Place-Based Research Projects

The novel Coronavirus, declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization, has infected millions of people, killed tens of thousands, and disrupted transnational and domestic movement of people and goods. Almost every country in the world is on high alert and most of the earth’s population is reeling from the impact of the pandemic. In each country the practical steps being taken by the state have been supported, opposed, lauded and critiqued. This project is a globe-spanning exploration of how political cartoonists have brought humor and a critical eye to the politics of this still-unfolding tragedy.

Political cartoons and cartoonists have generated a lively record of the public arguments in this period of COVID-19. Starting from December 2019, we hope to gather cartoons drawn in the U.S., Mexico, France, Spain, England, and India. This research addresses the role of humor in disseminating complex information in times of global crisis. Some of the questions we seek to answer are: Can we uncover areas of convergence or divergence amongst cartoons around the world? How do cartoonists analyze government responses? What is the role of political ideology in the framing of the COVID-19 pandemic?

Research open to all disciplinary backgrounds and levels. IT skills: web scraping skills, and/or knowledge of accessing Twitter API are a plus. Reading proficiency in Spanish, French, Hindi, or Arabic is a plus.

Status: Open

People engaging in outdoor sports risk coming into contact with others carrying the coronavirus. Ordinary face masks are problematic when exercising strenuously. The goal of this project is to study the need for better breathing apparatus for outdoor sports and design, construct and test several prototypes that avoid the shortcomings of existing solutions.

Project open to a wide variety of majors. Personal interest in running, biking, walking a plus. Physiology, microbiology, fluid mechanics, engineering design, entrepreneurship, probably other skills I haven't thought of welcome/needed.

Status: Full; not accepting applicants at this time

Consistently we hear the call to trust science when it comes to matters of public health. Yet, the unfolding story of the coronavirus is not simply a narrative of clinical trials and official closures, but a patchwork of amateurs practicing resourcefulness in a time of acute crisis. From homemade masks and hand sanitizers to car-bound protests and religious gatherings, the headlines are filled with stories of non-specialists: some developing novel means of virus evasion, others continuing time-honored rituals in defiance of expert opinion. This research group seeks to use the framework of vernacular culture to document how different communities respond to the virus. Our mode of engagement will be the documentary podcast series, as student researchers will work on every stage of developing a multi-part documentary podcast, from selecting subjects and writing scripts to sound engineering and promotion. The aim here is not to judge or even comprehensively understand instances of everyday planning or conspiracy thinking but rather to contextualize, and ultimately to create empathy for the non-expert. Each student will be given creative control of one episode, which they can begin researching throughout the summer months, before we begin mapping out the arc of the series in the Fall semester together.

Project open to all majors, but those in College of Liberal Arts, Communications, Radio Station Volunteers, or students with Sound Production Experience may find best fit to their interests.

Status: Open

Findings from data competitions hosted in AY 2019-2020 suggest that teamwork impacts an individual’s motivation for participating in activities that require data literacy skills. We tested two long-term data competition models—one where individuals worked on a data challenge as part of a 4-person team assigned a team leader, and another where individuals worked alone but received weekly check-ins and project feedback. Both models lasted 3-weeks. Preliminary results suggest that for individuals seeking to improve data-related competencies, team-based models improved learner motivation and improved individual retention rates. I am seeking a student who will assist me in spending Summer 2020 conducting a literature. We will combine lit review findings with the aforementioned project results to plan a Fall 2020 data competition—likely related to COVID-19 and possibly hosted digitally, again testing both the individual and team models. The student will aid me in refining the hackathon theme, with event marketing/recruitment, with collecting data via surveys and interviews, with analyzing survey and interview data, and with synthesizing findings for publication—possibly via presentation at the Purdue Undergraduate Research Conference or via publication in JPUR. Students interested in engineering education or generally interested in data science might benefit most from this project.

Project open to all students interested in critical data studies. Engineering Education, Education, Health and Human Sciences, Data or Information Science related disciplines may find most direct application to their interests.

