Social Impact Research Fund

This research project explores how homeless families and individuals think about, discuss,
value, and manage the ways stigmatization affects homeless people’s circumstances in Boston. Via qualitative inquiry through recurring, in-person video interviews, the project examines the experiences and emotions of the homeless population in parts of Boston while also providing some basic resources.

Examining Izakaya, or “a place for sake” when directly translated, a type of restaurant developed in the Edo period (1603-1868) characterized by its focus on alcohol and intimate atmospheres, this research project 1) examines the reality of “Izakaya” culture by conducting surveys for young adults 2) captures the systemic and institutional structure behind these phenomena by examining the culture of Japan 3) offers practical measures to ensure the safety of not only women but young men and queer individuals at Izakaya and 4) after looking at potential similarities to US fraternity culture, also suggests practical measures universities in the US can adopt to ensure the safety of women, young men, and queer individuals in fraternity culture.

This research observes how gut symbiosis can be reestablished in intestinal microbial models of Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) patients using probiotics.  The project will use four models: 1) a bacterial community of a healthy microbiome 2) a bacterial community for a typical CKD microbiome 3) a model of healthy microbiome with probiotics and 4) a model of CKD microbiome with probiotics to develop data analyses to see if the types of bacteria found in the experimental models changed with the overall purpose of observing if the use of probiotics reestablishes symbiosis in the gut microbiome of CKD patients.

Recent trends have lent new urgency to the question of how democracy can survive. Following the remarkable expansion of electoral democracy in the second half of the twentieth century, the first decades of the twenty-first century have unleashed a set of global crises that no nation can handle alone. As climate change and related political, economic, and social crises become increasingly disruptive, the democratic nations and the international organizations to which they belong will face heightened stress from ethnocentrism, mass migration, resurgent nationalism, and human rights abuses. If democratic societies build walls instead of bridges as a response to the mounting stresses of the Anthropocene, they will erode the foundation of universal human rights upon which democracy depends, and democratic institutions will continue to falter. In light of these sobering prospects, there have been countless jeremiads in recent years expressing the view that democracy is in a state of rapid and perhaps irreversible decline.

In contrast to this gloomy trend, Richard Samuel Deese and Michael Holm’s project explores how democracy can survive. Beyond making the case that the health of democracy anywhere on earth is connected to the health of democracy everywhere on earth, their book and podcast series advance the idea that the preservation of democracy is essential to meeting the challenge of climate change. Since electoral democracy allows for the free exchange of ideas and information and the peaceful transition to new governmental leadership on a regular basis, the preservation of democracies around the world will enhance the adaptability and resilience of our species as we face the mounting challenges of the Anthropocene.

Stephanie Byttebier is collaborating with student Leo Chen on a research project that seeks to take a closer look at an increasingly popular pedagogical practice—service learning—to better understand what a mutually beneficial and reciprocal encounter between community and university partners might look like. Collaborating with the Boston Debate League, a local non-profit organization relying on volunteers and service learners to integrate competitive debate into the Boston public schools, they aim to organize focus groups and conduct surveys to bring to light how service-learning beneficiaries experience the encounter with their university partners, not just intellectually, but socially and emotionally. Likewise, the study will seek to articulate the assumptions, beliefs and expectations informing services learners going into and coming out of the experience of judging urban debaters. The goal is to interrogate our own practices as teachers and give voice to our silent community partners.

Antibiotic resistance has been deemed a world-wide crisis by the World Health Organization, the CDC, and other prominent public health organizations. Diseases that were once treatable no longer respond commonly used antibiotics. Simultaneously, the antibiotic discovery pipeline has slowed, limiting the number of new drugs available.

For this project, Sandy Buerger looked at the previously underexplored area of traditional cures. Through trial and error, over years and years, people in the past discovered treatments that would reduce symptoms and help people recover from illness. Her goal in this project was to test these traditional treatments for antimicrobial activity. In order to do this, Buerger and student researchers researched and compiled different methods that were used in the past, recreated them in the lab, and then tested them against common bacterial species.

After recreating the traditional cures, they created suspensions that contained the extracts in a form free of any microbial contamination. These sterile suspensions were then tested against a range of bacterial species, including both gram positive and gram negative species. Using the Kirby-Bauer disc method, they were able to see that a number of the solutions tested resulted in inhibition of bacterial growth. This work represents a first step in establishing these solutions as possible treatments to antibiotic resistance infections.

In the video above, Buerger and undergraduate student researchers Adam Lazarchik and Elizabeth Guerrero discuss their research on historical cures.

“Think globally, act locally.” This adage from the 1960s best sums up the scope and direction of research Peter Busher conducted with support from the Global Impact Research Fund. His research investigates the interaction between sap flow in trees and foraging behavior of the North American beaver, Castor canadensis.

Using a model from the OPEnS lab at Oregon State University, he had Boston University undergraduate students construct sap flow sensors, which measure the water movement in trees. This requires theoretical understanding of sensor design, construction skills and computer programing ability. Students involved in the project (Brianna Connor, Ryan Connor, Will Regan) worked diligently to construct working sensors, although field trials were interrupted by the global pandemic. However, Busher was able to deploy a commercial sensor in the field during the autumn of 2020 and preliminary results are promising (beavers are taking trees with higher sap flows).

Data collection will continue during the spring and autumn of 2021. Support from the GIRF allowed undergraduates to gain unique and invaluable experience and for the collection of preliminary field data. Tree sap flow data from a local area (Quabbin Reservation, central Massachusetts) may reflect the larger impacts of anthropogenic climate change on both plant and animal behavior and provide a baseline for comparison with sites in northern Europe and Russia. Thus, data from a local research project using undergraduates may reflect global patterns and continuing research will enhance the connection between local action and global impact.