Social Sciences News

HISTORY - Dining out has for generations been a fun way to celebrate special occasions, meet friends or just enjoy a quiet evening with someone special. But for many, that ended almost overnight last year as the spread of COVID-19 shuttered businesses and forced people to stay home.

ENGLISH, ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES - UO professor Sarah Wald hasn’t gone down the TikTok rabbit hole, but she’s explored just about every other storytelling medium to examine issues of equity and diversity in outdoor recreation and public land use.

The Glacier Lab is a group of graduate students, CHC undergrads and postdocs who study the societal impacts of glaciers, icebergs and snow worldwide. Members of the lab come from diverse academic backgrounds, including environmental studies, anthropology, history and English.

In a state known for its inspiring landscapes — its beauty, how its residents both embrace and rely on it for sustenance — University of Oregon faculty, staff and students bring that same passion and fervor toward studying our environment and tackling the biggest challenges facing it.

Four interdisciplinary teams have been awarded seed funding through the Office of the Vice President for Research and Innovation to pursue interdisciplinary research projects. The Incubating Interdisciplinary Initiatives awards, known as I3 awards, will provide up to $50,000.

ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES - During the tumultuous summer and fall of 2020, a photojournalist needed more than cameras and lenses to cover the news. Kevlar jackets, ballistic helmets, and gas masks were also standard operating equipment.

A University of Oregon program that provides education to incarcerated Oregonians is expanding with a boost from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, one of the largest supporters of the arts and humanities in the United States.

INFOGRAPHICS - A group out of the UO’s InfoGraphics Lab collaborated with Wyoming researchers, including biologist Matt Kauffman and filmmaker Gregory Nickerson, to produce a video that uses 3D visualization to show the doe’s accomplishment and track her most recent migration in the spring of 2019.

GEOGRAPHY, INFOGRAPHICS - Students are being trained in spatial data science are landing exciting jobs and serving humanitarian ends. The spatial data major draws from geography, computer science, and math to consider how location-based data and technologies can be leveraged across public policy, consumer technology, and disaster relief—to name a few of the discipline’s countless applications.

GEOGRAPHY, INFOGRAPHICS - Wild Migrations: Atlas of Wyoming’s Ungulates, published in 2018 by Oregon State University Press, documents deer journeys with words, photographs, and detailed maps.The project was led by tMatthew Kauffman, BS ’92 (biology), and Jim Meacham, BS ’84, MA ’92 (geography).