IUPUI Researchers

Paul Mullins and Susan Hyatt

Website:

https://invisibleindianapolis.wordpress.com

(Anthropology) – Their work examines heritage, materiality, and race in Indianapolis neighborhoods that have been ignored or misrepresented in public discourse. The project uses ethnography and documentary research to illuminate how otherwise "invisible" neighborhoods illuminate challenging histories of class, cultural, religious and racial inequalities that continue to shape the Circle City. "Invisible Indianapolis" built on an earlier project, "The Neighborhood of Saturdays," that traced the relationship between African Americans and Jewish immigrants, who shared a neighborhood on the near south side during the first half of the 20th century.

Leslie Ashburn-Nardo

(Psychology) – Her work focuses on documenting the various ways that women, African Americans, and other underrepresented groups are stigmatized, as well as individual and organizational strategies that stigmatized targets and their allies can use to reduce prejudice and foster inclusivity.

Silvia Bigatti

Website:

https://fsph.iupui.edu/about/directory/bigatti-silvia.html

(Public Health) — Bigatti is the co-founder of the Latinx Community University Research Coalition of Indiana. Her research centers on health disparities. She examines the distinct psychological stress experienced by different populations and its negative physical and mental health outcomes.

Sha’Kema Blackmon

Website:

https://education.iupui.edu/faculty-research/faculty-directory/blackmon-shakema.html

(Urban Education Counseling Leadership and Policy Studies) – Her research primarily focuses on the racial – psychological processes of African Americans, including subjects such as racial-ethnic socialization, racial identity and mental health. Some of Blackmon's more recent peer reviewed publications have focused on Africans Americans' reactions to the killing of Trayvon Martin.

Veronica Derricks

Website:

https://science.iupui.edu/people-directory/people/derricks-veronica.html

(Psychology) – Derricks' research program focuses primiarly on understanding the psychological mechanisms that perpetuate disparities in health and academic outcomes. In particular, she examines how members of minoritized groups respond to threatening health communications; social identities and features of interventions impact the efficacy of health promotion efforts and cues in one's environments affect academic outcomes. 

Peter Federman

Website:

https://scholarworks.iupui.edu/collections/eb04cc6b-2af6-44eb-bb5c-bd6e7cc087a2

(Public and Environmental Affairs) – Federman's current work investigates how administrative officials and elected politicians make decisions that impact the public, particularly within the substantive areas of public health and safety. Past work has focused on focused on the  bureaucratic politics of public health and safety and how race, class and other factors impact policy outcomes.

Cleveland Hayes

Website:

https://education.iupui.edu/faculty-research/faculty-directory/hayes-cleveland.html

(Urban Teacher Education) – His research uses "Critical Race Theory in Education" to study the historical and contemporary issues in Black education to include the school to prison pipeline, teaching and learning in the Latino community, whiteness and the intersections of sexuality and race.

Ronda Henry Anthony

Website:

https://liberalarts.iupui.edu/about/directory/henry-anthony-ronda-c.html

(English/Africana Studies) – Anthony’s earlier work examines black masculinity and looks at modern Black male and female feminists who are reshaping the ideals commonly associated with Black men. Her most recent work focuses on mentoring students of color, and how to support, encourage, and nurture their success within the sometime hostile environments  of predominantly white colleges and universities.

Michin Hong

Website:

https://socialwork.iu.edu/faculty-staff/profile/hong_michin/

(Social Work) – Hong's primary research focuses on racial/ethnic disparities in health behaviors, health status and access to health care services among older adults and their caregivers. To better understand cultural and social factors that explain the disparities issues, she has adopted various methodologies in conducting her numerous research projects from systematic review, secondary data analysis using large national datasets, quantitative survey, qualitative interviews to big data analyses. Recently, her research has expanded to racial/ethnic minority college students with the desire to better understand their unmet mental health needs and develop the racial literacy programs on campus.

Tambra Jackson

Website:

https://education.iupui.edu/faculty-research/faculty-directory/jackson-tambra.html

(Urban Teacher Education) – Jackson's scholarly agenda coheres around equity methodologies aimed at improving schooling outcomes for culturally and linguistically diverse students through teacher development and learning from the teacher identities and praxis of Black women  educators and faculty.

Lasana D. Kazembe

Website:

https://education.iupui.edu/faculty-research/faculty-directory/kazembe-lasana.html

(Urban Teacher Education) – Kazembe's research interests intersect culturally sustaining pedagogy, the arts and arts pedagogy, and social and racial justice in education. Through teaching, research, and community service, his work challenges and disrupts inequity and centers the transformative role of culture in urban education and the arts.

Khadija Khaja

Website:

https://mswdirect.iu.edu/faculty-staff/profile.php?id=Khaja_Khadija_kkhaja

(Social Work) – Khaja's international study illustrates the impact of 9/11 on Muslims living in Australia, Argentina, Canada and the United States and provides recommendations about social service needs and appropriate cross-cultural interventions that will prove critical to maintaining the wellbeing of Muslim communities.

Kathleen King Thorius

Website:

https://greatlakesequity.org/person/kathleen-king-thorius

(Urban Teacher Education) – Thorius's research on policy and teacher learning aims to disrupt youth oppression at disability/race intersections. She develops critical/practical approaches for showing and remediating how special education's foundations, practices, and policies function as a cloak of benevolence allowing white/non-disabled educators and spaces to sort youth by race/disability to/while maintain(ing) "good" identities.

