Jaipreet Virdi, associate professor of history, is part of a research team based at Vancouver Island University that was awarded more than $500,000 from the Canadian Institutes on Health Research (CIHR) for a project examining the history of pelvic health and public health in Canada. The five-year project explores how pelvic health issues, their associated treatments and shortcomings in care became a public health concern in the late-1960’s and 2000, a time when feminist activists brought attention to women's health. Virdi joins with co-investigators to create 10-15 historical case studies of underexplored pelvic health issues and partner with Indigenous communities in British Columbia and Alberta, as well as local communities. Virdi plans to work with local South Asian communities to write a study on the history of endometriosis. Additional outcomes include graphic history and film, digital archives and oral histories of key figures in the feminist health movement and the experiences of pelvic healthcare providers and service users. The project will provide researchers and practitioners across the country with essential historical context to inform contemporary health policy and efforts to address inequities in women’s health. Only 20% of the proposals submitted to the CIHR for awards in 2023 were funded.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services awarded UD's Delaware Institute for Excellence in Early Childhood (DIEEC), housed within the College of Education and Human Development (CEHD), and five other partners a cooperative agreement to establish and operate the first-of-its-kind National Early Care and Education (ECE) Workforce Center. With a $30 million investment over five years, the National ECE Workforce Center will coordinate and provide technical assistance and rigorous research to advance the recruitment and retention of a diverse, qualified, and effective workforce in early childhood care and education. Rena Hallam, director of DIEEC and professor in CEHD's Department of Human Development and Family Sciences, will serve as the principal investigator for the UD team. In addition to UD, core partners include Child Trends, the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment, BUILD Initiative, ZERO TO THREE and the University of Massachusetts–Boston.

Honors

Margaret Stetz, Mae and Robert Carter Professor of Women's Studies and professor of humanities, was the recipient on Feb. 7, 2023, of a "Special Recognition" award given by the Washington Coalition for Comfort Women, Inc. (WCCW), an NGO that supports justice for the survivors of Japanese military slavery during WWII, for her work as a scholar and activist. The awards ceremony was part of a Congressional Forum held at the Rayburn Office Building, Capitol Hill, Washington, D.C. In attendance were members of Congress, as well as the Hon. Seijoong Kwon, consul general, Embassy of the Republic of Korea. In addition, Stetz’s exhibition catalog, Aubrey Beardsley, 150 Years Young, won praise – “comprehensive and visually rich” -- from The New Yorker in an article on Beardsley in its Feb. 13 edition. The catalog accompanied an exhibition at the Grolier Club that she and Mark Samuels Lasner, senior research fellow at the UD Library, curated.

Babatunde Onase, research assistant and master of civil engineering student in UD’s College of Engineering, was a finalist in the Three-Minute Thesis Competition, held as part of the Transportation Research Board annual meeting, held Jan. 8–12, 2023, in Washington, D.C.. One of 24 finalists, Onase presented his thesis, titled “Sustainability in Asphalt Pavements by Incorporating Reclaimed Asphalt Pavement Materials,” to an audience of industry experts, professors and students. He is advised by Haritha Malladi, assistant professor in the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering.

Beth Morling, professor and director of undergraduate education in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, recently received the Charles L. Brewer Distinguished Teaching of Psychology Award from the American Psychological Association (APA). The honor is given to those who meet a number of criteria related to teaching psychology and training psychology instructors, including exemplary performance as a classroom teacher, developing innovative curricula and courses, and development of effective teaching methods and/or materials, among others. In addition to teaching her classes at UD, Morling trains and mentors graduate student teachers in psychology and advocates for teaching focused faculty at UD. She is the author of Research Methods in Psychology, maintains a blog called Everyday Research Methods, which provides faculty who teach research methods classes with examples to use in their teaching, and is a regular contributor to Teaching with Current Directions, a bimonthly blog by the Association for Psychological Science, which provides new content and teaching ideas to instructors. This is Morling’s second national award. She was named the 2014 Professor of the Year for the state of Delaware by the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.

Yendelela Cuffee, assistant professor in the Epidemiology Program and associate director of the Partnership for Healthy Communities, has been accepted into the 2023-24 Society of Behavioral Medicine Leadership Institute. Just 30 people were selected nationally for the Institute’s seventh cohort. Cuffee has been an engaged member of the professional association for more than a decade. The mid-career yearlong professional development program leadership training opportunity kicks off with a two-day conference in Phoenix, Arizona, in April. This opportunity is designed to train leaders in behavioral medicine in collaborative research and mentoring. Through the program, Cuffee will be paired with a career coach and mentor who will work with her to bolster leadership skills and advance her research. “I am at a pivotal point in my career, and this program provides an opportunity to think about transitioning into a leader in behavioral health research and stepping more fully into the role of a mentor and advisor for students,” Cuffee said.

