Innovating Graduate STEM Education Through Bio-Social Partnerships (Allison Hayes-Conroy)
Funding: National Science Foundation
Faculty Affiliated: From Geography and Urban Studies: Allison Hayes-Conroy, Kevin Henry, Hamil Pearsall, Michele Masucci; From Biology: Rob Kulathinal, Sudhir Kumar, Tonia Hsieh; From Education: Carol Brandt; From the Franklin Institute: Jayatri Das

The Bio-social partnerships project at Temple University promotes collaboration across the social and life sciences and beyond. The project is built around the BODIES SERIES graduate education sequence that is co-taught between the departments of Geography and Urban Studies and Biology. Collaborators see the human body – a complex, living phenomenon that is simultaneously biological and social – as a ‘boundary object’ between the biological/life and social/human sciences. The BODIES SERIES consists of a two-semester studio phase (fall-spring) and a final exhibit phase, which takes place in the summer months. Updated Syllabi are available on the course materials page. The project began in Fall 2015 and partners with the Franklin Institute, a science museum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Learn more about this grant on the Bio-Social Blog.

Integrating Satellite Earth Observations for biodiversity decision making in Colombia (Victor H. Gutierrez-Velez)
Funding: NASA
The project aims to integrate Earth Observations from multiple satellite sources to contribute with information for decision-making in biodiversity planning and management in Colombia. We are developing a Decision Support System to help characterizing biodiversity status, drivers of biodiversity change, biodiversity change scenarios and priority areas for biodiversity sampling and monitoring.

Domesticated Elephants and Monsoon-Time Transportation in South and Southeast Asia (Jacob Shell)
This research project focuses on Burmese and northeast Indian forest communities which train Asian elephants as a means of transportation. Up through the current decade, trained elephants have figured as an important option for humans seeking mobility across geographic zones which are prohibitive of wheeled vehicles. Elephant-based transportation becomes especially important during the flooding season, when roads are obstructed. This dual-species form of mobility endures in the overlapping Kachin, Hkamti, Moran, and Adi ethnic areas of the Indo-Burmese borderlands. Combining ethnographic fieldwork and archival work, the research project evaluates the potential advantages of these practices from political, ecological, and conservation standpoints. View Jacob Shell’s Visual Work.

Gentrification and Green Space Development in Philadelphia (Hamil Pearsall)
Dr. Hamil Pearsall is the Principal Investigator on a project examining gentrification impacts associated with the creation of 15 new parks in Philadelphia since 2008. Learn more about Dr. Pearsall’s work.

Socially Just Climate Futures (Hamil Pearsall) Dr. Hamil Pearsall is the Co-Principal Investigator on a student-based project that is incorporated into the Geography of Hazards. Students work with local environmental groups and city agencies to develop podcasts on the theme of socially just climate futures in Philadelphia. (The podcasts will be shared via the Planet Philadelphia website).

Mapping the Role of Somatosenses in Youth-Based Creative Activity and Community Engagement (Allison Hayes-Conroy)
Funding: National Science Foundation
This project analyzes the role of the body in motivating youth to participate in creative social activities that positively influence their lives and the lives of their communities. The project focuses on the somatosensorial system - the complex system that enables feeling in the human body - in order to understand how the body’s capacity for feeling matters to the motivation of youth as well as to the outcomes of their social activities. The research and pedagogical programs of this NSF CAREER project integrate international, participatory and student-driven research on youth-based, creative action groups (e.g. dance, theater, and clown troupes, urban gardeners, community musicians) in Philadelphia, PA and Colombia, South America. One of the outcomes has been the creation of a growing platform and database on community-based organizations in and around Medellin, Colombia, called El Atlas.

Social-Spatial Risk and Protective Mechanisms in Urban Adolescent Substance Use (Jeremy Mennis)
Funding: National Institute of Health and National Institute of Drug Abuse
In this study, we propose to collect survey, real-time location, and ecological momentary assessment data over a two year period in a sample of 300 urban adolescents. This unique data set will then be applied to developing multilevel and actor-based social network models of the co-evolution of substance use behaviors, peer affiliations, and the use and meaning of geographical space over time. We propose a highly contextually specific research approach to ground social networks within the social environment of adolescents’ lives. We will use Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) methodology via mobile messaging technology to simultaneously assess multiple influences on adolescent substance use in real time. Along with sampled specific coordinate data of location and a series of standard surveys, this approach will integrate the personal, social, and environmental processes associated with initiation and escalation of substance use. The goal of this study is to model the evolution of multi-level mechanisms affecting substance use for urban youth. The design gives rise to two related models; (1) a hierarchical three-level longitudinal design, with individual change in substance use nested within personal networks, which are in turn nested within neighborhoods, and also (2) a non-hierarchical design with individuals non-uniquely linked to locations. The latter is best thought of as a bipartite (or 2-mode) social network, i.e., a network with two distinct types of vertices, in this case “locations” and “individuals”, where ties are only allowed between vertex types. Aim 1. Model changes in substance use over 2 years, focusing on the moderating effects of individual social network quality (risk/protection) on neighborhood-level predictors (concentrated disadvantage: low education and employment, high public assistance; drug related crime; alcohol availability). Aim 2. Model changes in substance use over 2 years, focusing on the mediating effects of individual network quality (riskiness) on individual-level predictors: affective, cognitive and behavioral influences. Aim 3. Model changes over two years in the co-evolution of substance use and the use of space, defined by a bipartite social network linking individuals to locations, particularly focusing on: (a) Structural tendencies driven by common influence and selection-related mechanisms (e.g. bipartite-graph equivalents of transitivity, reciprocity and other network closure effects typically found in ordinary (1-mode) networks), (b) Main and moderating effects of activity spaces (individuals’ interpretation of locations), and (c) Main and moderating effects of neighborhood characteristics (which are properties of locations).