Faculty Fellow

Dr. Jared Clemons is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Temple University. His research focuses on political economy, political behavior, black political theory, antiracism, and the US education system.

Project Statement: Dr. Clemons is currently working on a book tentatively titled Privatizing Antiracism: Why Education Cannot Solve Racial Inequality, in which he examines the role that education has played in the fight for racial equality in the US, particularly since the modern civil rights movement. Tracing our current public school system to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, Dr. Clemons argues that, due to the nature of the capitalist economy, the idea of equal educational opportunity—often believed to be the answer to racial inequality—cannot be realized. Employing a mixed methodological approach to this research, Dr. Clemons relies upon archival research, as well as observational and experimental survey work, to provide empirical evidence for what he calls the education paradox, which underscores two irreconcilable functions of the education system: it is at once both an engine of social and economic inequality as well as a means by which people seek to rectify structural injustices, especially those stemming from legacies of racism. Since the passage of the ESEA, however, the first function—education as an engine of inequality—has prevailed. Given this, Clemons advances a new conceptual framework, the privatization of racial responsibility, which offers a new accounting of structural racial inequality and how it might be addressed politically outside the education system.

Graduate Fellow

Dan Confalone is a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science at Temple University. A student of American Politics, his research interests include Race, Ethnicity, and Politics (REP) as well as local and urban politics.

Project Description: The primary focus of my project is on Black voters’ disillusionment with the political process. I seek to understand if disillusionment exists, how common it is among Black voters at the local level, and what some of the causes of disillusionment are. Some questions this project asks are: What relationship do Black voters have with Black politics after decades of control in some cities? Have Black voters received the distributive policy benefits they expected, and if they have not, do they blame Black leadership? Are there generational or other cleavages to how voters view Black leadership and what they expect from it? I argue a variety of constraints on Black leaders cause voters to lose faith in their leaders as well as their own efficacy as political actors. By focusing on disillusionment with Black politics at the local level, this project will address a gap in our knowledge about racial attitudes and the political economy of race in urban environments.

Research Team Fellow

Dr. Jamie J. Fader is an Associate Professor in the Department of Criminal Justice at Temple University. Her research applies sociological theory and qualitative research methods to understand the lived experience of the criminal legal system for members of vulnerable populations, including youth, boys/men, and emerging adults who identify as LGBTQ+. Her recent book, On Shifting Ground: Constructing Manhood on the Margins (University of California Press) draws on life course interviews with 45 men in Philadelphia to examine how they manage age-graded and gendered expectations during a time of diminished economic opportunities and the expanding reach of the criminal legal system.

Project Description: Along with her research partner, Megan Shaud, Dr. Fader will use the PPL Fellowship to begin a new project that explores sites of resilience for Philadelphia’s LGBTQ emerging adults (age 18 to 25). Sites of resilience are the places and people who provide support for this population and create feelings of safety, belonging, and acceptance. Understanding and identifying sources of support are critical for policy makers and practitioners concerned with mitigating the negative effects of discrimination, which are particularly prevalent during the current moral panic over transgender youth. Our team will conduct in-depth interviews with a sample of 40 to 60 LGBTQ-identified emerging adults in Philadelphia. All referrals are welcome!

Research Team Fellow

Veronica Gomes is a PhD student in the Department of Geography, Environment and Urban Studies at Temple University. Her interests are in the subfields of medical geography, population geography, and spatial statistics with a special interest in understanding health disparities among minorities.

Research Team Fellow

Dr. Kevin Henry is Professor and Chair in the Department of Geography, Environment and Urban Studies at Temple University and a member of Fox Chase Cancer Center’s Cancer Prevention and Control program. He is a medical geographer whose research focuses on place-based and geographic disparities in health and disease, with an emphasis on applied geographic methods and the role of geographic factors in cancer outcomes and prevention.

Project Description: Human papillomavirus (HPV) is the most common sexually transmitted infection in the U.S. and a leading cause of various cancers and genital warts. The HPV vaccine offers safe, effective, and lasting protection against the virus and is recommended for adolescents at 11 or 12 years of age. Despite its benefits, the Healthy People 2020 and 2030 goal for HPV vaccination rates is 80%, but as of 2021, only 60% of U.S. adolescents are up to date, according to the National Immunization Survey-Teen (NIS-T). This gap underscores the need for targeted efforts to boost vaccination rates, particularly in underserved communities.

