Grant Recipients

1.

The Baldy Center proudly supports conferences, workshops and research projects that advance our understanding of law, legal institutions, and social policy. This page provides a listing of recent grant awards, as well as those awarded since 2006.

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RECENT AWARDS

2024-25 Conference Grants

John Beatty (UB Charles B. Sears Law Library)
Mapping Scholarly Communications in Law Libraries
Scholarly communications work is an emerging area in law school libraries in the United States. Despite the relatively small number of dedicated scholarly communications librarians in academic law libraries, their work is becoming increasingly important. Librarians, for example, were one of the primary groups who spoke out in opposition to the U.S. News & World Report proposal to use a flawed citation counting methodology to rank the quality of law school faculties, a proposal that was ultimately abandoned. To date there is only one major study of the scholarly communications landscape in academic libraries generally, but law libraries are usually administered separately from main campus libraries, and most library directors report to the dean of the law school. As a result, law libraries usually offer more full featured services to law faculty than main campus libraries offer to other faculty. But at the same time, they are often slower to adopt new services than larger campus libraries. The organizers will present the first major survey describing the extent of scholarly communications work being performed in academic law libraries in the United States as the conference keynote. The remainder of the conference will consist of presentations of papers on related scholarly communications topics, written by members of the study team and other scholars.


Jorge Fabra-Zamora (UB School of Law)
Truth Commissions and the Human Rights to Truth: 40 Years
The emergence of the victim's right to the truth marks a revolution in the relationship between law and historical understanding. Per the traditional conception, the truth was to be determined in judicial procedures governed by rigid rules, whose main goal was to safeguard the rights of the accused. An alternative conception emerged with the Nunca Mas (Never Again) Report from September 1984 drafted by the National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons (Spanish: Comisión Nacional sobre la Desaparición de Personas, CONADEP)-the first successful truth commission in history. In this novel view, victims have a distinctive right to truth, and this right is primarily satisfied through the establishment of the Truth Commission and other analogous institutions. These commissions engage individuals from diverse professional backgrounds, aiming not only to elucidate specific events but also to reconstruct the underlying causes and contexts of recent periods marked by widespread violence and systemic human rights violations. All international and domestic instruments that enshrine the right to the truth underscore the aspiration to facilitate transitions toward more democratic and peaceful societies. As we approach the 40th anniversary of the landmark report, with the wealth of experience from over 35 Truth Commissions worldwide, it is imperative to evaluate the impact of this shift in the legal paradigm within transitional societies.

 

Walter Hakala (UB Department of English and Asian Studies Program)
25th Biennial Meeting the Dictionary Society of North America
The 25th Biennial meeting the Dictionary Society of North America (DSNA) will be held in Buffalo from May 28-31, 2025. The conference is being organized by Lisa Berglund, chair of the English Department at Buffalo State University, and Walter Hakala, director of undergraduate studies, Department of English, of the University at Buffalo. The conference will include moderated panels on lexicographical topics, one or two plenary presentations, receptions, and a banquet featuring the address of DSNA President Kory Stamper, author of Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries. Most of the conference meetings will take place on the Buffalo State campus, while some events are planned for the University at Buffalo's Lockwood Library, the Buffalo and Erie County Public Library, the Burchfield Penney Art Center, and the Richardson Hotel. A substantial portion of the conference will relate to the interdisciplinary study of law, legal institutions, and social policy, including panels on "Lexicography and Constitutional Originalism," "The Legacy of Paul Butters," "Indigenous Lexicography," "Dangerous Dictionary Definitions," and "AI and Lexicography."

 

Shaun Irlam (UB Comparative Literature- Alison Des Forges Committee)
Alison Des Forges Memorial Committee International Symposium
The funding will support the 2025 Annual Symposium. Topic forthcoming.

 

LaGarrett King (UB Department of Learning and Instruction Graduate School of Education; Center for K-12 Black History and Racial Literacy Education)
70th Anniversary of Brown vs. Board of Education
The year 2024 marks the 70th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education. The landmark Supreme Court case has been heralded as the event that ended "separate but equal," effectively ending segregation in schools and society. While mostly thought of as a positive, the case has its critiques including the determent to Black education and its connection to Cold War politics. Additionally, today, school systems are still segregated by race and class as evident within our own community in Western New York. This two day symposium will focus on Brown and its legacy.


Athena Mutua (UB School of Law)
Casebooks & Beyond: Understanding and Teaching U.S. Constitutional Law from a Critical Legal Theory Perspective- Part II
Beyond the Casebook: There is a longstanding critique that legal materials and pedagogy decontextualize the development and understanding of law generally, and Constitutional Law in particular. This is compounded by recent Supreme Court decisions. This workshop is an ongoing series to brainstorm and develop a set of alternative materials and insights for teaching constitutional law, including web-based materials, art, music and projects.

 

Xuanyi Nie (UB Department of Urban and Regional Planning)
Social Transformations and Urban Planning Transitions in China
This interdisciplinary conference seeks to delve into the complex socio-economic and demographic shifts reshaping China's urban planning landscape. By convening experts across history, political science, geography, and sociology, this conference will bring discussions on social policies that are shaped by politics at different administrative scales, interactions between public institutions and social structures in urban governance, the legal regulation of the real estate industry, civic actors and democratic processes in community governance, and the politics of and policies for implementing new technologies in cities. Through thematic panels, the conference will explore governance, real estate dynamics, neighborhood changes, technological impacts on travel behaviors, and health and well-being, fostering an international dialogue on urban China's global and local implications. This gathering promises to enhance understanding of the political, social, and legal aspects of urban governance and policy-making, contributing significantly to the scholarly discourse on urban planning not only for China but also for other countries including the United States.

 

Mary Nell Trautner (UB Department of Sociology)
Prison and Incarceration Research (PAIR): AN Interdisciplinary Work-in-Progress and Speaker Series
The Prison and Incarceration Research (PAIR) Interdisciplinary Work-in-Progress (WIP) and Speaker Series is an innovative monthly event designed to strengthen campus research on one of the most pressing legal and social challenges of our time, mass incarceration. The series will assemble a diverse array of voices from UB's faculty and doctoral student body, each contributing unique perspectives on prisons, mass incarceration, and their broader implications for legal institutions, society, and social policy. In recognizing the multifaceted nature of prison studies-spanning disciplines such as law, sociology, comparative literature, history, and social work-this series not only highlights the complexities of incarceration and its consequences, but also actively fosters interdisciplinary connections and collaborations among UB scholars.

2024-25 Research Grants

FACULTY RESEARCH

Irus Braverman (UB School of Law, Geography, and Department of Environment and Sustainability)
Missiles, Oil, and Corals: Climate Changes in the Red Sea
On their face, the missiles recently fired at the Red Sea and the tropical corals living inside its waters do not share much in common. Tracing the movement of the various human and nonhuman agents operating in this watery space and drawing on in depth interviews, fieldwork observations, and archival sources, this project aims to illuminate the underlying connection between three occurrences at the Red Sea, contemplating what they mean for governance at the age of climate change. The project's entry point are the current military attacks on commercial vessels by the Houthis in Yemen in the southern end of the Red Sea. From there, the project will shift to the northernmost part of the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aqaba, to document the recent efforts for regional collaborations over the protection of resilient corals. Finally, the project will contemplate Saudi Arabia's plans to construct the largest artificial coral garden in the world as part of its new city Neom and its backyard luxury resort in Shushah Island. This ambitious project of saving the world's future coral reefs is scientifically questionable. Moreover, it usefully masks that the need for saving corals in the first place is directly linked to the burning of fossil fuels upon which Saudi's wealth and geopolitical power singularly depends. I will study these three recent developments in the Red Sea through the prism of movement, illustrating how flow and enclosure matter for the blue economy.


Megan Iantosca (UB Department of Educational Leadership and Policy)
Gender Categorization in American Law Schools
Gender is typically collected in binary terms in publicly available higher education datasets that offer enrollment data; however, at the beginning of the 2014-15 academic year, the American Bar Association started collecting enrollment data from law schools using a third category, labeled "other" gender. This change in data collection represents a more inclusive approach to gender identification, one that acknowledges that binary categories are insufficient. As law schools have been one of the only types of higher education institutions required to report the number of students who identify as "other" in gender, this field is an important case study to understand gendered data collection and the use of different gendered categories. Through descriptive statistical analysis and semi-structured interviews, this project investigates how law school administrators make decisions about how to collect, code, and report student demographic data. Our research is critical for understanding how data collection within legal institutions is currently being done and how it can be done in ways that affirm the lived experiences of minoritized groups and provide data that can help illuminate inequities in resources and policies. This is the first step in a larger project that aims to examine institutional practices regarding gender data collection in order to better support students, particularly those from gender marginalized backgrounds.

 

Errol Meidinger (UB School of Law)
Private Environmental Regulation and Resurging Authoritarianism
This research seeks to understand the ways in which rising authoritarianism, often tied to growing populist distrust of expertise and foreigners, is affecting and interacting with the extensive agglomeration of non-state environmental regulation that has grown up over the past three decades. Its findings are important because non-state institutions have come to play a major role in environmental regulation. They have expanded across sectors, issues, and up and down supply chains. Working hypotheses are that there will be substantial differences among the developed regions of North America, where private environmental regulation appears more at risk, and Europe, where the EU appears to embracing and building upon it. In Russia and China private regulation has always been constrained but may not be being pushed back further. In South American and Africa authoritarian governments may be content to coexist with non-state regulation.

 

Xuanyi Nie (UB Department of Urban and Regional Planning)
With equity do we benefit? Investigating procedural equity in local public meetings and the public perception of equitable planning outcomes using machine-learning approaches
Equity in local public meetings is a critical component of the democratization of planning decision-making processes and it can influence urban planning outcomes. This project examines the socioeconomic determinants of procedural equity in local public meetings and its association with equitable planning outcomes in 280 U.S. cities from 2006 to 2023, using natural language processing and topic clustering to analyze 6,400 public meeting transcripts and social media perceptions. Specifically, procedural equity is measured by indicators of the level of participation, the diversity of participants, and the relevance of topics. This research addresses gaps in understanding how socioeconomic factors influence procedural equity in public meetings and how this equity translates to public perceptions of planning outcomes. This research contributes to urban planning theory and practice by leveraging social media data and machine-learning approaches to offer insights into the dynamics of citizen participation and public decision-making processes. It also identifies barriers to procedural equity and provides policy recommendations to enhance public participation in planning decision-making processes.


Anthony O’Rourke (UB School of Law)
The Structure of Police Agencies in Settler States
I will visit the National Archive in London and read the administrative records of Northern Ireland's Royal Ulster Constabulary from 1922-2001, with a focus on the decades of The Troubles. I am examining the internal governance structure of the Constabulary in order to develop a comparative theory of how police agencies are legally constituted and practically governed in settler states. Police agencies in the United States are often regarded as uniquely pathological in how they govern poor and racially subordinated populations. I will explore, however, the degree to which these police agencies share a legal structure with those of police agencies in other settler societies. I hypothesize an alternate history of settler colonial police agencies through a sort of parallel evolution, out of varied and ad hoc frontier structures of land seizure, non-state violence, and projects of racial elimination, rather than the high degree of state control that most theorists have assumed. My working hypothesis is that there is a structural connection between the patchwork development of state power in settler colonial societies and the legal complexity of how police agencies are constituted. This complexity is, perhaps, marked by overlapping formal jurisdictional control of the agencies which in turn creates a fragmentation in terms of who has power to effectively govern those agencies.

