Institute of Diversity Sciences

IDS hosts three sets of events every year:

Research seminars are held throughout the academic year on topics involving equity in health, climate change, and learning & work. Faculty, post-docs, and student researchers present their work and receive cross-disciplinary feedback and the opportunity to develop collaborative projects. Stay tuned for our new schedule in Fall 2022 and in the meantime, scroll down to view seminars from Spring 2022!

The Creating Pathways to Social Good in your STEM Career series invites students to a series of "social hours" with professionals from a variety of STEM-related fields and diverse backgrounds who work in private industry, government, or non-profit sectors. Students will learn about STEM career paths, receive advice and mentorship on charting successful pathways, and learn how they can advance social good in/through their STEM career.

Meetings of IDS Research-Practitioner Network of researchers, educators, business leaders, and students (called the "REBLS Network") gather around the topic of developing greater diversity and inclusiveness in computer science and engineering from high school to higher education and the workforce.

Sep

27

September IDS Health Research Group

2:30 pm

Integrated Sciences Building Room 145, Zoom option available

1.5 hours

Dr. Rachel Volberg (Research Professor, Department of Biostatistics & Epidemiology): Gambling in Massachusetts: Groups at Risk and Public Health Approaches to Minimizing Harms.

Dr. Elizabeth B. Johnson (Professor of Epidemiology and Chair of the Department of Health Promotion & Policy): Premenstrual Disorders and Cardiometabolic Disease: Moving Backwards in Time.

Oct

18

October IDS Health Research Group

2:30 pm

Integrated Sciences Building Room 145, Zoom option available

1.5 hours

Dr. Megan Gross (Assistant Professor, School of Public Health & Health Sciences): Supporting Families Raising Bilingual Children with Disabilities: Collaboration and Learning in Progress.

Alexander Kellogg (Graduate Student, Psychological and Brain Sciences): Structural Racism, Internalization, and Black Americans’ Health.

Oct

21

October IDS Climate & Environment Research Group

12:00 pm

Integrated Sciences Building Room 145, Zoom option available

1.5 hours

Theme: Climate and water wars: What is achieved and missed with the language of war.

Dr. Malcolm Sen (Associate Professor, English, Humanities & Fine Arts).

Dr. Srinivas Chokkakula (Visiting Chair, School of Public Policy).

RECORDING HERE.

Oct

24

October IDS Learning & Work Research Group

1:00 pm

Integrated Sciences Building Room 145, Zoom option available

1.5 hours

Dr. Youngmin Yi (Assistant Professor, Sociology): Understanding the Progressive Prosecutive Agenda: Trust and Transparency in Data and Decision-Making.

Dr. Krista Gile (Professor, Mathematics and Statistics): Advanced Statistics for Social Good: a Vertically and horizontally integrated course design.

Nov

15

November IDS Health Research Group

2:30 pm

Integrated Sciences Building Room 145, Zoom option available

1.5 hours

Faith English (PhD student, School of Public Health & Health Sciences): Cannabis legalization and criminal justice system contact among youth: Examining racial and ethnic disparities in Massachusetts.

Dr. Youssef Oulhote (Assistant Professor, School of Public Health & Health Sciences): Global Environmental Health inequalities: The case of neurotoxicants in African countries.

Nov

22

November IDS Climate & Environment Research Group

12:00 pm

1.5 hours

Theme: The challenges of developing electricity policy for climate mitigation, ecosystems, and social justice.

Dr. Dwayne Breger (Environmental Conservation, Director, Clean Energy Extension).

Dr. Eve Vogel (Geosciences, Associate Professor, Geography).

Nov

28

November IDS Learning & Work Research Group

1:00 pm

Integrated Sciences Building Room 145, Zoom option available

1.5 hours

Dr. Lisa Sanders (Professor and associate chair for research, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences): Paying Attention to Race in Cognitive Science.

Dr. Jeanne Brunner (Assistant Professor, College of Education): Humanizing Science through Read-Alouds.

Dec

13

Annual Reading Day Breakfast 2022-23

8:45 am

UMass Institute for Social Science Research, Machmer E20

2 hours

SSHEN has not gathered as a group since fall 2019. There is much rich work around UMass and the Five Colleges related to the environment these days, and the social sciences and humanities have a distinct set of perspectives that are stronger and richer if we are talking to one another. For this reason, we wanted to bring together the social science network--and our humanities colleagues, who were already a growing part of the network, but have been officially added to the name.

To this end, we are returning to the annual reading day SSHEN breakfast. On December 13, please join us in person or by zoom for some networking and planning.