Status: Full; not accepting applicants at this time

This project seeks to enlist the help of citizen scientists to design antiviral proteins that could stop the coronavirus from infecting human cells using a free online game called FoldIt. Students will join Foldit players from around the world competing and cooperating to solve novel coronavirus puzzles that are updated each week by structural protein scientists. Players will use the software to design and fold novel proteins according to certain design criteria. Proteins with the highest stability scores could potentially be developed into antiviral drugs to lessen the severity of patients’ symptoms. Ideal candidates for this scholarly project are juniors and seniors from biology-related majors. Students will be expected to deliver a poster or an oral presentation at the Purdue Undergraduate Research Conference at the end of the project.

Project most suited to upper-division students from any biology-related field. Understanding of genetics a plus.

Status: Full; not accepting appliants at this time

People experiencing homelessness, many of whom already suffer from a range of health conditions, are at particularly high risk for COVID-19 infection and adverse outcomes. A high proportion of the U.S. homeless population also suffers from substance use disorder (SUD), and the social distancing measures and strained healthcare systems during the pandemic have presented unique challenges for this marginalized and underserved group. Despite the mounting evidence recognizing that people with SUD, and especially those experiencing homelessness, are particularly susceptible and pose increased risk for community transmission of COVID-19, pandemic response efforts have failed to prioritize these communities. This study seeks to understand the challenges and collective impact of COVID-19 response efforts in homeless communities. Project goals are: 1) to understand the specific challenges, risks, and needs of the homeless population during the COVID-19 pandemic; 2) to examine current organizational- and system-level responses to COVID-19 prevention and impact mitigation in homeless service settings; and 3) to identify potential solutions to address gaps in current response efforts and improve future pandemic responsiveness for the homeless. This study will contribute to future disaster planning, with the underlying goal of empowering homeless communities to advocate for their inclusion and prioritization in pandemic response efforts.

Project open to all majors. All students will undergo training for all aspects of the work. However, familiarity or experience with conducting literature reviews and/or interviews with stakeholders is a plus.

Status: Full; not accepting applicants at this time

Black women are uniquely situated within overlapping systems of oppression to sustain disproportionate losses of both life and livelihood during this pandemic. Whether they experience symptoms associated with the coronavirus, seek medical assistance, and are denied life-saving care. Among Black women, decisions about seeking medical attention or continuing to work in unsafe environments, coupled with gendered racism, are further complicated by factors such as disability and socioeconomic status. If and when shortages of ventilators or hospital beds occur, ableist ideas about who receives treatment will negatively affect Black women with disabilities. Poorer and houseless Black women may face substantial barriers in seeking care or may not be able to stop working in high-risk jobs like caretaking in assisted living facilities, in custodial and clerical work at hospitals, or as cashiers/clerks in grocery stores. What are the response of Black women lawmakers to the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on this population group? In this project, I seek to examine how Black women lawmakers use their own social identity to uniquely develop, champion, or challenge policies around COVID-19.

Project best suited to students with experience and/or interest in Political Science, African American Studies, Women's and Gender studies, Sociology.

Status: Full; not accepting applicants at this time

This study is intended to explore how community-based college access and success programs who predominantly serve economically marginalized students are responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. Given that such programs serve tens of thousands of students annually and play an essential, supportive role in the educational trajectories of students, knowing how programs are responding to this global pandemic is crucial. An online survey comprised of open- and closed- questions will be distributed to community-based college access and success programs who provide direct services to students. Results of the study will be used to bring attention to the essential work of these organizations and anticipate how students will be better served during this pandemic.

Project open to all majors; preference for students with majors or experience in education or social sciences.

Status: Full; not accepting applicants at this time

With the advent of COVID19 colleges and universities across the United States and world had to respond in days to the question whether students would return to classroom instruction after spring break. With Fall 2020 looming, the question is how campuses will hold classes. What tools will these campuses mandate in exchange for students attending on-campus versus online? What civil liberties issues are implicated (if any) and are there proposals for steps colleges and universities can and should take to limit liability without also limiting student, faculty, and staff civil liberties? This project will provide students an opportunity to conduct legal research as well as research regarding proposed plans from a sampling of colleges and universities. They will then have the opportunity to formulate a proposal based on their research regarding civil liberties and risk. All work can be conducted from anywhere in the world so long as the student has access to Purdue library databases. This oped will form a starting point: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/26/opinion/coronavirus-colleges-universities.html?smid=li-share.