 

Mateo Taussig-Rubbo (UB School of Law)
Climate change and governance in the postcolony: an empirical study of carbon credits in Peru
In this proposal, I seek support for preliminary research in the Peruvian Amazon, to gain an understanding of 1. the particular impacts and meanings of climate change in that setting and 2. how carbon credit schemes are understood by local actors and how they operate in practice. My research in  Peru builds out an ethnographic and empirical component of an interdisciplinary approach to climate change, one that draws on the hermeneutic tradition of cultural anthropology as well as legal analysis. Through interviews with citizens operating in the hollowed-out state that decades of structural adjustment and austerity policies in Peru have produced, the project develops an empirical and detailed depiction of the postcolonial and neoliberal state. I probe the following questions:

• What are the institutional-legal languages, cultures, and politics around property and land title in the Peruvian Amazon?

• How are rights, authorities, responsibilities, and resources distributed among statutory and customary stakeholders (such as indigenous tribes); and how is this structure of distributions conditioning the cultural, legal and policy meanings of climate change and other climate-related vulnerabilities.

 

Mary Nell Trautner (UB Department of Sociology)
Why the Have-Nots Come Out Behind: Gender, Race, Class, and Embodiment in the “Litigation Lottery”
Not all the reasons why the "have-nots" come out behind are structural. I advance a micro-interactional argument that complements Galanter's (1974) structural explanation for inequality in legal outcomes. Using the example of "tort tales" and personal injury cases, I apply social psychological theories on stereotypes of gender, race, class, embodiment, and age to analyses of tort tales to demonstrate how stereotypes about particular groups of individuals lead to the likelihood of such groups losing their cases, regardless of structural factors. I argue that even if the structural reforms that Galanter (1974) advocated were to be put in place, they may not be enough to equalize advantages between repeat players and one-shotters, and the "haves" may continue to come out ahead. Funding is requested for a research assistant to add new data to the project, and help with coding, analysis, and writing.

 

Lourdes Vera (UB Department of Sociology and Department of Environment and Sustainability)
Community-Centered Development of Oil and Gas Industry Report Cards to Promote Corporate Accountability and the Democratization of Data
The "Halliburton Loophole" in the 2005 Energy Policy Act has curtailed the disclosure of hydraulic fracturing fluids, which include toxic chemicals and large amounts of water injected into the ground to extract oil and natural gas, to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). This lack of transparency endangers over 17.6 million Americans living near oil and gas operations. As oil and gas move from extraction to storage and refinement and regulatory oversight expands, EPA makes data on facility emissions and enforcement activity publicly available. I will develop Industry Report Cards with industry reported fracking chemical data from FracFocus and enforcement activity from EPA with public input to offer an in-depth analysis on environmental enforcement and chemical usage across the oil and gas production chain. This aims to improve public understanding and scrutiny of industry practices and enhancing community engagement and advocacy. At the heart of the project is the application of the Environmental Data Justice framework, emphasizing community-centric data analysis and recognizing the flaws in current data. The expected results include developing digital tools and reports that provide the public with a comprehensive analysis of oil and gas industry's chemical footprint contextualized by the regulatory and data gaps that produce ignorance.

 

GRADUATE STUDENT RESEARCH

Carol Ramos-Gerena (UB Department of Urban and Regional Planning)
Agroecological Strategies for Puerto Rico’s Land Use Challenges
The proposed research for a three-paper dissertation focuses on the protection of fertile soil in Puerto Rico (PR), where recent shifts in land use policy pose threats to both farmland and farmers. The research aims to investigate the interrelated dynamics between urban development, land use policies, and the strategies employed by agroecological farmers to resist the conversion of farmland to urban use. By addressing critical questions concerning farmland governance and soil preservation, this study seeks to contribute valuable insights into the ongoing challenges faced by agricultural communities in PR. The dissertation will utilize interdisciplinary approaches, incorporating a review of existing literature on land use planning, land policies, and agroecology, as well as a spatial analysis of development pressures exerted by the current policy landscape using Geographical Information System. Baldy Center funding will be used to examine the strategies employed by agroecological farmers to protect farmlands in the face of regulatory change. The research project will light on the complex food-land planning nexus in territories like PR, which are grappling with the simultaneous impacts of climate change, colonialism, and uncontrolled development. The overarching goal of this research is to advocate for bottom-up policy interventions that prioritize the preservation of the scarce fertile soil in PR and provide support for small-scale agroecological farmers.

 

Amanda Waggoner (UB Department of Geography)
The Gentrification of Black Nightlife in Brooklyn
In 2019, one of Brooklyn's nightlife staples, Club Langston, was under threat to close. As a black-owned and LGBTQIA+ business, Club Langston was both a safe haven and nightclub for the queer black community in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn. The owner, Calvin Clark, protested against Club Langston's closing by fasting and taking a "vow of silence" with signs outside of the building for 10 days. By spring of 2019 Club Langston closed, with Brooklyn losing a place that was considered a home to these marginalized groups in an otherwise gentrifying Brooklyn. This is a problem related to the impacts of gentrification and its relationship with marginalized communities in urban areas. However, while there is extensive literature on gentrification, there are still gaps in the gentrification literature regarding the impacts of gentrification on community spaces and safe havens for people-of-color. The primary goal of this research is to understand how nightlife venues, specifically black nightlife venues, are impacted by the processes of gentrification in an area defined as Black Brooklyn in New York City, and how Black Brooklyn has responded. This research draws on ontologies from both black geographies and critical/participatory GIS in order to highlight new voices and experiences of gentrification, while conducting in-depth interviews with nightlife venue owners and patrons, and mapping neighborhood change over time, using US Census data, social media data, and archival research.

 

Michelle Williams (UB Department of Sociology)
Transmasculine and Nonbinary Online Sex Workers' Responses to Policies and Practices that Restrict Gender Expression and Sexually Explicit Content
Online sex workers must navigate governmental and website policies that ban explicit materials as well as website infrastructures that enforce rigid gender binaries. While many researchers have examined how explicit content bans have affected full-service sex workers, less consideration has been given to how such bans impact the livelihoods of sex workers who conduct their work entirely online. In addition, most research on sex workers emphasizes the experience of cisgender women, while transgender women's experiences are represented less often and transgender men and nonbinary people's experiences are hardly visible at all. This project will draw on qualitative interviews with transgender men and nonbinary people who do online sex work to find out what impacts explicit content bans have on their work and how they express their gender in a highly sexualized and binary context. It seeks to explain what techniques these workers use to maximize their income and pleasure while working. This project will contribute an understanding of how restrictive policies reinforce the economic and social marginalization of transmasculine and nonbinary sex workers.

Past Grant Recipients, 2006 to 2023

2023-24 Conference Grants

Kim Diana Connolly (UB School of Law)
RESILIENCE BEFORE THE DISASTER ARRIVES: Deploying Inter-University Multisectoral Convergent Collaboration Toward a New Disaster Preparation and Response Ethic
Abstract: Disasters abound - tornadoes in Mississippi, wildfires in California, a record-breaking 2022 blizzard in Buffalo, Hurricane Fiona in Puerto Rico and Florida (only a Category 1, but due to failure to appropriately invest in recovery from 2017's Hurricane Maria, very deadly), and many more. Climate change is going to lead to increased numbers and intensities in disasters. This conference will bring together experts who have been collaborating since before Hurricane Maria to offer a series of papers designed to be finalized as book chapters in a book with the same name as the conference proposal: RESILIENCE BEFORE THE DISASTER ARRIVES: Deploying Inter-University Multisectoral Convergent Collaboration Toward a New Disaster Preparation and Response Ethic.


Jorge Fabra-Zamora (UB School of Law)
Law Beyond the State and Legal Theory
Abstract: The objective of this workshop is to gather leading legal scholars for an intensive discussion on original work about putative forms of legal phenomena beyond the state, such as indigenous and customary law, international law, international and regional human rights law, the European Union, transnational legal orders, and global legal phenomena. Contributions could deal with analytical or conceptual issues about the idea of law or fundamental legal concepts (rights, duty, etc.); normative issues involving legitimacy, justice, obedience, and related questions; legal reasoning and the use of non-state norms in doctrinal disputes; particular jurisprudence developing detailed accounts of specific non-state legal phenomena; or methodological questions inquiring about the best way to approach those topics.


Lucinda Finley (UB School of Law)
Reproductive Justice and Health Equities Post-Dobbs: a Legal, Medical, Community Dialogue
Abstract: This interdisciplinary conference will explore the multiple legal, medical, societal and political upheavals caused by the reversal of Roe v Wade in the recent Dobbs decision. These upheavals highlight the need for increased interdisciplinary dialogue, education, research and advocacy between people working in law, medicine, public health, social work, and those in the community trying to navigate the challenges of seeking or providing the broad range of services that people need to have safe and healthy reproductive and family lives. The particularly disparate impacts of Dobbs' upheavals on women of color, poor women, immigrant women, rural women, and women who are not yet independent adults, have increased the urgency of expanding the framework through which the legal and medical challenges are understood and addressed, moving from the traditional notions of "reproductive rights" or "reproductive health care," to that of "reproductive justice."


David Herzberg (UB History)
Biennial Meeting of the Alcohol and Drugs History Society
Abstract: The Alcohol and Drug History Society (ADHS), founded in 1979, is the leading global organization for interdisciplinary scholars interested in the history of psychoactive substances--legal and illegal--including production, commerce, use, science, policy, politics, and culture. Members research and write about law and social policy, and also intervene in it directly in a variety of ways, including serving as expert witnesses (in tobacco and opioid litigation, for example) and advising Congress (on generic drugs, the opioid crisis, and other issues).

The biennial meeting brings together 150 of the world's top historians and scholars of alcohol and other drugs. It was held most recently in Mexico City (2022) and Shanghai (2020). The 2024 Buffalo meeting will be an opportunity to showcase UB's research and accomplishments in the addictions space, and to explore historical perspectives on a time of US and global challenges to drug wars and pharmaceutical patent systems.
 

Shaun Irlam (UB Comparative Literature)
Alison Des Forges Memorial Symposium
The funding will support the 2024 Spring Symposium.

2023-24 Research Grants

Research grant recipients include UB faculty and graduate students:

FACULTY RESEARCH GRANTS

Ashley Barr (UB Sociology)
Gentrification, Romantic Relationships, and Well-being among Young Adults
Abstract: Gentrification - the process whereby urban neighborhoods experiencing long periods of disinvestment and economic decline undergo rapid (re)investment - results from a confluence of local, state, and national policy decisions and practices (Hwang 2016). The sociological literature and political conversations about gentrification have focused on its driving forces, its consequences for the economic well-being of neighborhoods and the displacement of longtime residents, and its consequences for crime and racial inequality (Barton et al. 2020; Hwang and Ding 2020). The proposed work extends this literature to consider the implications of gentrification for the development, quality, and longevity of young adult romantic relationships, and, ultimately, for health and well-being. In doing so, we add to sociolegal debates about the role of social policy, particularly urban development policy, in family change and health inequality.

