University Times

The University Center for Social and Urban Research (UCSUR) has announced the winners of the 10th annual Steven D. Manners Faculty Development Awards. The awards were established in memory of the center’s assistant director, who died in 2000.

UCSUR offers annual awards in two categories: research development grants to support pilot research in the social, behavioral and policy sciences, and infrastructure development awards aimed at enhancing faculty capabilities to carry out interdisciplinary research in the social, behavioral and policy sciences.

This year’s Manners award  winners are:

• Shanti Gamper-Rabindran, faculty member in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, for “Does Cleaning Up Contaminated Sites Yield Economic Benefits? A GIS-Econometric Analysis of the Superfund Program.”

The project aims to demonstrate a method applicable to estimating the benefits from a host of public goods in urban areas, such as the provision of improved schools and public safety to the neighborhood. The method then could be of use to researchers, urban planners, economists, geographers and demographers.

• Jennifer H. Lingler, faculty member in the School of Nursing, for “Feasibility of a Web-Based Intervention to Improve Family Caregivers’ Communicative Skillfulness During Patients’ Medical Visits.”

The goal of the study is to translate a recently developed protocol, Promoting Alzheimer’s Caregivers’ Communicative Skillfulness, to a web-based format and to evaluate its effectiveness for improving communication during primary care encounters of persons with dementia.

• Werner Troesken and Randall Walsh, faculty members in the Department of Economics, for “The Political Economy of American Apartheid (1900-1950).”

This proposal seeks seed funding for a long-term project to study the evolution of American apartheid from 1900 through 1950. A specific focus of the project is an analysis of how African Americans acquired increased housing rights, despite widespread opposition from whites.

• Jennifer Nicoll Victor, faculty member in the Department of Political Science, for “Beyond Formal Institutions: Legislative Member Organizations in a Comparative Perspective.

This project constitutes the first look at legislative member organizations in a cross-national perspective and employs a mixed-methods approach that is of interest to scholars across several disciplines, including political science, sociology, economics, public policy and international organization. The project aims to shed light on the interaction of formal and informal political institutions, the dynamic nature of legislative politics, social networks as conduits of information exchange and the relationships between those inside the legislature and outsiders, such as lobbyists and interest groups.