In this research project, I will investigate the factors influencing HPV vaccine uptake among U.S. adolescents, focusing on both individual and community-level factors. Using data from the CDC's National Immunization Survey-Teen from 2017 to 2023, I will analyze disparities in vaccine initiation and completion rates, with a particular focus on changes before and after the COVID-19 pandemic. The analysis will consider individual factors such as the teen’s age, race/ethnicity, health insurance type, poverty status, receipt of a provider recommendation, and parental characteristics, including marital status and education level. Additionally, healthcare system factors, such as facility type, will be examined.

After completing a data linkage of geographic variables with NIS-Teen data, I will also explore how community-level geographic factors—such as socioeconomic status, urban/rural residence, segregation, and racial composition—affect vaccine uptake. The research will also summarize reasons adolescents and parents provide for not intending to receive the HPV vaccine.

The findings from this study could significantly influence public health strategies, particularly in addressing the gap in HPV vaccination rates. By uncovering possible determinants of vaccine uptake and the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, I aim to inform interventions, such as tailored educational campaigns, school-based vaccination programs, and financial incentives, to increase vaccination rates in underserved communities. The results will be crucial for federal, state, and local health departments in designing location-specific public health initiatives to improve HPV vaccine coverage and reduce disparities in cancer prevention efforts.

Graduate Fellow

Kyler Lehrbach is a PhD student in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at Temple University. Their research focuses on mental health treatment accessibility and the impact of reimbursement rates from insurance companies on mental health service providers.

Project Statement: More than half of Americans with health insurance who seek mental healthcare are unable to access services. In addition to a national shortage of mental health service providers, many providers do not accept health insurance in private practice settings. There is little empirical research examining why some mental health service providers do not accept insurance, but studies suggest that they are not financially incentivized, as they can earn more from out-of-pocket rates compared to insurance reimbursement rates. Other reasons for not accepting insurance have included the additional administrative burden of managing insurance claims, difficulty being included on insurance payer panels, and restrictions/regulations of treatment plans. One way to increase treatment accessibility would be to raise the rate of pay at which insurance companies reimburse mental health service providers. The proposed study will survey mental health service providers (e.g., psychologists, marriage and family therapists, mental health counselors, professional counselors, and social workers) who work in the private practice sector and do not currently accept health insurance to learn more about providers' decision-making. Participants will provide ranked information on their reasoning for not accepting insurance. Participants will also complete a hypothetical demand task, employing behavioral economics, to examine the likelihood of their acceptance of health insurance at various increases in reimbursement rate, with and without the addition of administrative assistance (i.e., to ease administrative burden). This project will contribute to our understanding of treatment accessibility from the provider perspective and provide implications for policy implementation.

Faculty Fellow

Dr. Ingrid Olson is the Thaddeus Bolton Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Temple University. Her research focuses on memory, social cognition, and age-related brain changes.

Project statement: A century of research has shown that as we age, cognitive and physical health decline. The range of cognitive skills that declines is broad and includes processing speed, memory, and executive functions. Musculoskeletal changes along with changes in neuromotor systems cause declines in physical speed, strength, and balance. These physical changes contribute to a dramatic increase in falls. Each year, nearly 1 in 3 adults over the age of 65 fall and the direct medical cost exceeds 50 billion dollars per year. A key contributing factor is age-related changes in balance reflex pathways of the brain. There is new emerging evidence that balance training can remediate vestibular problems in normal aging. Whether this is due to changes in myelination of subcortical-cortical pathways is part of my research project at the Policy Institute. In addition, I will focus on research on vestibular training, as well as compiling information about modifiable risks for falls through lifestyle changes.

Graduate Fellow

Belinda Peter is a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science at Temple University. Her research focuses on how democratic backsliding impacts voter behavior.