Michelle Benson (UB Political Science)
United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Civil Conflict Resolution Data Set Extension, 2017-2023 and UNSC Resolutions Penholder Dataset 2003-2023
Abstract: The impact of the United Nations peacekeeping on civil war has been well-established in the empirical conflict-management literature. However, to truly understand how the UN addresses and hopes to impact civil conflict, it is necessary to also examine the full scope of actions the UN may take to manage conflicts across time and space. Such conflict management actions are formally stated within UN Security Council Resolutions. A growing amount of research has acknowledged the importance of these resolutions, however, current datasets are limited both time and in scope. The budget requests for this project focus on remedying this deficiency by providing support for the expansion of a currently existing UNSC dataset and also support for the collection of data on UNSC resolutions with penholders. If funded, the grant would help fund document collection and data gathering at the United Nations (UN) library and provide funding for research assistants for data coding.

Matthew Dimick (UB School of Law)
The Law and Economics of Income Inequality
Abstract: Can the law reduce income inequality in America? I am preparing a manuscript, The Law and Economics of Income Inequality, which is a new theoretical approach to the debate on how to respond to rising income inequality. My book provides stronger foundations for using legal rules to redistribute income. It also seeks to break down the intellectual and ideological barriers created by law-and-economics scholars, who claim that the income-tax system should be the exclusive instrument for redistributing income and that redistributive legal rules are misguided and wasteful.

Veljko Fotak (UB Finance, School of Management)
A Tale of Two IPOs
Abstract: The goal of this project is to advance research on how firms choose in which country to list and trade their shares, with a particular emphasis on the importance of legal and institutional factors, and on the implications of these choices for firm valuation and market development. The first short-term deliverable, to be completed over the summer of 2023, is a case study analysis of the listing choices of two specific firms, Saudi Aramco and Ant Financial, to be used as pedagogical material for in-classroom instruction for graduate business courses.

Jordan Fox (UB Sociology)
Life Finds a Way: The Limits to the Social Control of Nature
Abstract: This book argues that the reductionist approach taken in law, finance, and popular scientific discourse is used to strategically ignore the complexity of socio-environmental systems, especially over long timeframes. By reducing and simplifying inherently complex systems, those who run our legal, financial and scientific systems can claim to understand and account for risk in equitable ways, and as a result are given immense power to re-engineer nature. Nevertheless, these processes of reduction and simplification often ignore the fundamental way these interactive and complex systems work, magnifying environmental harm and social inequality. Simplifying environmental processes, in providing false comfort, paradoxically leads us to ignore a multitude of existing risks, create new unintended risks, and use ineffective tools to manage the newly elevated risks of climate change and other emergent environmental problems. Conceptually, this book argues that it is imperative policy.

Meredith Lewis (UB School of Law)
Omnilateralism and its Discontents: Reconceptualizing the Multilateral Trading System
Abstract: This research will contribute to a monograph project of the same title. The research will help progress 1) my critique that the expectation that World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations should operate on a "single undertaking" basis in which all members must agree to all commitments. This expectation is based on the WTO's creation having been effected through an all-or-nothing package deal, and the subsequent Round of negotiations being framed as a "single undertaking". I will argue that requiring all participants to agree to everything constitutes "omnilateralism", and that "multilateralism" implies many, but not all; and 2) my position that the historical norm (including the WTO-precursor General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) has been true multilaterlism (what is now called plurilateralism), and that the "single undertaking" concept has been misinterpreted, with the original intent being different from what is now recalled.

Lynn Mather (UB School of Law)
The Impact of Regulatory Structures on Lawyers' Ethical Compliance in Different Fields of Practice
Abstract: How do formal and informal regulatory structures affect lawyers in different fields of practice? How do they affect both perceptions of lawyer misconduct and the reality of lawyer deviance in these fields? Those are the central questions of this research project. There is clearly variation by legal field in bar grievances and in malpractice complaints. The University of Michigan Law Alumni Research Dataset provides survey evidence of variation in lawyers' perceptions of ethical conduct by legal field. I used these data in chapters I published in 2011 and 2012. Additional data on other variables were available then but not in a readily usable form.

The survey stopped in 2006 but was restarted in 2014 and transformed for Stata analysis. I seek funding now for a research assistant s to aid in analyzing the new 6-9 years of survey data. This will allow further testing of other variables (e.g. type of legal work; firm size; client type) to explain differences in lawyers ethical conduct.

Joanne McLaughlin (UB Economics)
How Do Gig Workers Value the Legal Benefits of Employment? Evidence from a Choice Experiment
Abstract: Due to their status as independent contractors, gig workers in the United States do not have access to many of the legal benefits associated with employment, such as a minimum wage, legal protections against unfair treatment, or the right to join a union. Although these "legal job amenities" are central to what it means to be an employee in the U.S., we know little about how gig workers value these benefits. As policymakers contemplate extending certain employment-related labor protections to workers in the gig economy, our current lack of empirical evidence on workers' preferences poses a major obstacle. We plan to address this gap by using a choice experiment to elicit gig workers' valuations of these amenities. To our knowledge, ours will be the first study to measure workers' subjective valuations of the legal benefits of employment. For comparison, we will also elicit worker valuations of reductions in job flexibility.

Amy Semet (UB School of Law)
Female and Minority Participation in Patent Law
Abstract: Few studies have systematically explored how gender and race impact decision making in patent law cases. Using originally-constructed databases of patent decisions as well as applying novel statistical techniques to ascribe gender and minority status to patent law participants, this project aims to both descriptively explore the under-involved of women and minorities in patent law as well as to explore the factors that impact how gender and minority status impact how patent law cases are decided. It would allow one to analyze how female and minority inventors fare when their patents are adjudicated in federal court and in administrative tribunals.

Li Yin (UB Urban and Regional Planning)
Neighborhood impacts of recreational cannabis legalization: A spatial and sentimental analysis in physical and cyber spaces
Abstract: The decisions about recreational marijuana retail sales and siting are delegated to local municipalities. Much of this regulatory authority falls under local land use and zoning rules. This study aims to examine local zoning ordinances and their implications for the clustering of recreational cannabis businesses. We aim to investigate spatial inequalities in both physical and cyber spaces in major cities with populations over 1 million in the 23 states and territories that have legalized recreational marijuana. This study uses an integrative analysis framework with both qualitative and quantitative data and methods for both physical and cyber spaces. The cyberspace analysis results will be tied back to the spatial clustering in the physical space to better understand the spatial inequalities. The findings from the project are helpful to generate recommendations to strengthen social and economic equity outcomes from the implementation of the recreational cannabis policy.

 

GRADUATE STUDENT RESEARCH GRANTS

Poushali Bhattacharjee (UB Geography)
From rice to veggies: Institutional legacies, biotechnology, and household livelihoods in Bangladesh's crop transition
Abstract: Bangladesh has long implemented "Green Revolution" modernization projects in agriculture. These programs, rolled out unevenly across the country, promoted technical solutions to boost crop yields and achieve self-sufficiency in rice production. Due to rising global food prices, climate change, stagnating grain yields, and alteration in diet preference, many farmers began switching from rice to vegetable production in the 2000s. This research project examines how legacies of the Green Revolution shape technology adoption for this crop change. The project examines the regulatory framework and social dynamics that led Bangladesh to be the first country to approve and promote genetically modified vegetable seeds. It compares two regions with different Green Revolution inheritances to examine this rice to veggie transition, including farmers' well-being, environmental sustainability, household labor dynamics, and the logic behind and uses of biotechnology in the name of nutrition.

Christopher Bosley (UB Sociology)
Stress and Health in Emergency Medical Services: An Organizational Approach
Abstract: This research aims to understand work-related stress among Emergency Medical Service (EMS) providers and its relation to health. I ask three empirical questions to address this: (1) How are known work content stressors and known workplace stressors associated with health among EMS providers? (2) How does the publicness of an EMS organization impact the associations between work-related stress and health? (3) How do structural workplace stressors differ in association with employee health versus social stressors in the workplace? The approach for examining these questions will combine social determinants of health and organizational literatures along with insights gained through empirical evaluations of stress and health. This research is using both quantitative methods in the form of survey research, and qualitative methodologies in the form of semi-structured interviews to best explain how different work-related stressors are associated with employee health.

Anupriya Pandey (UB Sociology)
Critical Caste Ecologies: De-centering Western Environmental Justice Through Forest Governance and Caste Difference in India
Abstract: Law and policy makers are increasingly relying on community-based decentralized forest governance which they perceive as a just and equitable instrument to sustainable forest management. This project problematizes decentralized forest governance in India by bringing forth the underexamined role of caste relations in (re)producing environmental injustices. Countering the narrative of participatory forest governance as a significant tool to accomplish environmental justice (EJ), this project reveals the coloniality embedded in the idea of recognition, participation and re-distribution-principles of justice that are germane to Western EJ scholarship. Using a combination of archival and ethnographic methods to examine forest governance in the Himalayan region of India, this project will develop a framework I call Critical Caste Ecologies that renders visible the role of historical, socially and politically contingent, and ever evolving relations of caste in shaping environmental struggles.

Shu-An Tsai (UB Political Science)
Soft Attitudes on Minor Crimes and Its Influence on Voter Turnout Amidst Growing Hate Crimes toward Asian Americans

Abstract: This study focuses on how Asian Americans altered their voting patterns and political affiliation when, following the COVID-19 epidemic, rising hate crimes threatened their daily lives. In the 2020 elections, turnout among Asian Americans was significantly higher than it had been in previous years, and in some regions, their party identification shifted from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party (Kao, 2023). This research provides insights into the factors influencing Asian Americans' voting behavior and party identification, which are crucial in predicting election outcomes based on previous voting patterns among minority groups (Frey et al., 2016).

Shu Wan (UB History)
Disciplining the Poor Deaf in Republican Shanghai and Beijing
Abstract: This project explores how the deaf Chinese were defined and disciplined as a disabled population in poor houses between the 1910s and 1940s. Referencing the archival materials regarding Beijing and Shanghai's local authorities' efforts to train and tame the deaf poor in Republican China, this research aims to answer how the state transformed deafness into disability and the deaf inmates' resistance to this disciplining agenda.

Yuejia Wang (UB Educational Leadership and Policy)
Bargaining the Temporary Visa Policy for Global Mobility: the Education-Job Pipeline of International Graduates in the United States with H-1B Work Visas
Abstract: It has been noted that the temporary work visa programs are a global phenomenon echoing countries' reactions to the expanded demands of flexible global labor. For example, the H-1B temporary work visa program in the U.S. attracts highly skilled foreign laborers to expand the talent pool, while also causing foreign workers to be vulnerable to their employers and career uncertainty and life instability. This study will explore international graduates who are working in the U.S. with an H-1B visa. By understanding the temporary visa policy within the broader context of globalization of education and employment, this project will provide valuable insights into the intersectional connections between temporary visa policies, globalization, education, and social mobility. This study will conduct interviews with 40 H-1B visa holders from NYC, Chicago, Silicon Valley, and Houston. Funding provided by the Baldy Center will facilitate travels to research cities and interview transcription fees.