Project open to all majors. Students in business, political science, history may find most direct application to their interests.

Status: Full; not accepting applicants at this time

This study group will research how US towns and cities rate across a variety of economic and social metrics. Each member can select their own community and/or compare with others. The focus of the group is to explore how places have been faring and contrast with current policy and other responses to the COVID crisis that have deeply impacted communities. We will use a variety of sources to gather existing data on metrics and rankings for towns and cities, including the Gallup Well-Being Index, US News Healthiest Communities, and Sperling's Best Places Almanac. Observations about response to the current crisis will then be contrasted with existing data. As an example, are those places ranked high on health and community vitality responding differently from those ranked lower, or are there innovative approaches to dealing with unemployment and other development issues? We will host a special guest who has written extensively on local development. A readings list will be provided, and publishing opportunities will be explored via a Taylor & Francis journal, Local Development & Society, https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?show=aimsScope&journalCode=rlds20&. This will likely be a case study or commentary developed jointly.

Project open to all students.

Status: Full; not accepting applicants at this time

This project seeks to document the heightened incidents of racism, bias, and violence, particularly directed against the Asian and Asian American individuals in Indiana and in the Midwest. The project will consist of two phases. Phase one is media research to document COVID-19-related bias incidents from news media as well as social media. Phase one will also include documenting efforts from different institutions to raise awareness about and fight against the incidents. Phase two, with IRB approval, will involve interviews with individuals and communities who have been affected by bias incidents.

The outcome of the project will be quantitative and qualitative analyses of the bias incidents in Indiana and in the Midwest. We are interested in utilizing the data-sharing platform from Purdue University Research Repository and publish the result of this research. We are also looking into multimodal presentations to help raise awareness about racism, bias, and violence amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Project open to all students.

Status: Full; not accepting applicants at this time

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused extraordinary changes in our academic and personal lives. Each of us and our communities share similar, but also different challenges in responding to this pandemic. This call for responses and reflections is meant to offer a community of support where our stories - and the way we tell our stories - matter. We are inviting all members of our Purdue University community to share individual or community stories and experiences with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. We invite submissions in any creative format, including (but not limited to) a reflective essay, a series of journal entries, a scrapbook of images and texts, poems, spoken word, letters, performative videos, exercise videos, choreography, painting, drawing, online content, play, song, dance, film, or other kinds of creative expressions.

We extend the following prompts to help participants think about their submissions:

• How has your life changed since the university moved to online instruction?
• How have you been connecting with others during this time of “social distancing?”
• If you wanted other people, both in the present and in the future, to know one thing about your current experience, what would it be? Why?
• How has the pandemic been affecting your communities (broadly defined)? For example, there have been heightened incidents of racism, biases, and violence against Asian and Asian American communities.

Student researchers will work in the following areas:

• Advertising the call for reflections and responses
• Processing and archiving submissions
• Curating multimodal presentations and exhibitions together with the AAARCC staff members
• Writing an article (or other format) for publication

Project open to all students.

Status: Open

What will university life look like post-pandemic? This project turns to Purdue's past to investigate how students (and faculty/staff) created their campus culture at two key moments: in the years after the founding of Purdue University and during WWI and the Spanish Flu epidemic. Students will comb through documents and artifacts in the Purdue University digital archives (Exponent articles and Debris yearbooks, especially) to document the invention of Purdue's campus culture. The goal will be to share these historical moments with the wider community and to extrapolate lessons for creating our new campus culture during and following the COVID-19 emergency.

Project open to all students.

Status: Full; not accepting applicants at this time

This digital ethnographic project seeks to better understand how the COVID-19 crisis is affecting Indigenous Peoples in the Brazilian Amazon and strategies communities have been using to address public health concern in their communities. Since the announcement of COVID-19, many indigenous peoples have created public health campaigns in their local languages and put on different webinars. The Instituto Socioambiental has set up an interactive map to track infections among Indigenous Peoples and other campaigns have begun. The goal of this work is to systematically document the challenges that the communities are facing, communication strategies, proposed solutions to institutional or governmental barriers, as well as an social media campaigns. Researchers on this team will join the Zanotti lab and be trained ethnographic and digital methods as well as start to learn about indigenous and decolonizing methodologies.