Project Description: Around the world, we are witnessing a decline in the quality of democracy across both well-established and new democracies including in Brazil, Greece, Hungary, Poland,

Turkey, United States, and Zambia. This phenomenon in which elected leaders circumvent democratic standards is known as democratic backsliding. My study will contribute to our understanding of what motivates the voter to mobilize against or for incumbents that engage in democratic backsliding. The role of the electorate is significant to democratic backsliding because undemocratic actions are being taken by incumbent leaders who are elected through democratic means. However, voters could be unaware, passive participants in or active supporters of democratic backsliding. Scholars have explored why voters who prefer democracy nevertheless participate in democratic backsliding. To draw out this nuance I want to utilize survey experiments in India to measure how voters react when presented with information on democratic backsliding

Faculty Fellow

Dr. Jessica Roney is Associate Professor of History at Temple University. She is an historian of colonial and revolutionary America with a focus on the origins of American political practices.

Project Description: My current project, The Revolution Out of Bounds, argues that white settler colonization and struggles over spaces north, west, and south of the original thirteen states shaped American constitutional development in deep yet unrecognized ways. Questions of citizenship, sovereignty, democracy, union, and the meaning of what it meant to be a republic were critically shaped on and in contest with the colonies formed out of and because of the American Revolution. We are still living momentously with the ramifications of that dialectic.

In addition to teaching at Temple University, I am the Director of the Program in Early American Economy and Society (PEAES). This program, housed at the Library Company of Philadelphia which was founded by Benjamin Franklin in 1731, hosts programming, offers postdoctoral, dissertation, and short-term fellowships, and publishes a book series relating to early American political economy.

Research Team Fellow

Megan Shaud is a PhD student in the Department of Criminal Justice at Temple University. Her research interests include queer criminology; youth crime; crossover/multi-system youth; and exposure to violence, trauma, and sites of resilience.

Project Description: While improvements in the perceptions of and rights for LGBTQ people in the U.S. have occurred over the past decade, these rights currently hang in the balance for many LGBTQ-identifying people across the states. As of mid-April 2024, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) was tracking 484 anti-LGBTQ bills in the U.S., including bills targeting identification documents, civil rights, free speech and expression, healthcare, public accommodations, schools and education, and other anti-LGBTQ initiatives. Although no anti-LGBTQ bills have been passed at the state level in Pennsylvania so far this year, the proposal of these discriminatory bills demonstrates that there are people who take anti-LGBTQ stances in this state and ultimately sets the precedent for others to engage in behavior that is harmful towards LGBTQ-identifying individuals (e.g., discrimination). And while this covers what is happening at the state level, much of this legislation is being proposed at a hyperlocal level at school board meetings and via local municipal elections. For example, in early 2023, Central Bucks School District’s school board passed a policy that censors classroom décor and discussions related to advocacy (including displaying pride flags). Together, these experiences with legislative and interpersonal discrimination may culminate to increase negative mental and physical health outcomes among LGBTQ-identifying emerging adults (aged 18-25). In LGBTQ populations, prior research indicates increased adverse mental and physical health outcomes in relation to exclusionary stigma (e.g., depression, self-harm, drug and alcohol use). My study aims to explore LGBTQ emerging adults’ various experiences with discrimination (e.g., denial of services) and related outcomes (e.g., mental and physical health, contact with the CLS) during a time of heightened anti-LGBTQ backlash. Specifically, I aim to examine sources and impacts of exclusion and discrimination situated in the context of recent legislation criminalizing gender-affirming health care or acknowledgement of LGBTQ identity (e.g., “don’t say gay” bills) and the overrepresentation of this population in the criminal legal system (CLS). I intend to highlight the harms of anti-LGBTQ legislation and the need for increased social services for LGBTQ emerging adults.

Faculty Fellow

Dr. Brian Tuohy is Assistant Professor of Urban Health and Population Science in the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University. He is a Faculty Affiliate at the Center for Urban Bio Ethics and in the Department of Sociology at Temple University.

Project Description: Owing to a lack of comprehensive federal immigration reform since 1986, decisions about immigrant lives are made at state and local levels. This has significant practical and theoretical implications for immigrant health, which I will examine in detail during the course of this fellowship. More specifically, I will examine policies around pre and postnatal care in different states and the impact this has on health outcomes for immigrant mothers and their children. I will also incorporate my ongoing ethnographic and interview-based study conducted in collaboration with a Philadelphia community organization of a training program for doulas helping undocumented women navigate the birthing process in Pennsylvania.