The Academic Minute for 2023.12.04-2023.12.08

The Academic Minute from 12.04 – 12.08

Monday
Joseph Cimpian – New York University
Misleading Numbers: Examining Data Reliability in Public Health
Joseph Cimpian, Ph.D., is Professor of Economics and Education Policy at NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. His research focuses on the use and development of novel and rigorous methods to study equity and policy, particularly concerning gender, data validity, and language policy. One line of his research examines individual and contextual factors related to gender gaps in STEM. Another line examines how invalid and mischievous survey responses skew estimates of majority-minority group disparities. Other research examines how education policies can be amended to provide access and supports to students learning English.

Tuesday
Adolfo Cuevas – New York University
Discrimination as a Social Determinant of Obesity
Adolfo G. Cuevas, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at NYU’s School of Global Public Health and core faculty at the Center for Anti-racism, Social Justice, & Public Health. As a community psychologist, he employs epidemiological, psychological, and biological approaches to investigate the effects of discrimination and other psychosocial determinants on health and health inequities. He uses a wide range of population-level datasets and advanced statistical methods to establish a plausible understanding of how psychosocial determinants “get under the skin” to increase the risk of aging-related diseases.

Wednesday
Natalie Brito – New York University
Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Infant Gut Microbiome
Dr. Natalie Brito is an Associate Professor in the Department of Applied Psychology at NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, and PI of the Infant Studies of Language and Neurocognition (ISLAND) lab. Dr. Brito’s research explores how social and cultural contexts shape the trajectory of brain and behavioral development, with the goal of better understanding how to best support caregivers and create environments that foster healthy development. Specifically, her ongoing studies examine how both proximal factors (i.e., maternal mental health, parent-child interactions) and distal influences (i.e., social policies) impact the development of attention, memory, and socioemotional skills during the first three years of life.

Thursday
Rachel Leshin – New York University
We Can Reduce Bias in Children – If It’s Causes Are Explained
Rachel is a sixth-year PhD candidate at New York University in the psychology department. Her research falls at the intersection of three areas: social psychology, developmental psychology, and cognitive psychology. In her work, she examines how children form their concepts of the social world (including their beliefs about social categories, like gender, race, and social status) across development.

Friday
Laura Wherry – New York University
Immigrants and Post-Partum Care in the United States
Laura Wherry’s primary area of research focuses on the changing role of the Medicaid program and its impact on access to health care and health. Recent work examines the early effects of the Affordable Care Act Medicaid expansions, as well as the longer-term effects of several large expansions in Medicaid targeting low-income pregnant women and children in the 1980s and 1990s. Prior to joining NYU, she was an assistant professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health & Society Scholar at the University of Michigan. Laura received her Ph.D. in Public Policy from the University of Chicago’s Harris School and her B.A. from the College of William and Mary.