2022-23 Conference Grants

Carrie Bramen (UB Gender Institute)
 “Interventions in Social Reproduction: Labor, Social Justice, and the Value of Human Life”

Abstract. The UB Gender Institute will focus its 2022-2023 research and programming on Social Reproduction, a field that is experiencing renewed interest globally in a range of disciplines from feminist legal theory to social policy (e.g. King's College London's Laws of Social Reproduction Project). Grounded in global socialist feminist studies, Social Reproduction Theory (SRT) positions gendered and racialized divisions of labor, domesticity/public-private spheres, and feminist commons as core concerns of political economy and social policy. The UB Gender Institute is proposing a year-long speaker and roundtable series that will highlight the most recent feminist contributions and developments in this area. Organized around six main events and a year-long associated reading group, the series will highlight feminist interventions in social reproduction on several levels, historical, methodological, and policy-making.

Matthew Dimick (UB School of Law)
“Critical Encounters with Habermas's Legal Theory in BETWEEN FACTS AND NORMS”

Abstract. This conference is dedicated to reexamining Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Society, the principal work on legal theory by the eminent German philosopher, Jürgen Habermas. The conference participants will examine Habermas's conceptualization of the relationship between liberal-democratic legal theory and critical social theory, and ask whether Habermas had moved so far away in Between Facts and Norms from the early Frankfurt School and his own early work, that he was no longer able to grasp the contradictory dynamics and forms of domination specific to contemporary capitalist societies. Conference participants will also seek to historicize Between Facts and Norms, and ask whether the legal and political solutions he proposed in that work—written in period leading up to the Soviet Union's collapse, German reunification, and the rise of neoliberalism—are adequate to the very different challenges the world faces today.

Rebecca French (UB School of Law)
“Third International Conference on Buddhism and Law; A Workshop on Building a Research Infrastructure for Buddhism and Law”

Abstract. This is a proposal for a three-day event in 2023 consisting of a two-day conference followed by a one-day workshop. The conference will be the Third in a series of International Conferences on Buddhism and Law that have been held at SUNY Buffalo School of Law. The third day of the event will be a workshop to apply for external funding from the National Science Foundation Law & Social Science Program and the Frederick P. Lenz Foundation for American Buddhism for a combined publication and digital humanities project assembling key legal texts and sources in Buddhism and Law.

Gwynn Thomas (Global Gender and Sexuality Studies)
“Visionaries and Troublemakers: Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at 50”

Abstract. We are proposing the conference, Visionaries and Troublemakers: Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at 50, with the dual aim of critically reflecting on the past 50 years of women's studies at UB and examining how the teaching and research conducted by UB faculty and students has been part of broader struggles to promote the rights of women and sexual minorities. As a result of the dedication and work of successive generations, women's studies at UB has contributed to sweeping changes within academic disciplines and in our politics and society.  We will also develop a vision for the future as we face growing support for authoritarian and illiberal politics that often seek to roll back gains made over the past fifty years in rights and equality for women and sexual minorities. Given this current context, it is a particularly critical moment to reflect on lessons to be learned from the successes of the past to best face the challenges of the future.

Barbara Wejnert (UB Sociology)
“The State of Democracy and Rise of Autocracy In view of the Russian Invasion of Ukraine”

Abstract. Prof. Barbara Wejnert from the College of Arts and Sciences, in collaboration with Prof. James Gardner from Law School, and the Jaeckle Center for Law and Democracy and Governance, are seeking to organize a conference entitled: "The State of Democracy and Rise of Autocracy In view of the Russian Invasion of Ukraine" in October 2022. The conference organizers plan to host two keynote speakers: Prof. Barbara Geddes, a professor at the University of California Los Angeles; and, Prof. Adam Przeworski Carroll and Milton Professor at New York University. Along with the two keynote speakers, the conference organizers plan to invite UB faculty presenters who are experts on democracy, authoritarianism, law, and illiberalism. The presenters and keynote speakers will lead the discussion to shed light on policy and political problems of weakening democratic sustainability with the simultaneous growth of autocracies worldwide. The conference will end with collaborative research and grant application planning.


2022-23 Research Grants

Rebecca French (UB School of Law)
Building a Research Infrastructure in Buddhism and Law

Abstract. This Baldy Center Research Proposal is to pay for a research assistant during the next year to help me coordinate two projects: first, producing a full sourcebook in Buddhism and Law; second, to help investigate the best way to launch a digital humanities website and project in conjunction with the sourcebook. We have two colleagues at Halle University in Germany and Rutgers University in New Jersey to help us coordinate the Source book. We also have two colleagues at Columbia University and Leiden University who have agreed to help with the digital humanities component and website. This work will help prepare for a "Workshop for Building a Research Infrastructure in Buddhism and Law" to be held in May 2023, following the Third International Conference in Buddhism and Law.

Veronica Horowitz (UB Sociology)
Imprisoned during a Pandemic: Firsthand Accounts from Currently Incarcerated People

Abstract. When the COVID-19 pandemic spread across the globe, the high vulnerability of imprisoned persons garnered much attention. States responded with varied policy approaches for reducing risk, including decarceration and strategies for encouraging or mandating vaccinations for those who both live and work in prisons.  However, little is known about how the COVID-19 pandemic and accompanying policy responses directly impacted imprisoned people. This study draws on interviews with 50currently incarcerated men who were imprisoned in Pennsylvania throughout the pandemic to provide a detailed account of their experiences. Funding from the Baldy Center will be used to transcribe these interviews, and supplemental funding from Arnold Ventures will provide support for coding and analyzing these rich interview data. This study will make a significant contribution to research on the experiences of imprisoned persons and impacts of the global pandemic, with implications for social and legal policy.

Yunju Nam (UB Social Work)
Living Through Double Jeopardy: The Economic and Social Impacts of Covid-19 and Asian Hate on Korean American Small Business Owners and Employees in the New York Metropolitan Area

Abstract. Asian Americans have experienced the double jeopardy of the pandemic and anti-Asian hate violence since the outbreak of Covid-19. This mixed-method research will investigate the lived experience of Korean American small business owners and employees and their individual- and community-level efforts to overcome pandemic-induced challenges while paying close attention to their access to government benefits. Results will assist policy development and community mobilizations.

Joanna Pepin (UB Sociology)
A Reconsideration of the Link Between Work-Family Arrangements and Mental Health

Abstract. Disagreement in the U.S. persists about whether work-family policies promoting one type of work-family arrangement or policies supporting a variety of arrangements best alleviate the disproportionate work-family stress women experience. This study contributes new insights into which work-family policies best facilitate population health in two key ways. First, it determines whether work-family arrangements or inconsistency in preferences and experiences in these arrangements are more predictive of health outcomes. Second, it establishes whether associations are widespread or characteristic of particular sub-groups, focusing in particular on changes over time and variation among racial and ethnic minority populations and individuals with fewer economic resources. Funding is requested for a graduate research assistant and for restricted data access. Preliminary findings will be used to apply for funding from the National Institutes of Health Small Grants Program.

Amy Semet (UB School of Law)
Female and Minority Participation in Patent Law

Abstract. Few scholars have systematically analyzed diversity and inclusion themes in intellectual property law. In 2019, the Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet held hearings on "lost Einsteins," focusing on the need for the USPTO to collect more data on gender, and racial and ethnic breakdowns on involvement in intellectual property law. Previous studies have found wide disparities based on gender and race on rates of innovation with much lower patent activity among women and minorities, due in part to systematic racism that perpetuates the current way patent rights are allocated. But the issue is still under explored. This book length projects seeks to examine issues of diversity and inclusion in patent law, by looking at inventorship and litigation activity. Using originally constructed databases as well as databases from the USPTO, this book and series of Articles seek to document empirically these discrepancies.

Mateo Taussig-Rubbo (UB School of Law) and
Emmanuel Frimpong Boamah (Urban and Regional Planning)
Climate change and governance in the postcolony: an empirical study in Ghana

Abstract. The impacts of climate change present institutional crises, yet the role of institutions in reinforcing or addressing climate impacts remains understudied and undertheorized, especially within the Global South. Our proposed study examines the nexus of climate change and Africa's plural legal regimes. In particular, it examines how climate change-exacerbated heat is addressed by the particular pre-existing legal, social and cultural formations in Ghana. The proposed research will, over 30 days of interview-based field work in Ghana, lay the foundation for an ethnographic study of climate change. 


Caitlyn Sears (UB Geography)
Global agrochemical production networks: A study of Malaysia's pesticide production and regulation

Abstract. Agrochemical production has become increasingly fragmented in the past decade, shifting sites from North America and Europe to countries in Asia such as China, India and Malaysia. Several factors explain this including the expiration of patents on proprietary active ingredients, increasing bans on hazardous chemicals, and rising labor prices. The geographical and organizational shift is crucial to policy making and regulatory spaces yet, is not well understood or studied. This project uses the global production framework, mixed methods and a case study of Malaysia to understand these shifts. Malaysia offers an interesting perspective, figuring as the only Southeast Asian nation in the top ten exporters of agrochemicals globally over the past several years. Through the lens of the Malaysian agrochemical industry and national regulatory landscape, we can learn more broadly about institutions involved in law-making and social policies surrounding agrochemical production and use.

Victoria Nachreiner (UB History)
A Marriage of Aesthetics: Afropolitan Consumption, Bodily Practices, and Cis-Atlantic Gendering In Old Calabar, 1840-1940
Abstract. Aesthetics and bodily practices tied to Atlantic commerce played a key role in the articulations of gender and sexuality in Old Calabar during the 19th and 20th centuries. The introduction of European fashions, Christianity, Western education, and creole cultures altered Cross River gender performances, sexual practices, and marriage regulations. This project will examine how both men and women in Old Calabar and its hinterland navigated changing meanings of womanhood, masculinity, and marriage in this context. African men and women in this region used Atlantic commerce, Christianity and colonial courts to redefine marriage on their own terms within the constraints of colonialism.

 

2021-22 Conference Grants

Martha McCluskey (UB Law)
Transforming the Foundations:  Key Concepts of Law and Political Economy

This workshop proposal ties my individual work over twenty-five years with the recent surge in innovative critical scholarship rethinking the foundations of neoliberal law and economy.  The multiple crises of our time -- covid, climate, financial instability, inequality, authoritarianism – require rethinking basic concepts of legal neoliberalism that are widely embraced by scholars and policy analysts across the political and theoretical spectrum, yet insufficiently examined. Its goal will be to develop and refine key “law and political economy” conceptual shifts that can serve as a “method” especially for students, scholars, and advocates doing work in law, economics, or law and society fields.

