Fall 2018
Research and highlights from the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences
BSOS BY THE NUMBERS IN THE BEHAVIORAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCES From climate change to international relations to racial disparities in health care, researchers in the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences (BSOS) are exploring and addressing the most challenging issues of our times. BSOS is one of the largest colleges at the University of Maryland, and has nearly 80,000 living alumni working in countless fields across the globe. At the heart of our college’s operations and impact are its academic and research pursuits. In the classroom and in the field, BSOS students learn from and conduct groundbreaking research alongside our world-renowned faculty, who are committed to teaching and to making valuable contributions to their disciplines. Interdisciplinary efforts are a hallmark of research activity in BSOS—both within the college’s numerous departments and centers, and with other colleges and units on campus. Beyond the College Park campus, we partner with state, federal, private and international entities. These collaborations are critical, as the most pressing issues facing our nation and our world must be tackled from every angle.
$54 MILLION in external research funding brought in annually by BSOS faculty and students from entities including the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, NASA and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
NATIONAL RANKINGS of our graduate programs and areas of specialty
The BSOS Dean’s Research Initiative fosters innovative research in all fields among our faculty and students. Since 2010, the initiative has granted $2.9 million in awards tied to $107 million worth of proposals submitted and $8.6 million externally funded awards received.
In these pages, we offer an overview of the exciting research initiatives happening in our college.
bsos.umd.edu
The College of Behavioral and Social Sciences is home to 10 diverse, interdisciplinary departments and many centers and programs, all committed to investigating and improving the human condition. Our faculty, students, alumni, staff and partners work to expand the frontiers of research in the behavioral and social sciences. Working within and across numerous fields, our community aims to be the solution to the world’s great challenges.
AFRICAN AMERICAN STUDIES BE EMPOWERED ANTHROPOLOGY BE CULTURAL CRIMINOLOGY & CRIMINAL JUSTICE BE JUST ECONOMICS BE EFFICIENT GEOGRAPHICAL SCIENCES BE GLOBAL GOVERNMENT & POLITICS BE CIVIL HEARING & SPEECH SCIENCES BE HEARD JOINT PROGRAM IN SURVEY METHODOLOGY BE COUNTED PSYCHOLOGY BE UNDERSTOOD SOCIOLOGY BE SOCIAL
BE THE SOLUTION
1 Criminology 1 Counseling (Psyc & Educ) # 3 Geographical Sciences # #
#17 Audiology #20 Speech-Language Pathology #21 Economics #24 Sociology #29 Political Science #31 Clinical Psychology #39 Psychology
Sources: U.S. News & World Report and the National Research Council
Reflecting the strengths of our Department of Geographical Sciences, UMD ranks #4 worldwide in number of remote sensing research publications among universities/ government agencies.
Eleven of UMD’s Distinguished University Professors reside in or are affiliated with the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences.
Source: Scientometrics
BSOS is home to 11 endowed professors and chairs representing a broad range of research and teaching interests. 2
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AFRICAN AMERICAN STUDIES
ANTHROPOLOGY
Black children as young as 4 begin to internalize denigrating societal messages about Blackness, and may experience race-based peer rejection and teacher bias. By age 6, up to 80% of Black parents begin teaching children about Black pride, history, present-day racism, and coping strategies in order to mitigate the harmful effects of racism. Utilizing observational, physiological, and survey methodology, Assistant Professor Angel Dunbar is investigating Black children’s distress responses to racial-bias stimuli and the role of parents in either facilitating or hindering children’s emotion regulation in response to distress. She examines parents’ supportiveand suppression-focused responses to children’s negative emotions in order to elucidate the conditions under which parental messages about racism reduce children’s reactivity, and promote regulation in response to racism stimuli. The longterm goal of this work is to determine which early parenting strategies and behaviors equip children with self-regulation skills they can use to combat the harmful, long-term emotional, psychological, and cardiovascular effects of chronic exposure to racism.
Assistant Professor Andrea López examines the nation’s opioid epidemic at the ground level, focusing on marginalized communities in urban areas impacted by poverty, stigmatization, and the War on Drugs. With funding from the BSOS Dean’s Research Initiative, López conducts ethnographic research with people who use drugs to gain insight into their lived experience with overdose and overdose prevention. She also examines the barriers they encounter to accessing naloxone—an evidencebased medication used to reverse opioid overdoses. López also conducts research with policy makers to explore the relationships between policy-level actions and their impact on how people are able to adequately respond in community contexts. She is committed to bringing the perspectives of people who use drugs into the broader conversations about designing sustainable policy and responses to the overdose crisis. In the classroom, López incorporates her research into courses on urban health, social marginality, and violence in an effort to increase awareness of overdose within the campus community.
