November 3, 2020

In collaboration with the Office of Research & Innovation, the Social Science Research Committee (SSRC) will host the following two research seminars:

1. Oliver Rollins (“Violence, The Brain, and the Question of Science and Social Justice?” – SSRC Computational Social Science Seminar Series):
   

   Tuesday, Nov 10, 2020 (via Zoom)
   2:00 to 3:30pm

   Abstract: I will discuss the social and ethical implications of the neuroscience of violence and antisocial behavior. Specifically, I focus on what I call the “violent brain construct,” a biosocial model of violence that I find ill-equipped to deal with social difference, power, and inequality. Thinking about the ways in which social inequality can be normativity reinforced through such biomedical risk modeling of violence, I conclude the presentation by addressing the pressing demand for an antiracist science. Given the recent killings of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and Walter Wallace Jr, I ask us to think about: what does (should) social justice look like in or through the (neuro)sciences?
   
   Dr. Oliver Rollins is an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Louisville. His research focuses on the ways sociocultural dynamics inform the production, use, and anticipated value of neuroscientific knowledges. Currently, he’s conducting a project that examines the social and bioethical implications of neuroscience research on implicit bias, which uses qualitative sociological methods to explore the potential challenges, consequences, and promises of operationalizing racial prejudice and identity as neurobiological processes. Rollins’s forthcoming book, Conviction: The Making and Unmaking of The Violent Brain (Stanford University Press, 2021), traces the development and use of neuroimaging research on anti-social behaviors and crime, with special attention to the limits of this controversial brain model when dealing with aspects of social difference, power, and inequality. Previously, Rollins was a postdoctoral researcher at University of Pennsylvania in the Program on Race, Science & Society (2014-2018) and the Center for Africana Studies and Center for Neuroscience and Society (2016-2018). Rollins received his Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). He teaches classes on race/racisms; science, knowledge and technology; and medical sociology.
   
   Please register no later than Monday, Nov 9, 2020. Zoom information will be sent to the registrants prior to the seminar.

2. Cath Conn (“Partnering with Voiceless Communities: A Life in Global Community Health” – SSRC Civic Engagement Seminar Series)
   

   Tuesday, Nov 17, 2020 (via Zoom)
   3:00 to 4:30pm

   Abstract: This presentation draws on Cath Conn’s life in community health and civic engagement around the world and most recently in New Zealand. First, she will present a summary of her background and experiences as a non-governmental organization practitioner and researcher, mainly in Africa. She worked with displaced communities in Uganda and Sudan; as a primary health care adviser in The Gambia; and as a consultant in Tanzania and Nigeria. In the last decade she has partnered with Pacific Island youth communities in Fiji, South Auckland and Vanuatu. A current highlight is the collaboration with colleagues at Auckland University of Technology and Drexel friend Professor Robert Field to develop a Healthy City Initiative involving indigenous Maori and migrant Pacific Island youth communities as leaders in a planetary health approach.
   
   Dr. Cath Conn is a social scientist, specializing in global public health research at Auckland University of Technology (AUT) in New Zealand. She is Co-Director of AUT’s Child and Youth Health Research Centre, and Co-Editor of the journal Pacific Health.  Cath’s research focuses on systems, evaluation, financing, sexual health, youth empowerment models in emerging economies and regions. She has worked with governments and NGOs in a number of African countries, and in China, Vietnam, and Laos in various roles such as: primary health care adviser, The Gambia; health systems and financing consultant, Department for International Development (DfID)UK, CARE Uganda, Swedish Aid/SIDA Laos and Vietnam, and WHO, Geneva. Also, as an academic in four universities including AUT: Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex; Nuffield Centre for International Health and Development, University of Leeds; and Centre for Development Studies, University of Auckland. Her current research is on sustainable food systems, youth entrepreneurship and e-health, financing and systems for planetary health, healthy cities, and emerging economies and regions. She received her doctor degree in public sector management from University of Leeds and is a senior lecture at AUT.
   
   Please register no later than Monday, Nov 16, 2020. Zoom information will be sent to the registrants prior to the seminar.

The Social Science Research Committee (SSRC) aims at building a vibrant social science research community at Drexel University. We are open to faculty members who are interested in human social behavior from all academic fields. In the past year, we have organized method training, civic engagement research forum, visit to DC to meet federal grant officers, etc. We are planning activities to facilitate interdisciplinary collaboration between social and natural/engineering sciences, longer-term collaboration between faculty and interested undergraduate students, etc.

If you are interested in joining the SSRC, please submit a request to Giang Nguyen gnn23@drexel.edu join the group. Faculty from all academic fields are welcome.