Project open to all students: Strong organizational skills, interest in environmental justice and rights, preferred Spanish or Portuguese language skills.

Status: Full; not accepting applicants at this time

People, especially girls and women, frequently share information, experiences, and opinions about reproductive and sexual health over social media to raise awareness and build support. TikTok, in particular, is gaining users exponentially during COVID-19. Hashtags related to the pandemic continue to build momentum and intersect with other popular reproductive and sexual health hashtags as the world experiences this pandemic. For many, TikTok serves as a platform for interpersonal communication, while also demonstrating their engagement with rapidly changing health information and policies. Social media platforms, like TikTok, may play a critical function in communicating sentiment and providing participatory ways for individuals to interact with and co-create the COVID-19 experience. The primary purpose of this project is to identify how young people are receiving and creating information related to women’s reproductive and sexual health on TikTok during the COVID-19 pandemic. We will conduct a content analysis where we will document, characterize, and quantify reproductive and sexual health experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic shared via public TikTok posts, using relevant hashtags and background music. Ultimately, understanding how young people use TikTok to discuss these important topics will provide crucial pilot data for research proposals that use technology to reach young people.

Project open to all students. Class/Major: Rising Sophomore or Junior (preferred), studying Public Health, Communication, Nursing, Psychology, or Health Sciences (preferred.

Status: Open

In the original project, the research team was developing a survey for math teachers to investigate how they were using curricular resources (both traditional and electronic). Then COVID-19 hit and teachers' curriculum use likely changed dramatically and they were expected to teach math online. We intend to modify our survey to explore how teachers are using math curricular resources in the current context of the pandemic and online teaching. How have they modified their work? How has curricular resource use changed

Project open to all; education students preferred, but not required.

Status: Open

Students will collaborate with PI to research and categorize what sorts of exercise might be safer and what might be less safe during the COVID-19 pandemic (or during any viral epidemic season). This activity will likely be conducted by first analyzing what factors tend to enhance or decrease safety. It could also have a component where computational fluid dynamics is used to analyze flows around/between athletes and possibly a component that considers the best way to convey findings to the general public.

Project open to 3rd and 4th-year students in Engineering, PPI, Science. Students in other fields related to sports/health/medicine should inquire about whether the project is a match for their interests/skills.

Status: Full; not accepting applicants at this time

The coronavirus pandemic has changed how we think about and measure time due to the quarantine, social distancing, and the speed of illness and death arriving at the doors of many Americans. Yet, there is also an overload of information, speculation, and discussion that invites us to measure and analyze how narratives about disease and sickness are constructed along a timeline, and how it contributes it the racialization of COVID-19. This project titled, “COVID-19 in Black and White: Exploring the Racialization of News Media Coverage of the Coronavirus Pandemic in the Mainstream and Black Press” explores contrasting coverage of COVID-19 in the mainstream and Black Press and argues that applying race to vulnerability in the context of news does not necessarily humanize but can marginalize communities. Instead without social and historical context, particular types of news coverage offer us a path to understanding how inequality is created, developed, applied and then practiced in the way news is covered. The following research questions drive the project:

• What differences exist between mainstream news media and the Black Press’s coverage of COVID-19?
• How does the mainstream news and the Black Press racialize the COVID-19 health crisis?
• How is news coverage of the COVID-19 politicized to influence the 2020 Presidential election?
• How does coverage of factors such as comorbidities and pre-existing conditions compound and/or mitigate the racialization of COVID-19?

A research assistant will conduct research in academic databases to identify and read articles from the newspapers to determine the total number of articles and photographs that reference COVID-19 and race, and Black people. Each news item will be coded according to a general category that is designated by the researcher. Content analysis will also be used to identify spatial/geographic references in each news item. Spatial references will be recorded in a spreadsheet to create a dataset. The references include:

• All explicit mention of specific places in articles and photo cutlines, the caption near a photograph in an article or newspaper
• The address of each source quoted where the source was explicitly associated with a residence, business or organization
• General areas of the city or when they are explicitly mentioned

The project is best suited for students in American Studies, African American Studies, Communication, English, Health and Human Services, History, Political Science, and Sociology.

Status: Open