The institute hosts research groups on three topics—learning, health, and climate change—as they relate to STEM and social justice. Each group meets once a month, during which people share their research. New collaborations are often sparked by these meetings; some collaborative research teams have been funded by the institute.
In our health group, researchers and practitioners are working on advancing equity in medical decision-making; promoting health in marginalized families; increasing access to healthcare for low income populations; and developing energy-efficient strategies to treat wastewater in under-resourced communities.
In our learning science group, faculty and students are designing remedies to promote gender, race, and class equity in STEM education; developing strategies to improve teachers’ accuracy in evaluating students; and designing technologies to teach adolescent drivers with ADHD how to drive safely.
In our climate change group, researchers and practitioners are working on developing strategies to mitigate the disparate impacts of climate change policies on particular communities, and identifying communities’ capacity for adaptive responses to climate change.
Our current seed grant awardees seek to:
- Improve medical diagnosis of substance use disorders in emergency rooms
- Develop novel teaching techniques using data visualization to improve mathematics comprehension and success among diverse students
- Design specific types of assistive driving technology to help new adolescent drivers with ADHD drive safely.
- Develop strategies to improve speech comprehension and learning in noisy classrooms for non-native speakers of English
- Demonstrate how workplace discrimination litigation and employee diversity impacts firm performance and innovation outcomes.
Get engaged
Faculty, students, and staff: Attend a research group on one or all of our research topics — learning, health, and climate change. Listen, learn, and present your work. Start a new collaboration with researchers and practitioners who share your interests. Apply for funding from the institute to tackle a research problem related to equity or diversity.
Students: Work with a graduate student-run organization to invite underrepresented scientists to campus to share their research, professional experiences, and serve as informal mentors.
UMass alums and friends: Make a gift, or contact us to discuss other forms of support.
Other ideas? Contact Nilanjana (Buju) Dasgupta, institute director, or Leyla Keough, program manager.