Christopher Mele (UB Sociology and Geography)
Revisiting CRCQL v. Seif: Community-Based Environmental Movements and Legal Remedies

In 1996, Chester Residents Concerned for Quality Living (CRCQL) sued the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection for issuing a permit to build a contaminated soil incinerator alongside two existing waste incinerators in a low-income, minority neighborhood in Chester, Pennsylvania. The conference proposed here revisits the case and its legacy from the perspective of the Chester environmental justice community.
 

2021-22 Research Grants

Jordan Fox Besek (UB Sociology)
Life Finds a Way: The Limits to the Social Control of Nature
Abstract. While western societies have never been better at altering environments, our environmental relationships have never been more volatile. The book project research embraces this contradiction by using three case examples of environmental failures at the intersection of law, environmental planning, and public works to forge a comprehensive socio-environmental theory of our limited ability to master nature. It will make concrete policy suggestions and encourage critical analysis of environmentally consequences.

Irus Braverman (UB School of Law)
The Green Patrol: Policing Nature in Palestine/Israel
Abstract. The paramilitary unit "Green Patrol" was established in 1978 by the Israel Nature and Parks Authority for enforcing myriad Israeli laws that pertain to land and water resources. Despite its powerful policing powers, the Green Patrol does not answer to Israel's police; instead, it is part of Israel's nature administration. The green-blue nature of this unit is the topic I explore in this project, which examines the close alliance between nature and settler colonialism.

Abigail Cooke (UB Geography)
Wading Through Administrative Burdens: Responses and Strategies of Refugee Communities for Long-Term Refugee Socioeconomic Integration
Abstract. Buffalo's refugees have weak long-term economic integration. Changes to federal resettlement policy are newly possible, but local prospects for effective implementation and meaningful results are not well understood. Using key informant interviews, we seek pilot data on how administrative burden (excessive bureaucratic work required of program applicants) is experienced by refugees; and how such burdens ripple across the community, strengthening or straining relationships as help is accessed.

Christopher Dennison (UB Sociology)
He/She/They: Gender Pronouns and Gender Bias in Student Evaluations of Teaching
Abstract. In this project, we take an important first step to examine the relationship between law/policy and social change as it pertains to gender diversity in higher education. Using both a survey experiment and qualitative interview data from a representative group of UB students, this project aims to understand whether, and how, the identification of pronouns by faculty impacts gender bias in student evaluations.

Linda Kahn (UB Family Medicine)
Impacts of Covid-19 on drug treatment courts: adaptations to remote technology
Abstract. The Covid-19 pandemic compelled drug treatment courts to rapidly adopt remote technologies to continue operations and provide supportive services to participants, who represent a vulnerable, underserved population. This study will qualitatively investigate drug treatment court judges' and team members' experiences using remote technology for participant monitoring; delivery of telehealth treatment and services; and interactions with participants.

Yunmei Lu (UB Sociology)
Cross-National Assessment of the Gender-gap in Violent Crime: How Does Social Context Matter?
Abstract. The goal of this project is to examine the drivers of women's violent offending and victimization across different countries in the past three decades. Lu will work with a graduate assistant to compile an international database, including information on gender-specific violence, legal and policy changes, and socio-cultural characteristics of at least 50 countries.

Joanne McLaughlin (UB Economics)
Educational Impacts of Making College Tuition Free
Abstract. This project studies the effect of the Excelsior Scholarship on student educational and labor market outcomes using administrative data. Using exogenous variation in the scholarship's income eligibility threshold, we implement regression discontinuity to compare students with incomes just above the threshold to those just below the threshold. This research design allows us to disentangle the effect of the Excelsior Scholarship from other factors that may contribute to the outcomes of interest.

Amy Semet (UB Law and Political Science)
Diversity and Inclusion in Intellectual Property Law
Abstract. In this project, I will use the databases I created of decision-making in patent law at federal courts and USPTO to study themes of diversity and inclusion regarding female and minority judges, inventors and possibly also lawyers. In particular, the study will examine whether there are race and gender panel effects among the judges themselves as well as how female and minority inventors fare compared to men and non-minorities in whether their patents are invalidated.

Tanya Shilina-Conte (UB English)
"This Video Does Not Exist": Film Censorship as Social Practice and Elective Mutism in Minority Cinema
Abstract. My multimodal project, comprised of a scholarly book, Black Screens, White Frames: The Interstices of Film History, and an essay film, This Video Does Not Exist, employs an interstitial methodology to open film studies beyond canonical objects. Together, the book and film forge a connection between the absence of images or sounds and marginalized peoples' experiences. My film explores the relationship between film censorship as social practice and absence as elective mutism in minority cinema.

Robert Silverman (UB Urban and Regional Planning)
Some public housing authorities (PHAs) get it right: successful implementation of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD's) small area fair market rent (SAFMR) rule.
Abstract. HUD's small area fair market rents (SAFMRs) rule was designed to set housing choice voucher (HCV) subsidies based on average rents in ZIP codes. The rule increases subsidies in high rent areas, removing barriers to moves to opportunity areas. This study will use semi-structured interviews to examine PHA administrator's perceptions of the SAFMR rule. The results from this analysis will generate policy recommendation that can inform HUD's the continued rollout of the SAFMR rule.

 

2020-21 Conference Grants

Irus Braverman, (UB School of Law), Jim Bono (UB History), Paul Vanouse (UB Art), and Lucinda Cole (University of Illinois, English).
Medical Posthumanities: Governing Health Beyond the Human
Abstract. The medical humanities have tended to focus almost exclusively on humans. A medical posthumanities, by contrast, would take seriously the role of "more-than-human" actors to explore the complex entanglements of human, animal, and ecological health. Given that the human individual has long served as the subject of liberal societies and the systems of governance to which they gave rise, the legal implications of a medical posthumanities are immediate.

Matthew Dimick, (UB School of Law)
Marx and Legal Theory
Abstract. In the financial crisis of 2008, the ensuing Great Recession, exploding extremes of wealth, yawning global inequalities, and human-caused climate change, it is not surprising that Karl Marx, capitalism's greatest and most well-known critic, is, as a recent Financial Times book review put it, "more relevant than ever." This conference will explore the relationship between Marx's though and legal theory, focusing particularly on the connections between law and the state and law and politics.

 

2020-21 Research Grants

Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen (UB Geography)
Contextualizing shrinking places within the broader U.S. economy
Abstract. The study goals are to understand different peripheries at various geographic scales by acknowledging that the definition of shrinking places is "relative" to the geographic context and there is a need to move away from a growing-shrinking division that fail to highlight their diversity. Related goals are to examine their diversity using physical, demographic, social, economic, and political characteristics and use selective examples to understand similarities/differences of US shrinking places. 

Anya Bernstein (UB School of Law)
The Human State: Making Regulation and Policy in Germany
Abstract. I seek support for intensive fieldwork with government administrators in Germany, investigating views and practices related to issues central to democracy: separation of powers, executive make-up, and legal interpretation. Part of an ongoing comparative project, this research illuminates the inner life of a bureaucracy that makes democracy function. Given the unfolding crisis that highlights the stakes of effective administration, my interviews will focus particularly on pandemic response. 

Irus Braverman (UB School of Law)
Beastly Legalities: Wild Life and Law in Palestine/Israel
Abstract. Beastly Legalities is a legal ethnography project that concerns itself with the contemporary regulation of nature in Palestine/Israel and the ways in which wild animals both reinforce and undermine this regulation. It travels in between two centers of gravity: on the one hand, the governance of nature reserves and national parks in Israel/Palestine and, on the other hand, the regulation of nonhuman bodies defined as wild animals in this region. 

Filomena Critelli (UB School of Social Work)
#Me Too and the Implementation of Sexual Harassment Legislation in Pakistan: Moving from Law to Practice
Abstract. Sexual harassment has been revealed as a global human rights violation with the recent rise of the #MeToo movement. Within Pakistan it is widespread and operates as a powerful mechanism that maintains women's subordinate social status and limits full participation in the public sphere. Baldy Center Research Funds are requested to examine the impact of the #MeToo movement and the sexual harassment legislation that was enacted in Pakistan in 2010 from the perspective of key stakeholders. 

Rebecca French (UB School of Law)
Buddhism and Law Reader
Abstract. This is a proposal for a Research Assistant to help with the compilation of materials and digital database for the proposed volume commissioned by Cambridge University Press entitled Buddhism and Law: A Reader. 

Amy Semet (UB School of Law)
Law An Empirical Analysis of Intellectual Property Law and the Administrative State
Abstract: This project seeks to analyze empirically the factors that impact how patent law adjudicators make decisions. Using a unique database of over 11,000 decisions from the United States Patent Trial and Appeals Board ("PTAB"),this project analyzes the case-specific, judge-demographic,  political,economic, and institutional factors that impact how patent law adjudicators make decisions. it seeks to offer suggestions for institutional reform on how patent law cases should be adjudicated. 

2019-20 Conference Grants

Buddhism, Law and Society: Between Text and Context.  Organized by Rebecca Redwood French, UB Professor of Law. September 26-30, 2019.

Journal of Law and Political Economy: Developing the Field.  Organized by Martha McCluskey, UB Professor of Law. October 11 & 12, 2019. 

Legacies of Suffrage: Organized by Carrie Bramen, UB Professor of English and Director of the UB Gender Institute. Symposium March 6, 2020.

Global Glyphosate: New Challenges in Regulating Pervasive Chemicals in the Anthropocene:  Organized by Marion Werner, UB Associate Professor of Geography. Fall 2021.

Serious Fun: A conference with & around Schlegel  Organized by David A. Westbrook, Louis A. Del Cotto Professor; Co-Director, NYC Program in Finance & Law

2019-20 Research Grants

  • Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen, Geography. Uneven Impact of Foreign-Born on Shrinking Cities.
  • Irus Braverman, Law. Zoo Veterinarians: Fleshy Encounters in between Science and Law.
  • Jaekyung Lee, Counseling, School & Educational Psychology and Namsook Kim, Leadership & Policy. Immigrant and International College Students’ Career Readiness and Readiness and Success: Overcoming Academic, Sociocultural and Legal Challenges for American Dreams.
  • Ndubueze L. Mbah, History and Global Gender and Sexuality Studies. Rebellious Migrants: Forging Cosmopolitan Identity and Postcolonial Spaces in Biafra, 1840-1960.
  • Christopher Mele, Sociology. RENEWAL: Art-based Community Development: Challenges to Urban Policy.
  • Steven Miller, English. World Heritage and the Critique of Violence.
  • Ariel Nereson, Theater & Dance. Obscenity Law and the Problem of Performance: A Case Study of the Trial of Mae West's The Pleasure Man.
  • Robert Silverman, Urban & Regional Planning, and Kelly Patterson, Social Work. Who Lives in the Worst Government Subsidized Housing?: a Demographic Analysis of Residential Patterns in U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Properties.
  • Mary Nell Trautner, Sociology. Gender and Prosecution Decisions in Children’s Accidental Fatalities.
  • Jinting Wu, Educational Leadership and Policy. Disability Segregation in an Age of Inclusion: Navigating Educational Pathways through Special Education Schools in Contemporary China.

