Category: News

 

OIBR Grant Development Program participant, Michael Cacciatore, Associate Professor, Public Relations, has been awarded a $2.5 Million grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation’s Advancing Informal STEM Learning program.

Michael Cacciatore, co-director of the Center for Health and Risk Communication at Grady College, received funds from the U.S. National Science Foundation to support research for PBS Digital Studios’ TERRA, a science-themed hub on YouTube, as they launch a new slate of STEM content.

Dr. Cacciatore is a co-principal investigator for the grant that also includes Dr. Sara Yeo of the University of Utah.

The grant from NSF will support a two-pronged PBS initiative to create STEM-related, short-form videos and conduct follow-up research to better understand how and why these videos attract underrepresented groups.

“Dr. Cacciatore’s work exemplifies the very best in collaborative research on issues of great importance,” said Charles N. Davis, dean of Grady College. “It’s a reminder that all grant-funded research contains a communicative element, and that Grady College faculty can help design and implement rock-solid empirical studies of message design and effectiveness.”

Cacciatore explains that PBS not only wants to expand its audience with new and underserved audiences, but the organization also recognizes the importance of bringing research into decisions so they are informed by data. He expects part of the research to focus on the role of humor in communicating science, an area PBS already utilizes and that Cacciatore studies.

“For me, this project builds naturally from a lot of the work I’m already doing on humor as a tool for science engagement,” Cacciatore, an associate professor in the Department of Advertising and Public Relations, said of the three-year grant. “At the same time, this project places more of an emphasis on the practical side of things. We’ll have a chance to collect data, analyze the underlying trends in that data, and then see our work influence the content PBS is producing.”

Cacciatore is excited to work with content producers like PBS.

“From an institutional perspective, I love the idea of PBS, arguably the most important provider of educational programming, partnering with UGA, the birthplace of higher education. I think it’s a perfect marriage,” Cacciatore said.

Currently, YouTube’s most popular STEM creators are disproportionately white and male, and viewer data and PBS surveys suggest that Black and Hispanic viewers, as well as women overall, are underrepresented in audiences for STEM content online. With support from the NSF grant, PBS Digital Studios aims to remedy this by expanding PBS TERRA to new, diverse audiences, and examining its impact.

Specifically, PBS Digital Studios plans to launch new series and create special episodes for existing series that explore STEM through a variety of lenses, including humor and popular culture. These STEM series will feature underrepresented voices, especially Black and Hispanic science communicators, in front of and behind the camera and seeks to broaden the audience for STEM content online.

“With the help of NSF, we hope to inspire the next generation of scientists by offering diverse and educational programming in a new way. At PBS, we are committed to presenting viewers with topical content that they cannot find anywhere else— and PBS TERRA is a perfect example. This is incredibly important work, and we are excited to innovate with STEM content and study the impact this content has within underrepresented communities,” said Sylvia Bugg, Chief Programming Executive and General Manager, General Audience Programming at PBS.

The research will be used to show how these groups search for and engage with content related to science, technology, engineering and math. Cacciatore and Yeo will also test hypotheses on the effects of STEM videos featuring scientists and experts that are women, Black and/or Hispanic presenting science content in a variety of ways. A goal of the project is to measure audiences’ attitudes and engagement with science as well as their perceptions of scientists.

The NSF’s AISL program seeks to advance new approaches to and evidence-based understanding of the design and development of STEM learning opportunities for the public in informal environments; provide multiple pathways for broadening access to and engagement in STEM learning experiences; advance innovative research on and assessment of STEM learning in informal environments; and engage the public of all ages in learning STEM in informal environments.

Author:  Sarah Freeman/Stephanie Kennard,  freemans@uga.edu/skkennard@pbs.org
For more information about this project:  Michael Cacciatore,  mcacciat@uga.edu

 

OIBR Affiliate, Dr. Jamie Cooper, Professor in the department of nutritional sciences and director of the UGA Obesity Initiative, has been named as the interim associate dean in the College of Family and Consumer Sciences effective August 1, 2021.

Cooper will continue in her roles as the Bill Flatt Professor in the department of nutritional sciences and director of the UGA Obesity Initiative.

“In addition to conducting important research and serving as an outstanding mentor to several graduate students, Dr. Cooper has provided excellent leadership in her role as director of the UGA Obesity Initiative,” FACS Dean Linda Kirk Fox said. “She will be an asset to the college in this new role as interim associate dean.”

As interim associate dean, Cooper will collaborate with department heads, undergraduate and graduate coordinators and administrators at the college and university levels to help grow the college’s reputation and increase financial resources in support of academic programs.

Cooper also will provide oversight for the college’s Student Success and Advising Center and will begin to facilitate the college’s strategic planning goals related to growing research, innovation and entrepreneurship.

