Northeastern University has announced the winning proposals for its yearly competitive research development program, Transforming Interdisciplinary Experiential Research (TIER) 1, providing funding to multidisciplinary faculty teams — 12 of which include faculty from the College of Arts, Media and Design (CAMD). It’s the highest number of such grants CAMD faculty have received to date, and the most of any college at Northeastern.
Fifteen-month grants of up to $50,000, provided by CAMD and the Provost’s Office, will help the teams secure proof of concept, with a goal of successfully competing for future external sponsored research opportunities.
The following project proposals were awarded TIER 1 grants for the 23-24 fiscal year and will begin July 1.
Social Media Use and Eating Disorder Risk at the Intersections of Gender and Autism
Meryl Alper, Associate Professor of Communication Studies
Rachel Rodgers (BCHS)
The first study of the relationship between social media use and eating disorder risk among adolescent girls on the autism spectrum, with the goal of identifying targets for prevention, policy, and practice to minimize risks.
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Artificial Intelligence to unpack the Dynamic Relationships between Media Narratives, Foreign Policy, and Public Opinion
Myojung Chung, Assistant Professor of Journalism
Seoeun Yang, Assistant Professor of Communication Studies and Political Science
Xuechen Chen (NCH)
Adopting cutting-edge artificial intelligence techniques to uncover the relationship between media narratives, foreign policy, and public opinion concerning contemporary warfare and humanitarian crises.
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Wind View AI
Enrico Bertini, Associate Professor of Art + Design and Computer Science
Melanie Tory, Art + Design and Roux Institute
Nathan Post (Roux)
Represents a novel cross-disciplinary synthesis to enhance understanding of wake steering performance on a wind plant by leveraging machine learning and visualizing what that model is able to detect.
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Archeologies of Data in Contemporary Journalism: Bootstrapping AI Models for Access to Photo Morgues
Meg Heckman, Associate Professor of Journalism
David Smith (Khoury)
Explores uses of AI for archival research beyond the established domains of image restoration and processing, and to perform pilot experiments in photojournalism.
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Reproductive Justice Research Collaborative
Meg Heckman, Associate Professor of Journalism
Suzanna Walters (CSSH)
Alisa Lincoln (BCHS, CSSH)
Wendy Parmet (SOL)
Jessica Linker (CSSH)
Natalee Kehaulani Bauer (Mills, CSSH)
To help researchers provide accurate information and substantiated knowledge to other researchers, reproductive justice organizations, service providers, journalists, and other stakeholders, creating a website of informational and action-oriented resources while cultivating in-person alliances across four streams pivotal to reproductive access and care: health, journalism/media, law, and policy.
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Reclaiming Open Public Places in Asian-American Communities: A Community-Based Participatory Research in the Boston Chinatown
Lily Song, Assistant Professor of Architecture and Public Policy and Urban Affairs
Meredith Clark, Associate Professor of Journalism and Communication Studies
Zorana Matic Isautier, Faculty Fellow, Architecture
Matthew Lee (CSSH)
Applies a spatial justice lens to social determinants of health, incorporating analysis of open spaces and considering displacement pressures to counter damage-based, deterministic accounts of gentrification and analyze and inform multi-generational anti-displacement strategies by Chinatown residents and activists incorporating narrative, planning, and design techniques.
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Mentored Award: Measuring Government Responsiveness in a Time of Crisis
Katherine Haenschen, Assistant Professor of Communication Studies and Political Science
Kevin Drakulich (CSSH)
Seeking to fix the deeply flawed External Efficacy (EE) construct for surveying in order to measure the public’s attitudes towards government in times of crisis.
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African Built Heritage Digital Preservation, Benin Pilot Research Project
Killion Mokwete, Assistant Professor of Architecture
Patricia Davis, Associate Professor of Communication Studies
Jessica Parr (CSSH)
Through community participation & storytelling, centering cultural heritage buildings in Sub-Saharan Africa by mitigating the threats posed by climate change, rapid urbanization, weak legal protections, under-resourced antiquities departments, lack of digital archive tools & technologies, oil extractive practices and other systemic issues.
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Leveraging language learning and exercise to enhance cognitive and brain health
Leanne Chukoskie, Physical Therapy and Art + Design
Miso Kim, Art + Design
Bob De Schutter, Art + Design and Khoury
Art Kramer (COS)
Christie Chung (Mills)
Using game design, immersive technologies, and user testing as a way to understand the perspectives of older adults and increase community engagement with physical activity, cognitive training, and foreign language learning.
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Transforming Education for BIPOC youth with Game Design and Ecological Justice
Alexandra To, Assistant Professor of Art + Design and Computer Science
Clifford Lee (Mills)
Tap into transformational game design, community storytelling, and an indigenous-centered, ecological justice curriculum so that BIPOC high school students are empowered to create tools for change through the creation of their own games.
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Supporting Procedural Creativity with Probabilistic Programming-based AI
Chris Martens, Associate Professor of Art + Design and Computer Science
Steven Holtzen (Khoury)
Developing creative AI that empower rather than displace designers by developing new programming languages for communication between designers and AI systems.
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A novel natural language processing model for advancing mental health research
Don Robinaugh, Assistant Professor of Art + Design and Applied Psychology
Ruben van Genugten, Institute for Experiential AI
Improving mental health care by enabling large-scale content analysis to develop software with natural language processing to automatically cluster texts and to identify, analyze, and visualize themes in studies of psychopathology, making large, qualitative studies of diverse populations possible.