The 2019/20 academic year began like any other, with our faculty, postdocs, and students moving forward with purpose on research and discovery that spanned the globe and every discipline of the arts and sciences. From examining social inequality in old age to using machine learning to track how media perspectives shape public opinion, CAS researchers worked to expand human knowledge and understanding while positively impacting society. This is the heart of our research mission.

Keeping Research Moving during a Pandemic

When the global pandemic struck this spring, CAS administrators, researchers, and research support personnel worked hard to keep research projects going, in particular any research related to combating COVID-19. For most researchers in the humanities and social, mathematical, and computational sciences, this meant continuing with their research using remote meetings and digital resources.

For many researchers in the natural sciences, laboratories were closed from late March through early June. During this time, CAS leadership—in collaboration with the vice president for research, Environmental Health & Safety, and BU’s new Medical Advisory Group—worked with faculty leading each research lab to develop plans to safely reopen and restart their research efforts. At the same time, CAS administrators developed safety plans and protocols for each building housing lab-based research, ensuring physical distancing and other safety measures. By early June, most of our research laboratories were approved for reopening, but at 30% of typical personnel capacity at any one time to ensure safety. This massive, detailed, and coordinated effort allowed CAS natural sciences research, with myriad of benefits to society, to continue.

Creating Knowledge for the Benefit of Humanity

As the scope of the pandemic and its economic and social consequences became clear, many CAS researchers jumped into action to find solutions to these societal challenges.

As the scope of the pandemic and its economic and social consequences became clear, many CAS researchers jumped into action to find solutions to these societal challenges

Our research mission to help solve global problems became more urgent. From developing an app to trace whether a person has been exposed to someone with COVID-19 to taking cues from American culture to advise policymakers on how to encourage physical distancing, CAS researchers used their expertise to make a difference. To see the full picture of these efforts, check out the fall arts&sciences magazine article From Tracing Apps to Drug Candidates: Taking on COVID-19.

On June 10, hundreds of researchers, staff, and students from CAS and across Boston University participated in the #ShutDownSTEM and #ShutDownAcademia social media movements in support of antiracism and the nationwide protests of police brutality against Black Americans. Photo courtesy of Allyson Sgro
On June 10, hundreds of researchers, staff, and students from CAS and across Boston University participated in the #ShutDownSTEM and #ShutDownAcademia social media movements in support of antiracism and the nationwide protests of police brutality against Black Americans. Photo courtesy of Allyson Sgro

Looking to the Future

It has been a trying year for people around the globe, and the effects of both the global pandemic and the pandemic of racial injustice in the US have motivated many CAS researchers to help make the world a better place in the long term. We asked a broad range of our faculty members how 2020 has impacted their research direction, and how they plan to help make things better in 2021 and beyond. You can read the full article in our fall magazine. Here are a few highlights:
●      Katherine Levine Einstein is investigating housing relief efforts and joining with communities to help those in danger of losing their homes.
●      Saida Grundy looks beyond police brutality to highlight acts of white state violence that can’t be captured in short videos.
●      COVID lockdowns sent CO2 levels plummeting; Lucy R. Hutyra is working to make cities greener and keep skies clear.

Research Highlights

Below are some of the highlights and breakthroughs from 2019/20:

  • Professor of Sociology Nazli Kibria, along with a colleague at Brandeis, will use a $100,000 Voices for Economic Opportunity Grand Challenge Grant from the Gates Foundation and Raikes Foundation to collect the life histories of people who have suffered economic decline. They aim to highlight the dynamic nature of the underlying causes of these declines in order to better inspire empathy.
  • Professor of Computer Science Margrit Betke teamed up with colleague Lei Guo in the College of Communication, using machine learning to compare how media around the world frames coronavirus news.
  • CAS neuroscientist and Assistant Professor of Biology Jerry Chen seeks to understand why some people regain their skills quickly after a traumatic brain injury while others don’t, by mapping which parts of the brain are used to process sensory information and remember different skills.
  • A group of CAS and ENG professors developed an app to track the spread of COVID-19 on an individual level that keeps identities private. Professor Ran Canetti and Research Associate Professor Mayank Varia, both from the Department of Computer Science, along with their colleague Ari Trachtenberg in the College of Engineering, worked with researchers from other universities to develop the app, which Google then used to help model its own widely distributed COVID-tracking app.
  • Associate Professor of Korean & Comparative Literature and Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies Yoon Sun Yang’s book, From Domestic Women to Sensitive Men: Translating the Individual in Colonial Korea, was awarded the James B. Palais Prize by the Association of Asian Studies, given annually to an outstanding scholar of Korean studies from any discipline.