Three HFA Faculty Members Selected as 2023 Public Interest Technology Initiative Fellows
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The Public Interest Technology (PIT) Initiative at the University of Massachusetts Amherst has announced its 2023 Faculty Fellowship Program recipients, including three faculty members from the College of Humanities & Fine Arts:
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Hallie Bahn, assistant professor in the Department of Art;
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Kirsten Leng, associate professor in the Department of Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies;
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and Jeffery Kasper, assistant professor and undergraduate program director in the Department of Art.
The PIT Fellowship focuses on building public interest-focused interdisciplinary research that explores PIT questions and integrative solutions. Fellows will receive seed funding to support their projects, all aimed at addressing and potentially solving a complex problem with public interest impacts and reducing social disparities through the responsible and ethical use of information technologies.
Bahm and Leng will work together on a project called, “Another Care is Possible: Art, Ethics, and Health Technologies,” led by Jessica Dillard-Wright, assistant professor in the Elaine Marie College of Nursing. This project is focused on reproductive health and death care. It addresses communicating complex ideas, the use of black boxed technologies in healthcare and for health, and new material and care ethics in accountable and community-focused ways. They will be joined by Elaine Marie College of Nursing’s Rachel Walker, associate professor and PhD program director, and Raeann LeBlanc, Seedworks Endowed associate clinical professor of social Justice.
For his project, Kasper will team up with Dr. Stephen Boos, professor of pediatrics at the UMass Chan Medical School and co-medical director at the Baystate Family Advocacy Center and Baystate Children’s Hospital in Springfield, Mass. Kasper will lead the project, “Animating Family Well-being,” by directing a design team of undergraduate and graduate students to develop an ongoing series of bilingual animated videos. The team will consult with physicians from Baystate Medical Center, Springfield-area parents, and educators. Initiated by Boos, the community-engaged video series will encourage healthy child development and family well-being. The project communicates practices crafted by parents, and grounded in science, such as how to deal with the loss of emotional regulation throughout early childhood.