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Seed funding for racial justice and equity research awarded to five faculty projects
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Ashlee Gardner
Atlanta skyline from Emory's campus

In support of Emory’s enterprise-wide commitment to racial and social justice, the Office of the Provost will provide seed funding to help Emory faculty launch five new research projects. The awards totaling more than $800,000 will be distributed over the next three years to selected projects that broadly address racial justice/racial equity.

Applicants submitted proposals in January 2023 to an Office of the Provost grant program created to further Emory faculty research, scholarly efforts and creative activities that contribute to the goal of addressing inequities in society.

Reviewed and evaluated by an ad hoc panel of Emory faculty members, the proposals identified for support represent a wide variety of projects that cover topics including race concordance and health care outcomes, the impact of immigration policies on Latinx and Black citizens and tools to mitigate bias in college admissions.

“Racial justice means making sure our society works for everyone,” says Ravi V. Bellamkonda, provost and executive vice president for academic affairs. “As a leading liberal arts university in one of the most diverse cities in the country, it is important that Emory not only continues to be a part of the conversation but actively works toward equity in opportunities for groups who have been historically and systematically marginalized. This is consistent with Emory values  every human, from every community, is valuable and worthy of the opportunities to thrive individually and collectively. I look forward to seeing the results that emerge from these important projects.”

Award recipients

Award recipients (Top, left to right): Emily Wall, Wesley Longhofer, Ian McCarthy (Bottom, left to right): Irene Brown, Weihua An, Joya Hampton-Anderson, Michael Rich

 

The award-winning projects are:

Toward Interventions for Equitable University Admissions with Visual Analytics

Emily Wall (PI), Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science
Emory College of Arts and Sciences

Wesley Longhofer (co-I), Associate Professor of Organization and Management
Goizueta Business School

In this project, researchers will use real-time visualization interventions to mitigate implicit racial bias in the university admissions process. By designing systems that visualize a user’s interactive review behaviors, individuals making admissions decisions can be alerted before biased decisions are made.


Race Concordance in Health Care

Ian McCarthy (PI), Associate Professor, Department of Economics
Emory College of Arts and Sciences

The goal of this research is to quantify the effects of race concordance (typically defined as a match between the race of a patient and physician) between patients and physicians, as well as between different physicians, on patient treatment and health care outcomes. Researchers will study this in the context of treatment for chronic conditions among the Medicare population.


Race, Inequality and the Impact of Restrictive Immigration Policies on U.S. Citizens

Irene Browne (PI), Associate Professor, Department of Sociology
Emory College of Arts and Sciences

Weihua An (co-PI), Associate Professor, Department of Sociology and Department of Quantitative Theory and Methods
Emory College of Arts and Sciences

Do the consequences of restrictive immigration policies “spill over” to affect Latinx and Black citizens? If so, do the spillover effects create negative or positive outcomes for underrepresented citizens and their children in comparison to white citizens? Findings from this project will allow researchers to comprehensively assess the impact of immigration policy on U.S. citizens and give Emory a voice in reforming immigration policy and policing in historically marginalized communities.


Developing a Culturally Informed Anxiety Intervention Program for Black Youth

Joya Hampton-Anderson (PI), Assistant Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Emory School of Medicine

Exposure to chronic stress and adversity resulting from the unequal burden of trauma associated with structural racism disproportionately impacts African American youth. This project proposes to use community-based mixed methodologies to support the development of a culturally responsive anxiety intervention program for African American youth experiencing Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD).


Assessing the Pathways for Economic Mobility in Greater Atlanta

Michael Rich (PI), Professor, Department of Political Science
Emory College of Arts and Sciences

Despite the region’s long and sustained growth over the past forty years, Atlanta leads the nation’s largest cities in income inequality. This project will complement existing quantitative research concerning economic mobility in Atlanta among low-income adult populations. The addition of a qualitative component will allow researchers to connect the personal stories of 300 workforce development registrants and participants in federally funded job training programs, providing evidence-based knowledge that can be used to craft effective strategies for reducing poverty and promoting economic mobility.


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