Department of American Studies

Detention and Processing of Unaccompanied Migrants in the United States

This project follows unaccompanied minors who are undocumented migrants through their detention and processing by immigration and detention centers. It will determine if their rights and needs are being met according to federal immigration and state law. It will look at 20 cases of children through detention, processing, and release. After the study’s conclusion, a book is planned on immigration politics and policies and the experience of detained children who are without families or documentation during custody in the United States. This study will be among the first to examine whether children's rights and needs are being met according to law.

Department of Sociology

Inclusive Population Projections of American Indian and Alaska Native People

Population projections of American Indians and Alaska Natives (AIAN) are difficult to estimate with confidence because they are misclassified in mortality data and race response change. I propose to estimate new, high-quality projections of AIAN populations with adjustments for these problems using restricted-use linked Census Bureau data. This work helps answer an important question: how will the population of American Indian and Alaska Native people (AIAN people) grow over the coming decades? This research will improve the ability of tribal, state, and federal governments and programs to plan for and serve AIAN populations.

Department of Psychology

Modeling Neural Markers of Maladaptive, Generalized Avoidance

Anxiety disorders are among the most prevalent, costly, and disabling mental illnesses. One central, yet largely understudied, abnormality in anxiety disorders is the heightened tendency to unnecessarily avoid benign or safe events that resemble dangerous situations. The current project is the first to apply computational methods to map brain processes associated with the motivational forces that give rise to this form of excessive avoidance in order to contribute to future brain-based diagnoses and treatments for clinical anxiety.  

Hubbard School of Journalism & Mass Communication

On the Range: The values, practices, and language of CSR that bind mining companies and communities together

The proposed project explores how corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices and expectations are tied to everyday life and cultural values in two Minnesota mining communities. This study uses extended interviews to understand how mining companies and communities define and experience what it means to be responsible corporate citizens. This study will offer the first qualitative study of US mining companies' corporate social responsibility practices. The project will make contributions at three levels, the study will illuminate how relationships between business and society are forged., It will advance an under-explored cultural and industry context providing cross-industry comparative data.  will also identify the process of corporate-community relationship building.

Department of Sociology 

Mass Probation in the U.S.: Understanding Supervision’s Impact on Wellbeing

Scholars are just beginning to understand the consequences of mass probation build-up, a form of community-based punishment. This project leverages data collected from 170 adults on probation in Hennepin County, MN, to understand the impact of supervision on the wellbeing of individuals, families, and communities. In 2019, my team conducted 170 interviews with adults on probation in Hennepin County, MN, asking closed and open-ended questions about their health, family relationships, housing, employment, and criminal justice contact. Funding from the Talle Faculty Research Award will allow me to analyze this data and produce a series of scholarly papers and a field-defining book manuscript.