2018-19 Research Grants

  • Ana Mariella Bacigalupo, Anthropology: Shamanic Justice and International Human Rights in Chile: Judge Karen Atala’s Transformative Vision and her LGBT Rights Child Custody Case
  • Samantha Barbas, School of Law: A Biography of Morris Ernst, Civil Liberties Pioneer
  • Ashley Barr and Mary Nell Trautner, Sociology: Juvenile Offending and Childhood Determinism: A Mixed Methods Approach
  • Mark Bartholomew, School of Law: The Law of Advertising Outrage
  • Irus Braverman, School of Law: The Nature of Occupation Nature Reserves, Law, and Militarism in the Occupied Palestinian Territories
  • Hanna Grol-Prokopczyk, Sociology: Decision Making in Terrorism Sting Operations
  • Walter N. Hakala, English and Asian Studies Program: Imperial Legitimation and the Vernacular Public Text in South Asia
  • Nicole Hallett, School of Law: Transnational Education and Organizing in the Context of U.S. Agricultural Guest  Worker Programs
  • Elena McLean, Political Science: Aid for the Environment: Measuring the Impact of Multilateral Aid on Environmental Policies and Outcomes
  • Christopher Mele, Sociology: Art-based Community Development : Challenges to Urban Policy
  • Jessica Owley, School of Law: Pesticides and Private Governance
  • Rebecca Redwood French, School of Law and Anthropology: The Law Codes of the Dalai Lamas, Annotated and with Cases by a Tibetan Official, Kungo-la Thupten Sangye
  • Deborah Reed-Danahay, Anthropology: Ambiguities of Belonging: The French in London Before and After Brexit
  • Sarah Robert, Learning and Instruction: School Food Policies=What equity? A Global Critique
  • Joanne Song McLaughlin, Economics: Older Women's Intersectional Discrimination and State Employment Discrimination Laws
  • Jessica Su, Sociology: Labor Market Conditions and Unintended Pregnancy
  • Deborah Waldrop, School of Social Work: Helping Families: Do Facilitated Advanced Care Planning Conversations Make a Difference?

2018-19 Conference Grants

  • David Herzberg, Department of History, Governing addiction as a chronic illness: Policy lessons from history.
  • Martha T. McCluskey, School of Law, Rethinking the Corporation: Political Economy and the Law.
  • Irus Braverman, School of Law, Environmental Justice in the Palestinian West Bank.
  • David Herzberg, Department of History, Drug policy beyond supply and demand.
  • Gwynn Thomas, Global Gender Studies Program, From Protest to Politics: Women’s Movements and Strengthening Democracies.

2017-18 Research Grants

  • Ana Mariella Bacigalupo, Anthropology: Shamanic Justice and International Human Rights in Chile: Judge Karen Atala's Transformative Vision and her LGBT Rights Custody Case
  • Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen, Geography: The Role of Universities in Sustainable Innovation, Inclusion, and Development
  • Samantha Barbas, School of Law: A History of Libel and the Press
  • Christine P. Bartholomew, School of Law: Ida Tarbell on Anti-Trust Class Actions
  • Anya Bernstein, School of Law Law: Statutory Interpretation in the German Administrative State
  • Michael Boucai, School of Law: Who Wrote Teleny? and A Genealogy of the Closet
  • Irus Braverman, School of Law: The Nature of Occupation: Nature Reserves, Law, and Militarism in the Occupied Palestinian Territories 
  • Rebecca French, School of Law: The Law Codes of the Dalai Lamas, Annotated with Cases by a Tibetan Official, Kungo-la Thupten Sangye, with explanation and introduction by Rebecca French
  • Rachel K. Hinkle, Political Science: The Role of Race and Gender in Publication and Authorship in U.S. Courts of Appeals
  • Athena Mutua, School of Law: Black Power on Trial: The Kansas Nine
  • Charles M. Lamb, Political Science: Presidents, Bureaucracy, and Fair Housing in America
  • Patricia Logan-Greene and Mickey Sperlich, School of Social Work: Addressing the Role of Front Line Social Workers in Preventing Gun Violence
  • Joanne Song McLaughlin, Economics: In Sickness and in Health: The Influence of the State and Federal Health Insurance Coverage Mandates on Marriage in the U.S.A.
  • Tara Melish, School of Law: Building Human Rights Cities 
  • Jessica Owley, School of Law: Land Conservation in Spain: Custodia del Territorio
  • Peter A. Rogerson, Geography: The Demographic Aging of Suburbs: With Implications for Policy
  • Robert M. Silverman, Urban & Regional Planning: Turning the American Dream into Commercial Rental Property: The Effects of Single-Family Rental (SFR) Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITS) on Nashville's Suburbs
  • Mary Nell Trautner, Sociology: Unwanted Sexual Attention, Masculinity, and the Law: A Comparison of the U.S. and Singapore
  • Camilo Trumper, Transnational Studies: Dictatorship's Children: Education, Repression and Protest among Youth in Chile
  • Deborah Waldrop, School of Social Work: Helping Families: Do Facilitated Advance Care Planning Conversations Help?

2017-18 Conference Grants

  • Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen, Geography - Universities, Innovation, and Development          
  • Christine Bartholomew, School of Law - Evidence Junior Works in Progress Conference   
  • Anya Bernstein, School of Law -  Buffaronto Sociolegal Conversations         
  • Rebecca French, School of Law and Anthropology - IABS Baldy Workshop for the Buddhism, Law and Society Group          
  • Stephanie L. Phillips, School of Law School - Countering the Effects of Stress on Police Officers’ Health and Functioning: Mindfulness-Based Resilience Training  
  • Mateo Taussig-Rubbo and Jonathan Manes, School of Law - Trumpism and the Law
  • Kari Winter, Transnational Studies, Gender Institute, Humanities Institute - Reclaiming Our Ancestors: Community Conversations about Racial Justice & Public History 
  • Cynthia Wu, Transnational Studies - The Disabled Academic: Access, Accommodations, Law, and Culture   

2016-17 Research Grants

  • Annahita Ball, Elizabeth Bowen, and Annette Semanchin-Jones, School of Social Work - Improving Educational Outcomes for Homeless and Child Welfare-Involved Youth in Greater Buffalo through Cross-Systems Collaboration
  • Samantha Barbas, Law - The Most Loved, Most Hated Magazine in America: Confidential Magazine and the Transformation of Freedom of the Press
  • Anya Bernstein, Law - Administrative Law from the Administrative Perspective in Taiwan
  • Irus Braverman, Law - The Law of the Land: Nature Reserves in the Occupied Palestinian Territories
  • Jang Wook Huh, English; Asian Studies Program - Gender Institute: School Cross-Racial Justice in the Pacific
  • Charles M. Lamb, Political Science - Presidents, Bureaucracy, and Fair Housing in America
  • Christopher Mele, Sociology - The Entrepreneurial Turn in Housing Policy: Effects on the Provision of Affordable Rental Housing
  • Athena Mutua, Law - Black Power on Trial: The Kansas Nine
  • Anthony O'Rourke, Law - Civil and Criminal Discovery
  • Erkin Ozay, Architecture - Building a Public Institution: The Case of Henderson-Hopkins School and Middle East Baltimore
  • Deborah Reed-Danahay, Anthropology - Being French in London: National Social Space and European Mobility Regimes
  • Lauren Sassoubre, Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering; Jessica Owley, Law - Exploring the Legal and Scientific Feasibility of Using Recycled Water from Dairy Farms for Agricultural Irrigation
  • Robert Silverman, Urban and Regional Planning - Model Community Benefits Agreements (CBAs): An Emerging Tool for Negotiating Equitable Development
  • Jessica Su, Sociology - Labor Market Conditions and Unintended Pregnancy
  • Gwynn Thomas, Global Gender Studies/Transnational Studies - Hidden Activists: The Role of Civil Servants in Promoting Gender Equality in Latin America
  • Marion Werner, Geography - Trade and Agro-Food Systems Regulation in the Caribbean
  • Li Yin, Urban and Regional Planning - Spatial Clustering of Abandonment and Demolition: A Case Study in Buffalo, New York
  • Ezra B.W. Zubrow, Anthropology - Cultural Heritage as a Human Right

2016-17 Conference Grants

  • Irus Braverman, Law - Ocean Legalities: The Laws and Life of the Sea
  • Rebecca French, Law - Buddhist Law and State Law in Comparative Perspective
  • Trina Hamilton, Geography - Global Governance and the Trans-Pacific Partnership

2015-16 Research Grants

  • Samantha Barbas - Time v. Hill and America's Search for Privacy
  • Elizabeth Bowen - Informing Housing and Social Policy through Community-Based Research on Homelessness among Emerging Adults in Erie County
  • Irus Braverman - Gene Drives: Editing Life and Law Beyond the Human
  • Rachael K. Hinkle - The Role and Impact of Briefs in the U.S. Supreme Court
  • Charles M. Lamb - Presidents, Bureaucracy, and Fair Housing in America
  • Anthony O'Rourke - Civil Discovery and Criminal Investigation
  • Jessica Owley - Forest Land Conservation Mechanisms in a Changing World: Climate Resiliency under Varying Property Protection Arrangements in the Northeast Forests
  • Katja Praznik - Remuneration of artistic labor: a transcontinental comparative analysis
  • Deborah Reed-Danahay - Being French in London: Social Space and the Body Politic
  • Deborah Waldrop - Policy Practice at Life's End: How Advance Directives and Provider Communication Influence Healthcare Decision-making near Death

2015-16 Conference Grants

  • Matthew Dimick - Redistribution: Politics, Law, and Policy
  • David Herzberg - Gender and the Drug War
  • Mary Nell Trautner, Fred Konefsky - Celebrating 30+ years of David Engel's "The Oven Bird's Song: Insiders, Outsiders, and Personal Injuries in an American Community"
  • Jessica Owley - Environmental Law Collaborative 2016

2014-15 Research Grants

  • Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen - University-Industry-Government Interaction in Bioenergy Translational Research
  • Anya Bernstein - Agency Statutory Interpretation: Preliminary Research
  • Michael Boucai - Glorious Precedents: When Gay Marriage Was Radical
  • Irus Braverman - Corals and Bombs: Military-to-Wildlife in Vieques, Puerto Rico
  • Matthew Dimick - Law, Labor, and the Politics of Inequality
  • Sarah M. Elder - "Surviving Arctic Climate Change", Film Editing Phase to Secure External funding
  • Jaume Franquesa - Energy policy, sustainability and austerity: Renewable energy and energy transition in Spain
  • James A. Gardner - Intergovernmental Contestation in Federal Systems
  • Christopher Mele - Implications of Neoliberal Urban Policy to Environmental Justice
  • Kelly Patterson (PI); Robert Silverman and Li Yin (co-PIs) - Anchor Institutions and Neighborhood Revitalization Policy: The Use of Linked Development Agreements (DAs) and Community Benefit Agreements (CBAs) in Shrinking Cities
  • Deborah Waldrop - Policy Practice at Life's End: Exploring the Outcomes of Advance Care Planning

