#auresearch

What’s new with AU Research today? Check-out the list below!

New Publications

The Other Pandemic— Prof. Alan Kraut, CAS

“In his 1948 novel, The Plague, philosopher and French Resistance fighter Albert Camus, used the metaphor of a disease epidemic to stir his readers’ compassion and curiosity about those swept up by the rise and spread of fascism. Camus understood from personal experience how fascism’s victims, metaphorical disease sufferers, avoided for as long as possible recognition that the plague “rules out any future . . . silences the exchange of views.” The coronavirus will not succeed in doing to American society what fascism did to Europe in the 1930s and 1940s, but it has sparked a virulent wave of racism and intolerance, especially aimed at Chinese Americans, a bigotry expressed in epithets and, at times, spit and punishing blows to faces and bodies. That wave echoes a contemporary ethnocentric nationalism that has infected many societies and political leaders around the world.” Read more.

Making Bankruptcy Easier for Businesses Can Help Save Economy

“American University Professor of Economics Mary Eschelbach Hansen and her co-author and spouse Bradley A. Hansen, University of Mary Washington Professor of Economics, have co-published an editorial in the April 24th Washington Post about the severity of the current economic crisis and one possible solution: making it simpler for businesses to petition to reorganize their debts in bankruptcy. This measure, they write, “automatically stops debt collection and can prevent what President Herbert Hoover called ‘futile and destructive’ liquidation of businesses.” Read more.

Now, Public Administration Needs a Fifth Pillar— Prof. Nathan Favero, SPA

“We might think of timeliness as a perpetual consideration, fitting under the traditional pillar of efficiency (or effectiveness). There’s certainly a sense in which that’s true. But normally, we think about efficiency mainly in terms of carefully planning and constructing our systems such that they can deal with daily demand in a timely and cost-minimizing fashion.“ Read more.

Federal Agencies are Doing Little About The Rise in Anti-Asian Hate—  Alex Ellerbeck, SOC Graduate Fellow

What’s new with AU Research today? Check-out the list below!

New Publications

The Other Pandemic— Prof. Alan Kraut, CAS

“In his 1948 novel, The Plague, philosopher and French Resistance fighter Albert Camus, used the metaphor of a disease epidemic to stir his readers’ compassion and curiosity about those swept up by the rise and spread of fascism. Camus understood from personal experience how fascism’s victims, metaphorical disease sufferers, avoided for as long as possible recognition that the plague “rules out any future . . . silences the exchange of views.” The coronavirus will not succeed in doing to American society what fascism did to Europe in the 1930s and 1940s, but it has sparked a virulent wave of racism and intolerance, especially aimed at Chinese Americans, a bigotry expressed in epithets and, at times, spit and punishing blows to faces and bodies. That wave echoes a contemporary ethnocentric nationalism that has infected many societies and political leaders around the world.” Read more. 

Professor Delivers 200,000+ Pieces of PPE to Desperate Hospitals

“In just six weeks since the COVID-19 crisis began growing in the United States, Dr. Trina Ulrich has collected and delivered more than 200,000 pieces of desperately needed personal protective equipment (PPE) to doctors and nurses in DC and nine states across the nation. She coordinated the distribution of PPE to hospitals, hospices, free clinics, and nursing homes — wherever she heard it was most needed to protect medical staff from contracting and spreading the COVID-19 virus.“ Read more. 

SIS Scholars on COVID-19: Global Economic Impacts

SIS professor and Distinguished Economist in Residence Arturo Porzecanski discusses the global economic impacts of COVID-19.

What’s new with AU Research today? Check-out the list below!

New Publications 

As Earth Day Turns 50, Oil’s Collapse Offers Clean Energy Opportunity— Prof. Paul Bledsoe, SPA

“The devastating coronavirus pandemic and subsequent shutting down of the global transportation economy has meant the cleanest air experienced in cities around the world since long before the first Earth day in 1970, even as the virus has inflicted untold death, illness, and unemployment.” Read more. 

