Jeffrey Gonzalez, Associate Professor, English

I’m using my time in the RJP to write an article and start developing a book proposal. The article would focus on the popular, divisive novelist Otessa Moshfegh’s use of the first-person confessional form in three of her works; by “confessional” I intend to explore a connection to Confessionalist poetry, specifically that of Sylvia Plath, as well as confession in a religious sense. This essay would serve as a chapter, ideally, in a book about contemporary American women’s fiction, in which I’d explore the ways innovative female authors have responded to structural shifts in American society, the ongoing presence of misogyny in mainstream life, and the inheritance of second-wave feminism in literary forms.

Kirk Johnson, Assistant Professor, Justice Studies

I will be writing two papers for the Research Jumpstart Project with the intention of peer-reviewed journal submission and acceptance. The first project’s tentative title is “Approaches to Humanize Healthcare with the Rise of Artificial Intelligence.” This article aims to explore how concepts of Medical Humanities can be applied to rehumanize patients of color in a medical field that is quickly changing due to artificial intelligence, robotics, and supercomputers. The second project’s tentative title is “Pedagogical Approaches: Incorporating Health Inclusion in a Medical Humanities Course.” This article aims to demonstrate how using the methodology of equity and intersectionality in medical humanistic concepts can be tools to promote racially competent pedagogy.

Erin Kang, Assistant Professor, Psychology

My goal for the Research Jumpstart Program is to work on publishing on main outcomes from grant-funded studies that directly address major aims of my research program. Specifically, I plan to work on writing and revising a manuscript examining mediators/moderators of a group intervention for autistic youth, as well as another one examining neural correlates of flexible thinking in autistic youth. I am eager to leverage the RJP’s unique resources to ensure my work is communicated effectively and conducted in a timely fashion over the RJP timeline.

Julie Landweber, Associate Professor, Department of History

Román Liera, Assistant Professor, Educational Leadership

Faculty members play an important role in advancing racial equity on their campuses, but faculty agency within the context of racial equity is undertheorized. Thus, I am writing a theory to conceptualize and understand faculty members’ racialized change agency. In the paper, I combine research on faculty agency and racialized organizations to propose that faculty members’ agency is an outgrowth of social and organizational positionings in the racial heterarchies of academia, which are embedded in societal and organizational fields. The model offers administration and faculty leaders guidance to understand faculty members’ agency being interrelated and embedded within their organization’s contexts (e.g., departmental power dynamics) and external conditions (e.g., neoliberalism, anti-DEI policies). Doing so allows administration and faculty leaders to strategically support faculty members engaging in racialized change work.

Sze Yan Liu, Associate Professor, Public Health 

My goals for the RJP program are to 1) finish a series of interrelated studies about structural inequity and women’s health that I have been working on, 2) get feedback on a current grant application, and 3) learn new strategies to be a more efficient writer.

Abena Owusu, Assistant Professor, Accounting and Finance

My RJP projects investigate the impact of regulations on risk practices in the financial industry by analyzing key cultural traits in banks and insurance firms. Using textual analysis and machine learning techniques, I examine indicators like sentiment, risk disclosures, and decision-making patterns in corporate annual reports and regulatory filings. This research provides valuable insights for enhancing regulatory strategies and promoting resilience in financial institutions.

Tanesha Thomas, Assistant Professor, Sociology

My projects are about the intersection of environmental justice and racial capitalism. The research will use archival data and content analysis to investigate the environmental burdening of a low-income Black community in Upstate New York. This work contributes to the fields of environmental sociology, critical criminology and Black studies.

Blanca Elizabeth Vega, Associate Professor, Educational Leadership

In 2022, I earned a national grant to study the experiences of Higher Education and Student Affairs (HESA) Professionals with undocumented students and related policies. From this project, I seek to produce three manuscripts that advance my research on the intersection of higher education leadership and state political contexts in supporting undocumented students. Through this work, I examine how HESA professionals’ support for undocumented students can shape campus environments and impact student experiences, particularly in states with varied policy approaches to undocumented student inclusion. I aim to contribute to leadership and organizational change theories, offering insights that inform scholarship and practice.