Publications

Heinz-Uwe Haus, professor of theatre, is one of 10 authors of the newest publication of the Austrian National Defense Academy/ Institute for Peacekeeping and Conflict Management, Vienna, entitled Philosophical Foundations of Freedom and Security in Europe (Duncker and Humblot, Berlin, 2023, p. 384). In the book, military scientists, cultural scholars and experts of European affairs analyze how the political culture and the cohesion of the European Union are being challenged by history. Haus, who was politically involved in the 1989/90 Peaceful Revolution in Germany, participates since then as cultural scientist in the discourse on the European integration process, the European Union, its institutions and policies, For this publication, he coauthored, with Johannes Berchtold, a chapter entitled "The EU between a confederation of states and a federal state,” and wrote together with Berchtold and Allan Guggenbühl the subsection “Cultural initiative instead of defensive.” His chapter, “Culture and identity in the context of security policy,” investigates the steady rise in the number of dramatic events that threaten the security of many states that have established their security systems on the basis of their traditions and in harmony with their culture, above all law. "Self-reflection is in order: What constitutes the intellectual groundwork of Europe? What are we obliged to defend? That is the most urgent question to build unity and resistance against the Russian imperialism,“ Haus said in an interview with Ukrainian News, Feb. 16, 2023. The volume offers an academic survey of the challenges of cultural identity and develops the philosophical foundations of European freedom, whose recognition is essential to the strengthening of Europe’s agency and resilience.

Communication researchers at the University of Delaware are investigating how public opinion about facial recognition technology (FRT) is influenced by the use of different forms of media. The study drew on original data from two nationally representative surveys of the U.S. public in 2020, amid a series of controversies and protests about policing and racial justice. Paul Brewer, professor of communication, and James Bingaman, a communication Ph.D. student, led the study with support from Wyatt Dawson and Ashley Paintsil, both Ph.D. students, and David C. Wilson, dean of Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California in Berkeley. Their findings, published in the January 2023 edition of the Bulletin of Science, Technology and Society, demonstrated that overall television viewing and crime media viewing predicted support for multiple uses of FRT, while Fox News viewing predicted support for using FRT to monitor protests. The study has advanced the understanding of public opinion toward the technology and its implications for policing, protests and social justice.

Researchers from across University of Delaware departments, including the Center for Research in Education and Social Policy (CRESP) in the College of Education and Human Development; the Institute for Public Administration in the Joseph R. Biden, Jr. School of Public Policy and Administration; and Behavioral Health and Nutrition in the College of Health Sciences have completed a three-year program evaluation for the federal pilot program WeCare. An Innovations in Nutrition Programs and Services - Research grant, administered by the Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Community Living, helped to support the pilot partnership between Education, Health and Research International (EHRI), Modern Maturity Center, and UD. The final report, Innovative Title III Senior Healthcare Program: Year 3 Final Report, examined individual health assessment data, client and service call data, interviews and case studies. The report concludes that the WeCare program has successfully been able to support a significant number of clients who are experiencing challenges from social determinants of health which include complex and interrelated health for both physical and mental, housing, transportation, and nutrition challenges. The program improves the quality of life for vulnerable older adults who reside in rural areas of Delaware by tracking health conditions, helping them to navigate healthcare options and maintaining necessary connections to social and public health resources. Contributors to this research included Julia O’Hanlon, IPA policy scientist; Allison Karpyn, co-director of CRESP and associate professor; Elizabeth Orsega-Smith, associate professor; master’s student Rachel Samson; James Wallace, CRESP research assistant; Mia Seibold, CRESP research assistant; and Tara Tracy, CRESP research consultant.

Alisa V. Moldavanova, MPA program director and associate professor in the Joseph R. Biden, Jr. School of Public Policy & Administration, and coauthors Tamaki Onishi and Stefan Toepler have published a special issue  “Civil society and democratization: The Role of Service‐Providing Organizations Amid Closing Civic Spaces” in Public Administration and Development. The special issue comprises seven original contributions that are based on a variety of nonprofit service providing contexts located in geographies as diverse as Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, and Central and South Asia. The research article by the editors can be accessed here. The key argument of the special issue is that current democracy promotion strategies relying on rights-claiming advocacy NGOs are falling short of their democratization goals, as authoritarian regimes are closing the space through restrictions on the NGOs that attempt to carry them out. In response, Moldavanova et al. suggest a reexamination of earlier approaches to involving civil society in democratization efforts by shifting the focus back on service-providing civil society organizations that have largely become side-lined in democracy-building agendas. Service providing nonprofits tend to be more capable of functioning “under the radar” thus contributing to democracy in both direct and indirect ways, and thus escaping closing space restrictions.

In response to alarming statistics about health disparities in the LGBTQ+ community, a multi-institutional research team — including two University of Delaware researchers — tested the effectiveness of social support in decreasing stress among individuals who had experienced hate speech. The results showed that effective support decreased stress and increased general wellbeing over one month. John P. Crowley, associate professor of communication, was the principal investigator for the team, which included Amy Bleakley, professor of communication. The researchers recruited 50 individuals to participate in recorded 10-minute conversations about painful experiences with discrimination. They collected saliva samples from the participants before and after the conversations to measure physiological reactivity to stress. Participants completed surveys before and after the conversations, and again one month later, to evaluate general wellbeing. The study was published in the journal Communication Monographs.

To submit information for inclusion in For the Record, write to ocm@udel.edu and include “For the Record” in the subject line.