2013-14 Research Grants

  • Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen - Shrinking Cities: Measuring the social impacts of urban decline land management policies
  • Samantha Barbas - The Laws of Image
  • Irus Braverman - Occupying Nature: The Project of Colonial Conservation in Israel/Palestine
  • Jessica Castner - Complaint-Specific Protocols: Layers of Regulation and Emergency Nurse Scope of Practice
  • Robert Granfield - The Meaning of and Challenges to Pro Bono Work in Chinese Lawyering: A Sociological Analysis
  • Eiichiro Kazumori - US Treasury Auctions after the Financial Crisis
  • Jessica Owley - Collaborative Conservation Easement Research
  • Harvey D. Palmer - University Affiliations of Supreme Court Justices and Attorneys: How Educational Networks Influence Court Decisions
  • Remla Parthasarathy and Suzanne Tomkins - Identifying and Depicting the Impact of Culture in Intimate Partner Violence Cases
  • Kenneth Shockley - Ethical Dimensions of Climate Change Loss and Damage Protocols

2012-13 Research Grants

  • Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen - Biomass based bioenergy production: the role of policy, markets, and institutions
  • Christina Boyd - Analyzing Litigation in the Federal District Courts
  • Irus Braverman - Globalizing Zoos: The Administration of Saving the Planet
  • Jaume Franquesa - Renewable energy and energy transition in the context of Southern Europe’s fiscal crisis
  • Jennifer Gaynor - A "Nasty Pirates' Nest" in the 17th century
  • Erin Hatton - Working but Not Employed: Work and the Struggle for Worker Rights beyond the Boundaries of the Law
  • Steve G. Hoffman - Walking the Line: Morality, Social Policy and the White Working Class
  • Charles M. Lamb - Fair Housing in the Twentieth Century
  • Anthony O'Rourke - An Analysis of Supreme Court Attitudinal Voting Across Rights
  • Jessica Owley - Sustainability in the Age of Climate Change
  • Gwynn Thomas - When a Woman Leads: Regendering Political Power and Leadership in Latin America
  • Mary Nell Trautner - Art v. Science: Cultures of Community and Professionalism in Lawyers' Narratives of Case Screening and Selection
  • Camilo Trumper - Ephemeral Histories: Public Sphere, Public Space and Political Citizenship in Chile, 1970-1973
  • Deborah Waldrop - Call 911: How Public Health Policy Influences Emergency Decision-making at Life’s End

2011-12 Small Research Grants

  • Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen - The Role of Policy in the Creation of the US Renewable Energy Landscape
  • Samantha Barbas - The Privacy Paradox: Law, Media, and Intimate Life in Modern America
  • Ellen C Berrey - Bottom-Line Diversity: Race and Productive Pluralism in the Post-Civil Rights Period
  • Diane Christian - Death Row dvd
  • Dinissa Duvanova - Regulatory Policy and Bureaucratic Discretion: Business Environment in Post-communist Eastern Europe and Eurasia
  • Michael Halberstam - NYS Clearinghouse for Local Government Representation
  • Michael Halberstam - The Genius of American Corporate Law: The Missing Story of Civil Discovery
  • Trina Hamilton - Constructing ethical spaces for the global diamond trade
  • David Herzberg - Prescription for Trouble: Pharmaceuticals and Drug Abuse in the 20th Century
  • Eiichiro Kazumori - Design of Spectrum Allocation Mechanism for US Telecommunication Policy
  • Patricia Logan-Greene - Risk and protective factors among youth in the juvenile justice system: Fitting the needs of high risk youth with services to improve outcomes.
  • Robert Silverman - Evaluation of the Implementation of the Plan to Remove Impediments to Fair Housing in the City of Buffalo
  • Deborah Waldrop - Call 911: How Public Health Policy Influences Emergency Decision-making at Life’s End
  • Claude Welch - Human rights NGOs and India's Dalits
  • Marion Werner - Value Chains and Neoliberal Regulation: Focus on the Americas

2011-12 Research Grants

  • Christina Boyd - "Analyzing Litigation in the Federal District Courts"
  • Irus Braverman - "Noah’s Ark: Ideologies of Nature in Israel/Palestine Zoos"
  • Catherine Cornbleth - "How State Agencies, National Accreditation Organizations, and Advocacy Corporations Shape the Education of Professionals: The Case of Teacher Education"
  • Sarah Elder - "Surviving Arctic Climate Change: A Documentary Film"
  • Charles Lamb - "Fair Housing in the Twentieth Century"
  • Yoshiko Nozaki - "Comfort Women, Historical and Legal Issues, and Education: Views from Japanese College Students"
  • Jessica Owley - "Enforceability of Exacted Conversation Easements"
  • Stephen Paskey - "Telling Refugee Stories: Truth, Narrative, and the Asylum Adjudication Process"
  • Mateo Taussig-Rubbo - "Pirate Trials in Mombasa, Kenya"

2010-11 Research Grants

  • Christina L. Boyd - "Empirical Insights into Federal District Court Decision Making"
  • Irus Braverman - "Zoo Bureaucracies"
  • "Freedom and Restraint: Dionysiac Institutions and the ancient Greek Community"
  • Colleen Culleton - "Hardened by the Rain: Moving Water, Making Metaphors, and Imagining the Rural in Modern Catalonia"
  • Joshua J. Dyck - "The Scope and Nature of Panhandling and the Related Crime"
  • Rebecca R. French - "Translating the Tibetan Law Codes"
  • Joyce Hwang - "Re-Zoning Buffalo: Visualizing Potential Effects of Urban Agriculture
    Charles M. Lamb - "Fair Housing in the Twentieth Century"
  • Susan Mangold - "The Impact of Child Welfare Funding on Child Welfare Outcomes in Ohio"
  • Teresa Miller - "Doing Life: An Ethnographic Documentary of Attica Prison"
  • Vasiliki (Vaso) Neofotistos - "Law, Martyrdom and Albanian Identity in the Republic of Macedonia"
  • Justin Read - "Alternative Functions: The Modernization of Urbanization of Latin America"
  • Judy Scales - "Trent - Survival and Success under Apartheid: the Life and Work of William Johnson Trent"
  • Ramya Sreenivasan - "Formations of Community in Early Modern North India: Legal Regulations and Caste Boundaries"
  • Mateo Taussig-Rubbo - "Pirate Trials in Mombasa, Kenya"
  • Sue Winton - "Engaging Citizens in Education Policymaking: The Effects of Online and Face-to-Face Policy Dialogues"

2010-11 Small Research Grants

  • James Beebe - Chance and Harm
  • Thomas Burkman - Post-Pacific War Repatriation and War Memory in East Asia
  • Sarah Elder - Surviving Arctic Climate Change [A documentary film]
  • Michael Halberstam - Redistricting Research Initiative
  • Junhao Hong - Communication Rights, Press Freedom, and Social Transformation in China
  • Bruce Jackson - Texas Death Row
  • Eiichiro Kazumori - US Spectrum Allocation Policy: Theory and Experiments
  • Lynn Mather - Lawyers in Practice: Ethical Decision Making in Context
  • Martha McCluskey - Criminalizing Economic Inequality: ClassCrits Workshop
  • Carl Nightingale - Segregation is Everywhere: A World History of Urban Color Lines
  • Yoshiko Nozaki - Educational Technology, Educational Opportunity Programs, and the Gendered (and Raced and Classed) Identities among U.S. College Students
  • Jessica Owley - Private Land Conservation in a Changing Climate: Adaptation and Vulnerability Assessment
  • Jessica Owley - Collaborative Conservation Easement Research
  • Sasha D. Pack - Europe's Deepest Border: The Strait of Gibraltar Region since 1870
  • Harvey Palmer - University Affiliations of Supreme Court Justices and Attorneys: How Educational Networks Influence Court Decisions
  • Stephanie Phillips - Reforming Legal Education in Light of the Revolution in Neuroscience
  • Qingyan Shang and Jessie P.H. Poon - Skilled immigrants and US exports before and after the AC21 Act
  • Robert Silverman - Developing Planning and Policy Strategies for a Small American Indian Nation: The Case of the Unkechaug Nation
  • Mary Nell Trautner - Procedural and Legal Outcomes of Appearance-Based Employment Discrimination Lawsuits
  • Lois Weis - Maintaining Advantage: How Affluent Schools, Parents and Students Work to Position for College/University Entrance Under Conditions of Massification

2009-10 Research Grants

  • Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen - Women's (Dis)Advantage: Does a Lifetime of Workplace Disadvantage Create Advantages for Bridge Jobs?
  • James Beebe - The Worse the Crime, the More You Know: A Study of Non- Evidential Factors that Influence Judgments of Culpable Foreknowledge
  • Ruth Bereson - Enemies of the Imagination
  • Christina Boyd - Empirical Insights into Federal District Court Decision Making
  • Janina Brutt-Griffler - Forms of Multilingualism: EU Language Policy, National Language and English
  • Thomas Burkman- New Approaches for Establishing Comity among Korea, China and Japan: Comparative Case of Thai-Japanese Relations
  • Susan Guettel Cole - Freedom and Restraint: Dionysiac Institutions and the Ancient Greek Community
  • Catherine Cornbleth - How State Agencies Shape the Education of Professionals: The Case of Teacher Preparation in New York State
  • Dinissa Duvanova - Deregulation or Re-Regulation? Regulatory Reforms in Post-Communist Eastern Europe and Eurasia
  • Rebecca French - Collecting Tibetan Law Codes
  • Eva Juarros-Daussa - Catalans in New York: Impact of Linguistic Revitalization Policies in the Diaspora
  • Tilman Lanz - The Impact of Catalan Language Policy on Muslim Immigrants in Barcelona, Spain
  • Ferdinand Lewis - Does Active Living Improve Capability? A Re-Evaluation of Neighborhood Quality of Life
  • Susan Vivian Mangold - Follow the Money: The Impact of Federal, State & Local Funding
  • Teresa Miller - Fred Gary & Civil Right Documentary Project
  • Brenda Moore - Military Sexual Trauma (MST): Gender Differences in Perceived Treatment, Recovery, and Resilience
  • Athena Mutua - Pardons as a Tool of Restorative Justice: The Kansas Nine, Black Power on Trial
  • Yoshiko Nozaki - Education of Japanese Overseas Children in the United States: Japan's State Policies and the Shifting and Conflicting Views of Parents on Bi-cultural Schooling
  • Stephanie Phillips - History of Michigan Street Baptist Church
  • Ramya Sreenivasan - Formations of Community in Early Modern North India: Legal Regulations and Caste Boundaries
  • Despina Stratigakos - Gerdy Toost: Hitler's Other Chosen Architect
  • Mateo Taussig-Rubbo - The War on Terror in the Horn of Africa
  • Mary Nell Trautnern - Why Do People Sue for Medical Malpractice? Making Legal Decisions in an Era of Tort Reform
  • Jianquiang Wang; Ying Sun - Reading Lawyers' Minds: Technological Implications for Legal E-Discovery
  • Lois Weis - Maintaining Advantage: How Affluent Schools, Parents and Students Work to Position for College/University Entrance in Times of Massification
  • Lois Weis - The Way Class Works: Global Perspectives
  • Claude Welch - The Creation of the International Criminal Court

 

