Social Sciences

Michael Teitz, professor emeritus of city and regional planning at the University of California, Berkeley, and 2008-09 Nan and Will Clarkson Visiting Chair in the University at Buffalo Department of Urban and Regional Planning, will deliver the annual Clarkson lecture on Oct. 29.

A quarter of female police officers and nearly as many male officers assigned to shift work had thought about taking their own lives, a new study of police work patterns and stress headed by a University at Buffalo researcher has shown.

Cremation, "air burial," grave cairns, funeral mounds, mummification, belief in life after death -- death practices sacred to one culture are often considered "odd" or even terrifying by another. In every social group throughout history, the disposal of the dead has special significance, and ways of death always fascinate those on the outside looking in, says a history professor at the University at Buffalo.

The remarkable story of Jeffrey Brace, an African-born slave who won his freedom after fighting on the side of the colonial army during the American Revolution, might very well have been lost to history but for the work of historian Kari J. Winter, Ph.D., professor of American studies at the University at Buffalo.

Policing is dangerous work, and the danger lurks not on the streets alone. The pressures of law enforcement put officers at risk for high blood pressure, insomnia, increased levels of destructive stress hormones, heart problems, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and suicide, University at Buffalo researchers have found through a decade of studies of police officers.

More than 100 educators will celebrate the success of and take cues from the University at Buffalo's pioneer "City Voices, City Visions" student digital video project during a regional conference to be held Sept. 26 in the WNED Studios, 140 Lower Terrace, Buffalo.

In the case of an extreme event or disaster, many areas in upstate New York are ill prepared for a large-scale evacuation of people who don't own personal vehicles, says a University at Buffalo transportation and evacuation expert.

Shira Gabriel, Ph.D., associate professor of psychology at the University at Buffalo, says "parasocial relationships" -- one-sided associations in which a party knows a great deal about someone who knows nothing about them -- can have self-enhancing benefits for people with low-self esteem, benefits they do not receive in real relationships.

"The modern city and the modern woman invented each other," says architectural historian Despina Stratigakos, a fact she says is clearly demonstrated in Berlin, a city that women began to claim as their own in bold and dramatic ways at the turn of the 20th century.

So far, reports from the field suggest that the mandatory evacuation of New Orleans in advance of Hurricane Gustav is proceeding in a reasonable manner, says a University at Buffalo researcher who spent eight days in New Orleans in 2005 studying evacuation plans and decision making in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.