Now, Public Administration Needs a Fifth Pillar— Prof. Nathan Favero, SPA

“We might think of timeliness as a perpetual consideration, fitting under the traditional pillar of efficiency (or effectiveness). There’s certainly a sense in which that’s true. But normally, we think about efficiency mainly in terms of carefully planning and constructing our systems such that they can deal with daily demand in a timely and cost-minimizing fashion.“ Read more. 

Status at the Margins: Why Paraguay Recognizes Taiwan and Shuns China— Prof. Tom Long, SIS

What’s new with AU Research today? Check-out the list below!

New Publications 

Lyme disease: The other epidemic no one is talking about— Sarah Bea Katz, recent alum of @AU_literature's MFA in Creative Writing

“Her experience of Bell's palsy was just a new bullet point in an elongating list of symptoms of a then-undiagnosed condition that my typically healthy 41-year-old mother endured that year. After months of malaise, shooting pains throughout her body, dizziness, vomiting, leg paralysis, and inaccurate speculations by doctors about whether she had kidney disease, Lou Gehrig's disease, thyroid disease, or a mental illness, an infectious disease doctor finally diagnosed her with neurological Lyme disease, which is caused by the spiral-shaped bacteria Borrelia burgdorferi and spread by deer ticks.” Read more.

Robyn Rafferty Mathias Student Conference Moves Online 

“Now in its 30th year, the Robyn Rafferty Mathias Student Research Conference is one of the College of Arts and Sciences’ most important forums for students to present their scholarship and creative works to faculty, judges, and peers.This year, the conference planning was moving ahead as usual when the global COVID-19 pandemic began. Conference organizers reached out to participants and asked if they wanted the College to cancel, postpone, or host it remotely. The consensus was clear: students overwhelmingly wanted to move ahead and make the event a remote, virtual conference.” Read more. 

How Will the IMF Help the World Recover from COVID-19?— Prof. Tamar Gutner

What’s new with AU Research today? Check-out the list below!

New Publications 

Stop Blaming Black People for Dying of the Coronavirus— Dr. Ibram X. Kendi,  — Director, Antiracist Research Policy Center

“At least 29 states have released the racial demographics of confirmed coronavirus cases, death rates, or both, according to the COVID Racial Data Tracker. The tracker, a collaboration between The Atlantic’s COVID Tracking Project and my colleagues at the Antiracist Research and Policy Center, is being developed to track, analyze, and regularly update racial data on the pandemic within the United States. These initial data provide a still-incomplete picture of the national outbreak's disparities. In 38 percent of the 194,000 cases that these 29 states had reported as of April 12, no racial data were attached. And some states mix racial and ethnic categories in reporting their numbers. But the federal government’s failure to assemble these data has left it to us to produce this resource, however incomplete, for researchers, advocates, and the public.“ Read more. 

Aca Medicaid Expansion Linked To Fewer Opioid Hospitalizations, But Not Er Visits— Dr. Aparna Soni, SPA

“The United States is in the midst of an opioid epidemic. Opioids are responsible for nearly 50,000 deaths per year and present a substantial financial burden on hospitals. The rate of opioids-related hospital events has tripled since 2005.We are particularly concerned about rising hospitalizations because they may stem from a lack of access to treatment for individuals with opioid use disorder. Medication-assisted treatment is effective in treating opioid use disorder but can be unaffordable for people without health insurance.“ Read more. 

Faculty Q&A with a Public Health Expert— Dr. Thespina Yamanis, SPA

What’s new with AU Research today? Check-out the list below!

New Publications 

How Refugees Are Especially Vulnerable to COVID-19— Prof. Tazreena Sajjad, SIS

“Social distancing is a key step toward slowing the spread of COVID-19, but for many refugees and displaced people, it’s impossible to practice this and other preventative measures. We asked SIS professor Tazreena Sajjad to discuss how refugees around the world are especially vulnerable to the novel coronavirus pandemic.” Read more. 

