2018-19 Udall Center Fellows Announced!
The Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2018-19 Udall Center Fellows award. Please join us in welcoming our new cohort:
- Corey Abramson, Assistant Professor of Sociology
- Melanie Hingle, Assistant Professor of Nutritional Sciences
- Kevin Anchukaitis, Associate Professor of Geography and Development
- Christopher Weber, Associate Professor of Government and Public Policy
The Udall Center Fellows Program, the longest standing such program at the University of Arizona, seeks to promote an interdisciplinary approach to public policy and decision-making by providing faculty an entire semester to focus on policy-relevant research and securing extramural support. The program, which is supported by the Office of Research, Discovery and Innovation, the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, and the Udall Center, began in 1990 and has since given more than 140 faculty members the opportunity to work on public policy research and the preparation of proposals for external funding to support research and discovery relating to public policy.
Meet this year’s Fellows and what they plan to accomplish:
Christopher Weber, PhD Associate Professor in the School of Government and Public Policy Title: Authoritarianism, Populism, and the Partisan Policy Divide Professor Weber’s focus lies heavily on how psychological backgrounds shape policy attitudes and participation. With this Fellowship, Dr. Weber will prepare a book-length manuscript that will explore the effects of authoritarianism with respect to sorting, political polarization, and policy debates over the past several decades, as well as submit several grant applications to fund a large-scale survey during the 2020 presidential election campaign, which will examine the role of populism, media choice, and authoritarianism in the 2020 election.
Kevin Anchukaitis, PhD Associate Professor in the School of Geography and Development Title: Climate, culture, forests, and water: Toward the co-production of environmental knowledge in highland Guatemala Having already laid the groundwork for tree-ring based reconstructions of climate variability as an earth systems geographer in Guatemala, Professor Anchukaitis plans to submit a proposal to the National Science Foundation’s “Dynamics of Coupled Natural and Human Systems” program that would allow him to conduct integrated physical and social science research on the connection between climate change, water, and indigenous forest management, specifically in the western highlands of Guatemala.
Melanie Hingle, PhD, MPH, RDN Assistant Professor in the Department of Nutritional Sciences, College of Agriculture & Life Sciences Title: Developing a model of diet-sensitive disease prevention for food insecure populations Dr. Hingle will dedicate Udall Fellowship time to developing a model of diet-sensitive disease prevention for food insecure populations in partnership with colleagues at the Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona and El Rio Community Health Center. The resulting program will be designed for sustainable delivery to individuals at risk of type 2 diabetes within the context of existing services offered by these organizations. The proposed work will contribute to building a “culture of health” in southern Arizona, in which adequate and nutritious food are mainstays across geographic, demographic, and social sectors, and all Arizonans have the opportunity to make healthy nutrition and lifestyle choices consistent with their beliefs, customs and core values.
Corey Abramson, PhD Assistant Professor in the School of Sociology Title: Using novel social scientific methods to address health disparities With this Fellowship, Professor Abramson intends to expand funding for three of his current policy-focused projects, which concentrate on: (1) using hybrid data sets to chart and address systemic disparities in cancer care, (2) understanding the unequal determinants and consequences of extreme bodyweight in youth, and (3) developing new social scientific methodologies connecting scaled field observations with “big data” techniques for policy application.