Commonwealth Honors College, and Five College Culture Health Science Program.
Amalia Miller, Associate Professor of Economics, University of Virginia: “Do Female Officers Improve Law Enforcement Quality?”
Event Date: May 1, 2013
Time: 4:00 pm
Location: 912 Thompson Hall
Description: Although law
enforcement
has
historically
been
a
male
profession, a
dramatic
shift
occurred
during
the
1980s,
when
the
share
of
female
officers
in
major
local
police
departments
more
than
doubled.
Dr. Miller examines
the
relationship between
female
representation
and law
enforcement
quality. Using panel
data
on
local
U.S.
crime
reporting
spanning
more
than
a
decade, she finds
that
violent
crimes
against
women are
significantly
more
likely
to be
reported
to
police
when
the
local
force
has
more female
officers, supporting
the
hypothesis
that
female
officers
may
be
especially
effective
at
increasing
the
willingness
of
female
victims
to
report
personal crimes that can be sensitive to discuss and in which a fear of retaliation from the attacker is heightened. This event is co-sponsored with the Department of Economics.
Workshops
See our Upcoming Workshops Schedule.
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If you have an idea for a topic series, please suggest it here.