July 30, 2020

Drexel's Rapid Response Research & Development Fund was designated for urgent action, short-term projects.  In honor of Juneteenth and with a deep commitment to the needed examination and eradication of racism in this country and around the world, Drexel's Rapid Response Research & Development Fund focused on racial equity projects.

The enthusiasm and the level of response to the Rapid Response Research & Development Fund was incredible. We received 33 submissions. With only a limited amount of funding available, selecting projects amongst this strong group of submissions was very challenging.

The awarded projects are:

AJ Drexel Autism Institute

• Educational Disparities Experienced by Individuals with ASD (Kaitlin Koffer Miller)

College of Arts & Sciences

• Examining Racial Differences in the Link Between School Suspensions and Arrests (Kathleen Powell)

• CASTLE Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Faculty Fellow (Jennifer Stanford)

• A Simulation-Based Peer Intervention Training Program to Increase Active Bystandership Among a Sample of Police Officers (Robert Kane)

• Policing & Health: The Effects of Law Enforcement Encounters Among Queer People of Color (Jason Orne)

College of Computing and Informatics

• The Bias in the Machine (Edward Kim)

College of Medicine

• Does Racial Disparity Contribute to Delayed Diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorders in Children with Early Childhood Brain Injury? (Ramesh Raghupathi)

College of Nursing & Health Professions

• Unmasking Race: The Racial Resonances of Masking in the Time of COVID (Sharrona Pearl)

• Examining Whiteness: An Immersive Education Program to Address Racism and Racial Injustice in Education Using VR Technology (Ebony White)

• Research Training Pathway to SUPERNOVA: The Wonders of "WHY" (Jennifer Nasser)

• Couple/Marriage and Family Therapists Extent of Training Experiences for Race-Related Stress and Racial Trauma (Jessica Chou)

Dornsife School of Public Health

• COVID-19 + Race/Ethnicity = Are We Really All in This Together? (Loni Tabb)

• Multi-City Policy Surveillance To Identify Policy Solutions To Law Enforcement Reform (Amy Carroll-Scott)

• Black Dragons: Understanding the Experiences of Racism, Racial Exclusion, and Racial Inequity Among Black Undergraduate and Graduate Students of Drexel University (Shiriki Kumanyika)

• Economic Impact of Racial Disparities in Dementia and Alzheimer's Disease (Darryl Brown)

LeBow College of Business

• Preventing and Mitigating Racial Bias in Machine Learning-Based Software (Orakwue Arinze)

School of Education

• The Interplay of Institutional Systems and the Academic Experiences of African Americans Males at Drexel University in STEM Cooperative (Co-op) Programs (Alonzo Flowers)

• Critical Conversations in Urban Education's Racial Equity Audit of the School of Education (Deanna Hill)

Thomas R Kline School of Law

• Developing Anti-Racism Community Dialogues: A Critical Race Participatory Action Research Project (Susan Brooks)

Westphal College of Media Arts & Design

• Black Lives Matter: Fashion, Style & Aesthetics (Joseph Hancock) 

• The Intellectual Green Book: Tracking Self- and Community Preservation Tactics Among Black Women And Black Non-Binary Individuals in the Nonprofit Arts Sector (Brea Heidelberg)

• ParallaxPHL Podcast (Helene Furjan)

A special thanks to our 19 peer reviewers who worked diligently so that we could award these funds quickly.

Though we were unable to fund all projects, we encourage all submitters to seek racial equity project funds by searching the subscription funding databases, Funding Institutional and Pivot, signing up for alerts from grants.gov, reaching out federal agencies and foundations, socializing your projects with program managers in those agencies and foundations, and seeking guidance from internal supports through the Drexel Librarians, Institutional Advancement/Foundation Relations, and Office of Research & Innovation.