Joseph Lennis Tucker Edmonds

Website:

https://liberalarts.iupui.edu/about/directory/tucker-edmonds-joseph-l.html

(Africana Studies and Religious Studies) – Tucker's research focuses on African American religions, the Black body, and citizenship in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. He is particularly interested in the relationship between African American alternative religious traditions and the development of political language and formation in African American communities. 

Paula Magee

Website:

https://education.iupui.edu/faculty-research/faculty-directory/magee-paula.html

(Urban Teacher Education) – Her research interests include the preparation of anti-racist and critically conscious teachers.  Through partnerships with local schools, teachers are prepared to see, address and challenge the systemic racism and inequities in our school communities.

Gerardo Maupome

Website:

https://fsph.iupui.edu/about/directory/maupome-gerardo.html

(Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health) - Maupome is a Professor in the Department of Global Health and Associate Dean of Research. He has multiple adjunct/ affiliated positions within and outside IU, including Associate Director of the Community Health Partnerships (CHeP), with the Indiana Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute. His work focuses on dental public health, population health, dental health services, global/ immigrant health, minority health, social and behaviorial sciences, and health disparities.

Brendan Maxcy

Website:

https://education.iupui.edu/faculty-research/faculty-directory/maxcy-brendan.html

(Education) – As chair of graduate programs, coordinator of educational leadership programs and director of the Urban Principals Program, Maxcy has helped lead the school’s effort to prepare school, district, and state-level leaders to employ equity-focused, anti-oppressive practices. He researches accountability policies and leader responses to these practices.

Monica A. Medina

Website:

https://education.iupui.edu/faculty-research/faculty-directory/medina-monica.html

(Urban Teacher Education) – Her professional interests center on urban schools, specifically the damaging effects of poverty, that disadvantage, disenfranchise and dispossess students, their families, and the community.  Her research examines the complexities of urban schools from a social justice and school reform perspective.

Breanca Merritt

Website:

https://www.researchgate.net/scientific-contributions/Breanca-Merritt-2178739450

(Public and Environmental Affairs) – Merritt's research examines how public policies, organizations, and programs facilitate racially inequitable outcomes across areas of social policy. Those topics include housing, public safety, and social service provision, among others. She works with community organizations and local government to help inform decision making on programmatic effectiveness.

Crystal Morton

Website:

https://education.iupui.edu/faculty-research/faculty-directory/morton-crystal.html

(Urban Teacher Education) – Dr. Morton's scholarly work focuses on secondary mathematics education with an emphasis on the role of informal STEM learning in fostering equitable and transformative mathematics teaching and learning experiences. She primarily examines the learning experiences and specifically mathematics learning experiences of Black girls in grades three-12.

Jomo Mutegi

Website:

https://iupui.academia.edu/JomoMutegi

(Urban Teacher Education) – Mutegi's research aims to first, better understand and disrupt systemic racism in the STEM education of people of African descent and second, advance practical curriculum for STEM learners.

Eva Pietri

Website:

https://www.pietrilab.com/

(Psychology) – Her current research focuses primarily on reducing biases and promoting diversity in STEM fields. Much of her current work explores techniques to encourage belonging among women with multiple marginalized identities including Black and Latina women.

Jim Scheurich

Website:

https://education.iupui.edu/faculty-research/faculty-directory/scheurich-james.html

(Urban Education Counseling, Leadership and Policy Studies) – His research is primarily focused on issues of racial inequity in urban education. He is also committed to using his research and research skills for grassroots community activism—often via social media, editorials, tv interviews, blogs, public testimony, and public forums—in pursuit of racial equity in schooling.

Samantha Scribner

Website:

https://education.iupui.edu/faculty-research/faculty-directory/scribner-samantha.html

(Urban Education Counseling, Leadership and Policy Studies) – Her research focuses on organizational politics of urban school leadership, particularly with Latinx school communities.

Teresa Sosa

Website:

https://education.iupui.edu/faculty-research/faculty-directory/sosa-teresa.html

(Urban Teacher Education)—Sosa's work closely examines literacy practices necessary for student engagement and learning, as well as the interactions that shed light on how students from diverse intersecting social identities resist, shift, and reimagine classroom interactions and learning experiences.

Kara Taylor

Website:

https://education.iupui.edu/faculty-research/faculty-directory/taylor-kara.html

(Urban Teacher Education) – Taylor's research revolves around studying the impact that narratives and histories of students and teachers of color have on the enactment and conceptualization of critical literacy pedagogies. She specializes in the study of culturally/sustaining pedagogy, critical reflection, writing instruction and assessment systems.

Sally Wasmuth

Website:

https://shhs.iupui.edu/connect/directory/wasmuth-sally.html

(Occupational Therapy) – Wasmuth's research focuses on translational and implementation science, particularly in the areas of occupation-based intervention for addictive disorders and dual-diagnosis. She is involved in several arts-based recovery initiatives, including the use of theatre as both a therapeutic intervention and a means of stimulating community conversations on critical topics including the opioid crisis and healthcare inequities related to race.