“I’m excited about this opportunity and look forward to collaborating with college leadership to continue the upward trajectory of FACS,” Cooper said.

Cooper participated in the UGA Women’s Leadership Fellows Program in 2019-20, was a member of the FACS research, innovation, and entrepreneurship strategic planning committee and served on the FACS faculty advisory committee. She also has served as the department’s graduate coordinator in addition to directing the emphasis in sports nutrition.

Prior to her arrival at UGA in 2015, Cooper served as associate department chair in the department of nutritional sciences at Texas Tech University.

Sheri Worthy, the Samuel A. and Sharon Y. Nickols Professor who serves as associate dean for academic programs, was named the college’s interim dean in May by UGA Provost Jack Hu, effective Aug. 1 upon Fox’s retirement after 10 years in the role.

More about Jamie

Article written by: Cal Powell
Source: UGA Today

 

OIBR director, Lillian Eby, has been inducted as a 2021 Fellow of the Academy of Management. The Fellows Group recognizes and honors members of AOM who have made significant contributions to the science and practice of management. In addition to celebrating achievement in management, the Fellows Group provides opportunities for community and a forum for discussion among the people who have been recognized. For 2021, 14 members were selected to be honored with induction.

Lillian Eby, Professor of Psychology, joined the University of Georgia (UGA) in 1996. She is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, and the Owens Institute for Behavioral Research at UGA. Her research interests center on mentoring relationships, factors that predict individual career success, worker well-being, and the intersection of work and family life. She has published over 125 peer-reviewed journal articles and this work appears in scholarly outlets such as the Journal of Applied Psychology, Personnel Psychology, Journal of Vocational Behavior, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Journal of Management, among others. Eby has also co-edited three books, one on mentoring in organizational, educational, and community settings (Allen & Eby, Blackwell Press), one on the effect of relationships on employee attitudes, behavior, and well-being (Eby & Allen, Taylor/Routledge Press), and one on work and family (Allen & Eby, Oxford University Press). She is former Associate Editor of Personnel Psychology as well as the Journal of Applied Psychology. Currently, she is the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Applied Psychology. In addition to her active scholarship, Eby serves as the Director of the Owens Institute for Behavioral Research, a service unit under the Office for Research that promotes and supports interdisciplinary social and behavioral science at UGA.

Learn more about the 2021 AOM Fellows.

OIBR Distinguished Scholar, Dr. Anne Shaffer, has been named the associate dean of the University of Georgia’s Graduate School by Ron Walcott, the vice provost for graduate education and dean of the Graduate School. In this position, she will be responsible for academic affairs and will support the development and implementation of strategic initiatives.

As an associate professor in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences’ psychology department with dual appointments in the clinical psychology and brain and behavioral sciences programs, Shaffer has served as the graduate coordinator for the department since 2017. She has also served as an Administrative Fellow in the Office of Inclusion and Diversity Leadership in the dean’s office of Franklin College of Arts and Sciences since January 2020. She is an elected member of University Council, serving on the Human Resources committee and previously on the Faculty Affairs committee. Shaffer is a selected participant in this year’s Leadership Institute for Women in Psychology, sponsored by the American Psychological Association, with prior participation in UGA’s Office of Faculty Affairs Future Leaders program and the Faculty Leadership Institute.

Shaffer’s research focuses on risk, resilience, and development in the family context, with an emphasis on emotion regulation and communication. She has published more than 60 peer-reviewed articles and her research is supported by multiple grants from the National Institutes of Health, targeting the development of novel interventions and measures of parenting.

Jean Martin-Williams, chair of the internal search committee, said they were impressed by Shaffer’s record in research and student mentoring that showed a strong commitment to equity and justice in graduate education. They noted her prior experiences in graduate education point to her abilities to strengthen collaborations with campus partners in innovative, student-focused ways.

With a record of mentorship in her department and on campus, Shaffer has served as a mentor in the Gateway to Graduate School and TRIO McNair Scholars programs, and in the Center for Undergraduate Research Opportunities. She is a member of the UGA McCoy-Hutchinson Graduate Mentoring Academy and a trained facilitator in the Entering Mentoring curriculum offered by the Center for the Improvement of Mentored Experiences in Research.

“Dr. Shaffer’s experience in working with graduate students brings an added dimension to our work in the Graduate School and will help us to expand our capacity to enhance their academic and personal well-being,” Walcott said. “Her ability to work with colleagues across the university will help us to build exemplary graduate programs and recruit exceptional students as part of our strategic efforts to grow graduate education.”

“I am honored by the opportunity to promote graduate education at UGA, and to serve the Graduate School’s mission of inclusive excellence. I look forward to working with the broader graduate community in pursuit of these goals,” Shaffer said.