Millions of people in India’s slums can’t keep each other at a distance during pandemic lockdown— Associate Prof. Adam Auerbach, SIS 

“ India’s lockdown to slow the spread of the coronavirus is laying bare immense social inequalities in the country’s sprawling cities. The plight of migrant laborers has been especially alarming. Following Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s sudden announcement of a 21-day lockdown on March 24, migrant laborers have scrambled to return to their villages of origin in search of food and shelter, in many cases on foot.” Read more. 

The Applications and Implications of Nanotechnology— Nicholas Winstead, CSINT Fellow 

“Last month, the FBI announced charges against two Chinese military officers for infiltrating into the U.S. under false identities to steal U.S. intellectual property. Interestingly, in this instance their target was not proprietary information or U.S. military plans; instead, the spies hoped to glean insight into Harvard’s basic research in the field of nanoscience. This incident highlights that winning the future requires more than just the technologies du jour like AI and hypersonics; even more valuable is the foundational science that underpins these technologies. Unfortunately, nanotechnology and other basic sciences are often excluded from the conversation on emerging technologies.” Read more.   

#Tunein

Big World Podcast has released their 23rd episode: What Cuba Got Right. 

New Publications

Examining Attitudes of Young Men about Sexual Assault as they Enter College— Prof. Jane Palmer, SPA

“In an anonymous, self-reported 2010 survey of 1,619 incoming male college students at a large public university in the Northeast, Palmer’s study revealed that almost one in five respondents expressed some likelihood of committing sexual assault if guaranteed there would be no consequences for their behavior. White students and those who intended to join a fraternity were more apt to indicate they might violate women. The likelihood that this group would commit a violent act decreased, however, if they indicated that their friends were the type to intervene to help in risky situations.” Read more. 

Collective Memory, Reconciliation, & Disillusionment: Monuments in Post-Civil War Settings— Diana Knott, SIS 

Knott was apart of SIS’19, and her senior capstone is now published in Yale’s peer reviewed undergraduate research journal. Congratulations Knott! Learn more. 

Trumping truth as people die— Prof. Charles Lewis, SOC

“We Americans have, unfortunately, become accustomed to the daily, multiple prevarications of the 45th president of the United States, Donald John Trump. Since his Jan. 20, 2017, inauguration, Trump has made 16,241 false or misleading claims, according to Washington Post fact checker Glenn Kessler.

Without doubt, previous presidents have misled or lied to the American public.” Read more. 

Announcements 

Direct Air Capture: An ICRLP Explainer Webinar

What’s new with AU Research today? Check-out the list below!

New Publications 

Is Wildness Over? (Where Am I?)— Prof. Paul Wapner, SIS

“Wildness was once integral to our ancestor’s lives as they struggled to survive in an unpredictable environment.  Today, most of us live in relative stability insulated from the vicissitudes of nature. Wildness is over, right?” “Wrong, argues leading environmental scholar Paul Wapner. Wildness may have disappeared from our immediate lives, but it’s been catapulted up to the global level. The planet itself has gone into spasm - calving glaciers, wildfires, heatwaves, mass extinction, and rising oceans all represent the new face of wildness.” Learn more. 

Clear, Consistent Health Messaging Critical to Limiting Coronavirus Deaths—

“While the deadly coronavirus spreads rapidly in the United States, United Kingdom, France and beyond, several countries in Asia and Europe have flattened the curve or slowed outbreaks, including Ireland, Singapore and Hong Kong.”

“Testing and isolation practices in these places vary. But one strategy they share is using early and consistent public messaging to convince people to act in ways that prevent COVID-19 transmission.” Read more.

Coronavirus: Here's Why Rich Neighbors Should Help Developing Economies—Prof. Rick Rowden, SIS

“The entire global community is now facing the unprecedented triple crisis of a global health pandemic, economic recession and global financial meltdown – and the fates of rich and poor countries have never been so intertwined.”

“Commodity prices are collapsing, international trade is slowing and many developing countries that were already in distress are on the edge of full-blown sovereign debt crises.” Read more. 

Announcements