The Academic Minute from 10.07 – 10.11
Monday
Julie Cederbaum – University of Southern California
Supportive Adults Make the Difference in the Lives of Foster Youth
Julie Cederbaum is an associate professor in the Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work. Her work focuses on the impact of childhood adversity and family processes on the well-being of youth. Using a dyad and family systems lens, her research explores the strengths and challenges experienced by diverse families, and ways in which parenting processes and behaviors (i.e. parent–child communication, parental monitoring, parent–child relationship, and parental role modeling) and positively influence mental health, reproductive health, and substance use behaviors in children, adolescents and young adults.
Tuesday
Charlotte Blease – Uppsala University
Empowering Patient Research
Dr Charlotte Blease is a health informaticist and philosopher. She works in Uppsala University, Sweden, and before this was based at Harvard Medical School for five years where she is still a research affiliate. She has held academic posts across Europe and the UK.
Dr Blease has published more than 150 journal articles across digital health, evolutionary psychology, health psychology, philosophy, and ethics. She is a leading expert in placebo studies, and in February 2024 her co-edited volume “The Nocebo Effect: When Words Make You Sick” was published with Mayo Clinic Press. Dr Blease also researches the role of artificial intelligence in taking over doctors’ jobs. Her book “Dr Bot: Why patients need digital doctors and what technology still can’t do” will be published by Yale University Press in 2025. You can follow her at crblease on X/Twitter. In this essay, co-written with Joanne Hunt, she discusses the importance of patients acting as co-investigators in medicine.
Wednesday
Zaid Zada – Princeton University
Brains and Machines Navigate a Common Language Space for Communication
Zaid is a Ph.D. candidate at Princeton University studying how the brain processes language, how multiple brains synchronize to share information with each other, and what language models can teach us about the brain’s linguistic capabilities.
Thursday
Michael Wolfson – University of Ottawa
Where You Live Might Determine How Long You Live
Michael Wolfson is a former assistant chief statistician at Statistics Canada and current member of the University of Ottawa’s Centre for Health Law, Policy and Ethics.
Friday
Matthew Landry – University of California Irvine
Misconceptions and Gaps in OB/GYN Training on Plant-Based Nutrition
Matthew Landry’s current research focuses on identifying the optimal diet (or diets) for chronic disease prevention and addressing the challenges of designing, implementing and reporting clinical trials that test dietary patterns. He is particularly interested in behavioral interventions that promote plant-forward and plant-based diets. He is a passionate advocator for policies that address nutrition-related health inequalities particularly in low resource settings and/or with communities experiencing health inequalities related to food insecurity and structural disparities.