2009-10 Small Research Grants

  • Ruth Bereson - Preparation of the Papers presented at the Colloquium: "The Question of Innovation: Can One be Pragmatic if One Produces the Unknown?" for publication in a special issue of the Journal of Arts Management, Law and Society (JAMLS)
  • Ram Bezawada - The Impact of the National Organic Program (NOP) on Consumer Choice Behavior of Organic Food Products
  • Dinissa Duvanova - Interest Groups in Post-Communist Countries: A Comparative Analysis of Business & Employer Associations
  • Michael Halberstam - Recent Corporate Governance Changes
  • Graham Hammill - Points of Departure: Political Theology on the Scenes of Early Modernity
  • David Herzberg - Prescription for Addiction: Abuse of Legal Drugs in American History
  • Bruce Jackson - Cummins Redux
  • Charles Lamb - Fair Housing in the Twentieth Century
  • Sergio Lopez-Pineiro - The Conundrum of Informality: A Utopian Project for a Harsh Reality
  • Kenneth MacKay - The AIA's Consent Decree: Ensuring Free Trade of Hindering Diversity?
  • Deborah Reed-Danahay - Bordieu, Sociality and Legal Anthropology
  • Ellen Berrey - Plaintiffs' and Defendant's Perceptions of Fairness in Discrimination Cases-Online Multi-Media Module
  • Ruth Bereson - Case Studies for Comparative Cultural Policy
  • Joshua Dyck - The Problem with Vote by Mail
  • Sarah Robert - Legal Intepretations of Teacher's Work
  • Gwynn Thomas - When a Woman Leads: The Presidency of Michelle Bachelet and Promoting Gender Equality in Chile
  • Elizabeth Adelman - Sample Documents for Law Students and Faculty
  • Winnifred Fallers Sullivan - Law and Religion after Secular Liberalism
  • Kathleen Kost - Evaluation of multi-agency initiatives established to deliver services in a poor Buffalo neighborhood
  • Christopher Mele - Publicly-Subsidized Private Urban Development and Minority, Low-Income Community Improvement in Chester, Pennsylvania
  • James Milles - Reporter's Shield Laws: Journalism, New Media and Agency Capture
  • Deborah Reed-Danahay - Vietnamese Metis: Citizenship Laws and Colonial Legacies in France
  • Judy Scales-Trent - Survival and Success under Apartheid: the Life and Work of William Johnson Trent
  • Robert Silverman - Fair and Affordable Housing Policy in the US: Trends, Outcomes, Future Directions

 

2008-09 Research Grants

  • Joshua Dyck - Political Attitudes and State Elections: A Survey Design
  • Carole Emberton - Gun Laws in the Nineteenth Century
  • Trina Hamilton - Cleaning up to Move on up: Exploring the Intersections of Toxic Legacies and Economic Development Trajectories in Brooklyn and Buffalo
  • Junhao Hong - Representation of Law in China’s Media: Motivations, Effects, and Implications of the Social Transformation from Rule-of-Communist Party to Rule-of-Law
  • Bruce Jackson - Convicts
  • Charles Lamb - Fair Housing in the Twentieth Century
  • Carl Nightingale - Building the White City in Chicago and Johannesburg: Property Rights, Racial Segregation, and the Origins of a Transnational Housing Market
  • Carol Rosenstein - The Living Culture Project: Sustaining Arts, Culture and Heritage in New Orleans Neighborhood
  • Raj Sharman - Critical Information System Factors Affecting e-discovery – An Exploratory Study
  • Robert Silverman & Kelly Patterson - The Effects of Perceived Funding Trends on Nonprofit Advocacy and Civic Engagement: A National Survey of Organizations Serving African-American and Latino Communities
  • Gwynn Thomas - Assessing the Social, Political and Legal Effects of a Woman President: President Michelle Bachelet and Women’s Political Equality in Chile
  • Lois Weis - Maintaining Advantage: How Affluent Schools, Parents, and Students Work to Position for College/University Entrance in Times of Massification

2008-09 Small Research Grants

  • Ruth Bereson - Cases in Arts Management
  • Barry Boyer - Great Lakes Connecting Channels: Science, Ecosystem Management, and Governance
  • Irus Braverman - Automated Public Toilets: Recovering Public Space?
  • Irus Braverman - Tree Wars: Land, Nature, and the Law in Israel/Palestine
  • Colleen Culleton - Dust in the Streams: Catalan Water Management and the Case of the Ter River
  • Dinissa Duvanova - Interest Groups in Post-Communist Countries: A Comparative Analysis of Business and Employer Association
  • Joseph Gerken - Trial by Wiki: The Use of Wikipedia as a Source for Fact-Finding in Judicial Opinions
  • Keith Griffler - Common Bonds: The Political Economy of Race and Class in the Modern World Economy
  • Steve G. Hoffman - Ground Zero of Re-Alignment? Small Town Politics, Information Processing, and Trust in Legal and Political Institutions
  • Bruce Jackson -Texas Death Row photographs
  • Gregg Johnson - Presidential Popularity and the Success of Executive-Sponsored Legislation
  •  Lauri Johnson - “Segregation, Choice, or the Politics of Hope?” Policy Discourses in the Historical Development of Black-Focused Schools in Toronto and London
  • Rajiv Kishore & Sanjukta Das-Smith - Value Drivers and Risks of Offshore IT Outsourcing
  • Yong Li - Institutions, Culture, and Venture Capital Activity: A Cross-Country Analysis
  • Errol Meidinger - Law Making in a Global Civil Society
  • Christopher Mele - Thinking about Property: Funding Possibilities for Foreclosure Research
  • Teresa Miller - Encountering Attica, Pt. 2: Attica in the Age of Mass Incarceration
  • Yoshiko, Nozaki - Educational and Socio-Legal Issues of Japanese Immigrant and Transient Students in the United States
  • Yoshiko Nozaki - Gender, Higher Education, and Socio-Legal Politics: Case Studies of India, Mongolia, and Japan
  • Yoshiko Nozaki - Gender, Higher Education, and Globalization of Labor Market: Case Study of Philippine Women
  •  Sarah Robert - Legal of Teachers’ Work
  • Carole Rosenstein - The Living Cultures Project: Sustaining Arts, Culture and Heritage in New Orleans Neighborhoods
  • Jason Sorens - State and Local Public Policies and Institutions in 2008
  • Despina Stratigakos - Gerdy Troost; Hitler’s Other Chosen Architect
  • Debra Street - The Four Seasons: Midlife and Older Americans and Canadians
  • Mary Nell Trautner - Making Medical Malpractice Claims in an Era of Tort Reform
  • Deborah Waldrop - The Hospice House Movement: How State Regulations Influence Residential Care at Life’s End
  • Sue Winton - Implications of Revisions to the Education Act for Safety in Ontario’s Schools
  • Ruqaiijah Yearby - Knocking Down Barriers and Overcoming Apathy in Civil Rights Enforcement: Using and International Solution to Address Racial Disparities in Health Care

 

2007-08 Research Grants

  • Thomas Burkman - History and Memory: Redress, Mediation, and Forgiveness as Means to Reconciliation among Japan, China, and Korea
  • Rebecca French - The Golden Dispersion: Tibetan Law in the Diaspora
  • Lauri Johnson - "Something Better For Our Children": A Comparative Study of the Lives of Educational Activists and their Fight for Equitable Schooling in New York City, Toronto, and London, 1968-2008
  • Charles Lamb - Fair Housing in the Twentieth Century
  • Teresa Miller - African American Women Incarcerated
  • Athena Mutua - Pardons as a Tool of Restorative Justice: The Kansas Nine, Black Power on Trial
  • Carl Nightingale - Property Rights, Property Values, Racial Segregation, and the Origins of a Transnational Housing Market

 

2007-08 Small Research Grants

  • Irus Braverman - The Regulation of Commercial Washrooms: Taking a Closer Look
  • Markus Dubber - The Police Power Reconsidered: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Modern Governance
  • Joshua Dyck - Political Distrust and the Conservative Movement at the Ballot Box
  • Joshua Dyck - The Political Geography of Direct Democracy
  • Carole Emberton - Gun Laws in Nineteenth Century
  • James Gardner - Joseph Belluck, Laura Aswad, Subnational Constitutionalism in Spain and the United States
  • Bruce Jackson - Old State House Museum Cummins Prison Farm Exhibit
  • Martha McCluskey - Critical Analysis of Economic Inequality
  • Christopher Mele - Sociolegal Practices to Address Consequences of the Foreclosure Crisis
  • Sheila Shulman - Transcription of presentations at 11/16/07 Public Health Law Symposium
  • Gwynn Thomas - Assessing the Effects of A Woman President: Michelle Bachelet's Legislative and Social Policy Agenda
  • Robert Wagmiller & Robert Adelman - Early Life Residential Experiences and Neighborhood Attainment in Later Life
  • Lois Weis - The Way Class Works

 

2006-07 Research Grants

  • Barry Boyer - Governing the Great Lakes Commons
  • Serguey Braguinsky - Asset Holdings and Income Reporting Under an Imperfect Legal System – Evidence from Russion Households Microdata
  • Pauline Cheong & Jessie Poon - Investigating Religious Spaces Online: Social Capital Building and Internet Regulation in Toronto and Singapore
  • Filomena Critelli - Toward the Protection of Women in Pakistan: A Study of DASTAK Women’s Shelter, Lahore, Pakistan
  • Diane Elze - Facilitating Appropriate Service Delivery Transgender Youths and Adults: Identifying Policy Barriers, Policy Innovations and Best Practices
  • Charles Lamb - Fair Housing in Twentieth-Century America
  • Errol Meidinger - Law Making by ‘Global Civil Society’
  • Brenda Moore - Debi Street, Military Families
  • Carl Nightingale - Building the White City in Chicago and Johannesburg: Property Rights, Property Values, Racial Segregation, and the Origins of a Transnational Housing Marking
  • Sasha Pack - Christianity, European Identity, and the Politics of a Spanish Pilgramage
  • Lynda Schneekloth, Margaret Shannon, Chris Renschler, William Page, & Barry Boyer - Governing the Niagara Escarpment: Options for Managing Complex Public-Private Landscapes
  • Suzanne Tomkins - Community Assessment of Domestic Violence Interventions
  • Lois Weis - The Way Class Works

2006-07 Small Research Grants

  • James Atleson - Capital Strikes
  • George Barnett - An Examination of the Impact of September 11, 2001 on International Telecommunications
  • Markus Dubber - The Police Power Reconsidered: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Modern Governance
  • Markus Dubber - Modern Histories of Crime and Punishment
  • Joshua Dyck - The Political Geography of Direct Democracy
  • Sara Faherty - Racing to the Top: Local Democracy and Lessons from the Living Wage Movement
  • Bruce Jackson - Death Row 16mm film-to-DVD conversion
  • Susan Mangold - Child Welfare Research
  • Athena Mutua - Book, Progressive Black Masculinities?
  • Robert Silverman - Community-Based Organizations (CBOs) and Affordable Housing: A National Survey of Local Public Administrators
  • Debra Street - Military Families
  • Lois Weis - Segmentation of College Opportunities/Experiences by Social Class and Race