 

Article written by: Judy Milton
Source: UGA Today

 

 

The Owens Institute for Behavioral Research (OIBR) is pleased to announce that we are now accepting applications for faculty seed grant projects on in the area of Health Disparities.  All faculty in the social and behavioral sciences are encouraged to apply. In line with the mission of OIBR, projects must demonstrate a commitment to interdisciplinary research and, as outlined in the program announcement, lead to a full grant proposal to be submitted through OIBR or, if submitted through the PI’s home unit, notification should be given to OIBR that a proposal is resulting from the project.

Below you will find the OIBR Health Disparities Seed Grant Program Announcement (application instructions and details regarding the review process) as well as the OIBR Seed Grant Submission Form.  Please note all completed applications are due on June 7, 2021, and must be submitted electronically as a single combined PDF to the Outreach and Communications Manager, Andrea Horsman, at ahorsman@uga.edu.  Questions about allowable expenses not referenced on the instructions, or any other facet of the seed grant program, should be directed to Jody Clay-Warner, Associate Director of OIBR, at jclayw@uga.edu.

OIBR Health Disparities Seed Grant Call.final

Health Disparities Seed Grant_submission_form_FY22_Ver2

 

The Owens Institute for Behavioral Research will host its annual Gene Brody Symposium on Wednesday, March 24 at 3pm.

Join Dr. Sherman James, a social epidemiologist and the originator of the “John Henryism” theory, to learn how the theory came about, what we have learned since he first proposed it in the early 1980’s, and what outstanding questions remain.

The legend of John Henry tells of a post-Civil War black man who proved himself greater than a steam powered drill, but afterwards, died from exhaustion. Whether the legend is interpreted as a tragedy, a heroic tale, or both, the story contains a sober truth for all Americans. There are many examples of African Americans who, like John Henry, overcome humble backgrounds and systemic barriers to achieve great success, but at what costs to their health?

Dr. Sherman James is the Susan B. King Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Public Policy at Duke University. He was a professor of epidemiology at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill (1973-89) and the University of Michigan (1989-03). At Michigan, he was the John P. Kirscht Collegiate Professor of Public Health and has received numerous awards and honors in his prolific career.

More event details.

The Owens Institute for Behavioral Research will host its annual William A. Owens Lecture virtually on March 15 at 11:30 a.m.

Dr. Mark van Vugt will give the lecture, titled “COVID-19 and the Workplace: Insights from the Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences.” van Vugt will use an evolutionary psychological perspective to understand the short and potential long-term consequences of the current pandemic for the workplace. He will focus on five trends that may each have important implications for the way work organizations are designed, how leaders and managers operate, and how employees do their work. Each of these trends signifies important mismatches between old and new work practices that, if not addressed properly, could destabilize work organizations in the long run.

van Vugt is a professor of evolutionary psychology, work and organizational psychology at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and director of the Amsterdam Leadership Lab. He is also a Research Fellow at the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford. He studies work and organizational behavior from an evolutionary perspective.

For more information and to register for this webinar, visit https://t.uga.edu/6Nu.

 

Owens Institute for Behavioral Research Fellow, Catherine O’Neal spends her time studying how people—especially couples and families—relate to each other and how they can do it better. She began training as a marriage and family therapist but fell in love with the research while earning her Ph.D. from UGA’s Department of Human Development and Family Science.

“I want to understand how people connect and engage with each other,” said O’Neal, now an associate research scientist in that department within the College of Family and Consumer Sciences. “A lot of my research comes from my own questions about why relationships matter and my desire to facilitate healthy relationships as a way to improve individuals’ well-being.”

The stability of strain

Looking at how relationships endure over time is a strong focus of O’Neal’s work. One recent study displayed the stability of marital conflict over long periods. Using a sample of 250 Midwestern couples in lasting heterosexual marriages (some for 40 years or more), she found that those who had high levels of conflict early in midlife were also at risk for high levels of conflict 15 years later, when they were older adults.

“In general, conflict was consistent over time,” she said. “The other thing this study demonstrated was that, at least in this sample of couples, even relationships with high amounts of conflict can be stable. That is, not everyone who experiences marital conflict gets a divorce.”

Currently O’Neal is looking at the consequences of social relationships, like mental and physical health, to see what happens over time and how these aspects relate to each other: How do shifts in physical health relate to the quality of mental health, and how does an improvement in social relationships correlate with physical health?

One type of strain that particularly interests her is financial stress. How do couples experience financial strain, and what implications does it have for other areas of their lives, including interactions with loved ones and physical and mental health? Is the stress relieved when finances improve or do its detrimental effects stick around?

“Our hypothesis,” O’Neal said, “is that financial stress often initiates what we refer to as a ‘chain of insults,’ where it triggers life events, such as changing jobs, and other stresses like depression, poor physical health and conflictual interactions. Moreover, we are examining whether financial stress amplifies the impact of such life events.

