2022-2023 Research

This study examines the effect of the 2021 Atlanta spa mass shooting, an act of hate-based violence, on the mental health of the Asian American population, and specifically Asian American women.

Grounded in speech-act theory, our study employs a mixed-method approach to examine Latinx adolescents’ conceptualization of slurs. Our project was developed in collaboration with school leaders and represents a unique opportunity to advance theoretical understanding of hate speech while informing anti-racist policies and practices that reduce hateful slurs in educational contexts.

How do social and psychological factors influence the probability of intergroup conflict recurrence? This project investigates the effect of hate and related phenomena in efforts to reintegrate excombatants in northeast Nigeria.

This project aims to critically examine how political and social framings of youth prejudicial violence as “hate crimes” vs. “bullying” impacts the criminalization of youth. Utilizing critical discourse analysis, we will review how these different problematizations lead to varying solutions in federal and state policy responses and the literature. Further, we will conduct interviews with 30 LGBTQ+ youth on their perceptions of these different policy approaches, their attitudes toward the criminal legal system, and their understanding of accountability.

In the spaces such as Eufaula occupied by Black subjects, their geographies have been rendered spatially valueless (McKittrick, p.81, 2006) with their histories unacknowledged. Ida B Wells cites, “The only way to right the wrongs of the past is to shed the light of truth upon them.” As part of this project I seek to counter and disrupt the built environment by challenging the white supremacist ideology masked as cultural heritage. 

In this project, we study social biases in computer representation of the meaning of words and attempt to mitigate before they are learned.

The goal of this study is to determine if there are racial and ethnic disparities in security responses, including the summoning of security and use of physical or pharmacological restraint, in non-psychiatric inpatient settings across UCLA Health.

This study examines the causes and consequences of online hate speech by systematically analyzing comments on one of the largest online news platforms in the world. Our study creates a novel, online news participation-tracking dataset from January 2011 to October 2020 using NAVER News, the largest news-aggregating service in South Korea.

Based on real life-event of Atlanta Spa shooting in 2021, is a research-based feature film project that examines the intersectionality of race and gender that ultimately results in hate crimes in the US.

To address the current Black youth crisis, and disrupt current disparities, the research aims of this project are twofold: 1) critically examine the racialized history of suicide through interdisciplinary frameworks; and 2) critically evaluate current evidence-based treatment approaches to elucidate if and how Black youth have been included in research trials, and more importantly, to examine how current treatment manuals have integrated the discussion of race-related stress (i.e., racial discrimination and racial trauma) and other structural factors into their treatment approaches.

Does exposure to partisan media drive radicalization? Is this radicalization amplified by local income inequality?

This study examines how interethnic tensions and negative views of ethnic out-groups can motivate support for secessionist movements. I examine these dynamics in Republika Srpska, the Serbian-dominated entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina with an active secessionist movement.

This project investigates “misinformation” in U.S.-Russian media discourse: (i) what is called misinformation by each side, (ii) how allegations are made and responded to, and (iii) what are the competing moral contextual frames in which claims of misinformation are embedded.

This study will explore various ways to assess how hatred is manifested against abortion providers in the U.S., and to measure whether policy changes regarding abortion cause hatred and violence to escalate or to recede.

I offer a systems-theoretical approach to civic education for the promotion of tolerance. Students play games and view their game play data. They see diversity and disagreement in action from a frog’s perspective and with a bird’s eye view.

Our study will explore the kinds of discrimination Black and Latinx youth experience in gun violence prevention organizing spaces, and how this discrimination may affect their future organizing work.

This study employs a survey experiment to understand how undocumented immigrants’ characteristics (race, education level, family in the United States, etc.) shape perceptions of their deportability or deservingness of legalization.

Understanding the content of media—and particularly television news—is necessary if we want to fully comprehend the life cycle of hate in our society.

Hate-Related Phenomena and Disability: This research focuses on the impact of hate-related phenomena and discrimination experienced by disabled individuals. Charlesworth (2022, “Why disability bias is a particularly stubborn problem”) relays recent and troubling research findings that implicit bias, which can change, has shown only to change for certain groups, including for sexuality and race bias.