CRIMINOLOGY & CRIMINAL JUSTICE
GEOGRAPHICAL SCIENCES
What challenges do formerly incarcerated persons with HIV or Hepatitis C (HCV) face, and what can be done to improve their continuity and quality of care? Assistant Professor Lauren Porter is researching this topic, with implications for formerly incarcerated populations, as well as affected communities. Her research is made possible by a Division of Research Tier 1 seed grant. Within Porter’s overarching research question, her specific aims are to delineate the challenges faced by patients living with HIV or HCV who have a history of incarceration, and to identify the challenges faced by providers who care for these patients. In short, these illnesses can be “caught” by the criminal justice system, but individuals burdened with these illnesses can also be lost to the system. Gaining a comprehensive understanding of these issues can help to improve continuity of care in this population, and by extension, the wellbeing of communities in which they are embedded.
Associate Research Professor Inbal Becker-Reshef was selected by NASA to lead a multidisciplinary consortium dedicated to enhancing the use of satellite data for improving food security and agriculture around the world. Several other members of the GEOG faculty are involved with this innovative work. NASA Harvest is the new NASA Applied Sciences Program on Agriculture and Food Security. It combines the expertise of more than 40 partners—including universities, humanitarian aid organizations, and economists—to advance the adoption of Earth observations. NASA Harvest offers a cost-effective and transparent way to monitor the world’s croplands, informing decisions affecting the global food supply. Satellite data can help identify areas affected by droughts and other extreme weather events, and can help to reduce uncertainty in global estimates of food production within the growing season. NASA awarded the Harvest program a total of $14.5 million over a fiveyear period through its Research Opportunities in Earth and Space Science grant program. BeckerReshef is also a recipient of a 2018 Provost’s Award for Excellence in Research.
ECONOMICS Professor Nuno Limão and coauthors Kyle Handley, Ph.D. ECON ’11, and Jeronimo Carballo, Ph.D. ECON ’15, have made headlines with their work on a potential global trade war. The threat began in March 2018 when President Donald Trump announced plans to impose tariffs on imports of steel and aluminum in an effort to bolster American industries and workers. The researchers are studying this move and how it might affect U.S. consumers and businesses. The researchers used census data to evaluate the last period when the threat of a global trade war was widespread, following the economic crisis of 2008. They found that the policy uncertainty in foreign markets led U.S. exporting firms to exit many of those markets following that crisis. While Limão and his coauthors show some of that uncertainty has receded, they warn the country could now be headed down a similar path.
GOVERNMENT & POLITICS The Millennial generation, born from the early 1980s to the late 1990s, is the largest generation in the United States—and the most diverse generation in U.S. history. Associate Professor Stella Rouse, director of the Center for American Politics and Citizenship, is investigating who Millennials are. She is examining their political attitudes and policy preferences, as well as how they help define the American sociopolitical landscape. With Ashley D. Ross, Rouse is the coauthor of “The Politics of Millennials” (University of Michigan Press, 2018). This groundbreaking work explores the factors that shape the Millennial generation’s unique political identity, and how this identity is not monolithic, but varies across a number of factors, including race and ethnicity. Rouse also continues to be a sought-after expert in the media, offering perspective on the Millennial vote and on the politics of diverse communities.
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HEARING & SPEECH SCIENCES
PSYCHOLOGY
Age-related hearing loss, a prevalent health condition among older adults, can lead to cognitive decline, social isolation, and depression. Associate Professor Samira Anderson is leading a team of researchers who have found that the use of hearing aids not only improves the ability to hear, but can improve brain function and working memory. At the end of a six-month study—which incorporated behavioral and cognitive tests, and measurements of brain activity—participants showed improved memory, improved neural speech processing, and greater ease of listening as a result of hearing aid use. This study also demonstrated that hearing aids can help reverse several of the major problems with communication that are common as people get older. Anderson and her colleagues hope that their findings underscore the need to make hearing aids more accessible, affordable, comfortable, and socially embraced. The study was funded by the Hearing Health Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.