“Decades later, we’re seeing that the effects of financial stress tend to stay with you, even when the finances are no longer shaky.”

O’Neal is leveraging her work on financial stress to help look for intervention and prevention solutions. For instance, she is working with the U.S. Air Force to measure the effectiveness of financial training modules to help personnel manage their finances and well-being at important life “touchpoints,” such as the birth of a child, relocation or retirement. Aiming to provide “just in time” financial knowledge may lead to better financial decisions and, ultimately, well-being, she said.

Working with colleagues in engineering, journalism and mass communications, and sociology, Catie O’Neal is testing a new way to keep military families connected when a member is on deployment. This virtual reality environment allows family members to interact in settings more typical of home life, such as backyards, living rooms and basketball courts. “The idea,” she said, “is that military family members not only get to talk to each other, but the family room allows them to engage in activities together—much like they do at home.” (Image courtesy of UGA Virtual Experiences Laboratory, College of Engineering)

Little things mean a lot

In another example of how risk can result in resilience, O’Neal is working to help military families stay connected when they are geographically separated. In collaboration with OIBR Fellow  Sun Joo “Grace” Ahn in the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, Kyle Johnsen in the College of Engineering, and OIBR Fellow Dawn Robinson in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, she and the team use virtual reality headsets to help families engage in activities that are not usually possible when a family member goes on deployment.

“We have a virtual family room where there is a basketball hoop, checkers and a backyard where you can throw the ball back and forth,” O’Neal explained. “The idea is that military family members not only get to talk to each other, but the family room allows them to engage in activities together—much like they do at home.”

As the COVID-19 pandemic has shown, these fleeting moments of connection in family life can take on much greater importance when they’re suddenly gone.

“You know, before COVID, my research coordinator and I would go to lunch, where we would talk about work but also talk about so many other little things that come up in conversation,” O’Neal said. “I miss those small connecting moments, and I believe that we as a society are missing out on these small but meaningful social connections during the pandemic.”

In particular, the extreme amount of stress that nurses and other medical professionals are going through during the pandemic occupies her mind a lot these days.

“What are the long-term consequences,” she asked, “of being under this severe strain for an extended number of hours every day and then having to come home and shift roles from caring for patients to taking care of a family, without having any significant amount of time to process the events you’ve just experienced at the hospital?”

She also wonders about the emotional toll on families who have lost a loved one to COVID.

“Research with military families has examined ambiguous loss, where loss occurs without closure or clear understanding. Families who have experienced the death of a loved one during COVID have often received no or limited information on what happened and have had little time to say goodbye. It’s possible these scenarios may also create ambiguous loss and even experiences of post-traumatic stress,” she said.

One part of her work she especially enjoys is interpreting others’ research to make it accessible and meaningful to broader audiences. Drafting reports for the Department of Defense on topics relevant to the military and policymaking means she must write for a vastly different audience than the peers who read her research papers. While one style calls for nearly every potentiality to be covered, the other demands efficiency of words and time. Writing for both audiences has made her better at communicating her own research.

“As a social scientist whose work started in marriage and family therapy, the thing that I believe most strongly is that relationships matter,” she said. “The quality of the different types of relationships—including parent-child, between spouses, members of extended families, colleagues—they all help make life what it is.”

 

This article was written by David Terraso for the UGA Office of Research.

 

Owens Institute for Behavioral Research Fellows Katherine Ehrlich, Psychology, and Bradley Phillips, Clinical & Administrative Pharmacy, along with Ted Ross, Infectious Diseases at UGA, were recently awarded the Presidents’ Award of Distinction for Team Science by the Georgia CTSA. This honor is bestowed upon their multi-disciplinary research team in recognition for their innovative, high-functioning teamwork and synergy. Together they have built a diverse, multidisciplinary team of collaborators, each contributing to their success. Since 2017, their team has done amazing work to develop new tools and processes for quality-driven research focused on immune responses to influenza vaccination.

The Presidents’ Award of Distinction for Team Science, conferred by the Presidents of the academic institutions of the Georgia Clinical and Translational Science Alliance (Georgia CTSA), including Emory University, Georgia Institute of Technology, Morehouse School of Medicine and University of Georgia, recognizes and promotes excellence in multi-disciplinary research teams within the Georgia CTSA. This award is presented to an outstanding multi-disciplinary research team in recognition of its innovative and impactful research that has, or will likely, advance clinical and translational science and positively impact human health. 

This year’s winning team of the President’s Award of Distinction for Team Science will receive $5,000 towards their team science research program and were recognized at the 2021 Southeast Regional Clinical and Translational Conference (March 4-5, 2021).

Read more here.