Many children with autism spectrum disorder have significant difficulties engaging in social interactions. A team of researchers led by Associate Professor Elizabeth Redcay and including Dr. Luiz Pessoa is examining the neuroscientific bases for these difficulties. The team received a $2.6 million grant from the National Institute of Mental Health in support of this project, which uses an innovative, interactive approach to examine real-time social interaction while children are undergoing a functional MRI brain scan. Using additional analytic tools to examine brain networks, Redcay and her colleagues are studying how the functional organization of brain networks changes when children engage in a social interaction in real-time. Ultimately, the team hopes that findings from this study will allow for identification of neural markers of risk that can guide diagnostic and intervention strategies for autism and other disorders characterized by atypical social interaction.
JOINT PROGRAM IN SURVEY METHODOLOGY Jay R. Westreich, GVPT ’19, is pursuing minors in the Joint Program in Survey Methodology and in history. Westreich’s research interests include quantitative political science and survey research. He recently spent a summer as a JPSM Fellow, working at the National Center for Education Statistics. There, he explored how the government conducts statistical research, and gained valuable career experience. This prestigious fellowship included a stipend and housing compensation. During his time at Maryland, Westreich also worked as a research assistant for the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), which is housed within BSOS.
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SOCIOLOGY India’s rapid economic expansion provides many opportunities, but also intersects with divisions of regional inequalities, gender, caste, and religion that have long structured human development in India. Related economic and social forces shape every facet of Indians’ lives—education, health and medical care, social relationships, the care of older generations, and social connections. The India Human Development Survey— led by Professors Feinian Chen, Sonalde Desai and researchers in the National Council of Applied Economic Research in New Delhi—provides a unique opportunity to study these transformations. This survey of more than 40,000 households (200,000 individuals) is drawn from urban and rural areas of 34 states. It was conducted in 2004–05 and in 2011–12, and is planned for 201920. The survey forms the only longitudinal data of its kind. This research has received funding from the National Institutes of Health, World Bank, Ford Foundation, and UK and Canadian aid agencies.
BSOS Centers, Collaborations, Clinics & More The college’s multidisciplinary centers shed light on complex problems and offer practical solutions designed to improve the human condition. View a comprehensive list of our centers and learn more about their work and impact at go.umd.edu/bsoscenters.
• Archaeology in Annapolis • Brain and Behavior Initiative (BBI) • Center for American Politics and Citizenship • Center for Geospatial Information Science • Center for International Development and Conflict Management (CIDCM) • Center for Research on Military Organization • Center for the Study of Business Ethics, Regulation & Crime (C-BERC) • Center for Substance Abuse Research (CESAR) • Deal Island Peninsula Project • Global Land Analysis and Discovery • Global Land Cover Facility • Hearing & Speech Clinic • Joint Global Carbon Cycle Center • Judge Alexander Williams, Jr. Center for Education, Justice & Ethics • Maryland Center for Economics and Policy • Maryland Language Science Center • Maryland Neuroimaging Center (MNC) • Maryland Population Research Center (MPRC) • Maryland Psychotherapy Clinic and Research Lab • National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) • Neuroscience and Cognitive Sciences Program (NACS) • Psychology Clinic
Endowed Peace Chairs • Anwar Sadat Chair for Peace & Development • Baha’i Chair for World Peace • George and Lisa Zakhem Kahlil Gibran Chair for Values & Peace
Introducing MCICE: The Maryland Cochlear Implant Center of Excellence MCICE combines the research and educational strengths of the University of Maryland, College Park with the surgical and clinical expertise from the University of Maryland School of Medicine at the University of Maryland, Baltimore and the University of Maryland Medical Center to create a cohesive cochlear implant services entity composed of educational, clinical and research components. MCICE has received support from the MPowering the State initiative. This summer, MCICE ran a summer program for preschool-aged children who have or are considering
cochlear implants. The program uses a literacy-based, oral language focused curriculum to provide intensive auditory therapy interwoven through fun activities in a classroom setting. mcice.umd.edu
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Office of External Relations 0145 Tydings Hall 7343 Preinkert Dr. College Park, MD 20742 /bsosumd
Celebrating 20 Years of the Summer Research Initiative Established by BSOS and supported by the Office of the Provost, the Graduate School and the Office of the Vice President for Research, the Summer Research Initiative (SRI) is a cornerstone of the college’s longstanding commitment to increasing the number of underrepresented minorities who pursue graduate degrees in the social, behavioral and economic sciences. Participants work with faculty mentors on research projects, and present findings at a poster session. Alumni of the program earn graduate degrees from prestigious institutions, and work in academia and in diverse fields.
go.umd.edu/bsossri
COLLEGE OF BEHAVIORAL & SOCIAL SCIENCES / BE THE SOLUTION