Social Impact Research Fund

Believing students’ ideas and perspectives can generate innovative and novel thinking in research, design, and implementation, alumnus Gary A. Kraut (CGS ’64, COM ’66) established the Social Impact Research Fund (SIRF) to give students the resources they need to implement their research projects. The grant is awarded annually to CGS students who conceive and execute their projects in consultation with a CGS faculty mentor. The aim is to support projects that make a positive impact on society sooner rather than later either locally or even nationally/internationally. Student awardees work with the Center for Interdisciplinary Teaching & Learning to execute their projects in consultation with their CGS faculty mentor. Information on ongoing SIRF projects, as well as details on how to apply for a SIRF grant, are available below.

How to Apply for a SIRF Grant

Click here for answers to frequently asked questions and details about how to apply for the SIRF grant.

SIRF Projects

Human Rights, Too Many Definitions, Too Little Consensus: A Podcast Exploring Expert Perspectives and Current Challenges

Martina Nacach Cowan Ros

Since the 1940s, the concept of human rights has become a universally colloquial term, difficult to define and even harder to protect. The Definition: Looking for Universal Human Rights is a podcast series that aims to open up the conversation by inviting professionals from a range of disciplines to share how human rights are understood, applied, and challenged within their respective fields, alongside worksheets, transcripts, translations, and other engagement resources.

Analytical Study of Patient Experiences and Prevention Strategies in Management of Post-Surgical Site Infections

Raphaela Cardenas

My project focuses on informing the public of actions they can take before and after surgery in order to prevent surgical site infections (SSI)—as well as providing a space for patients to recount their own experience with SSI. This was inspired by a family member’s experience with SSI and the effects it has had on her and my family. My aim is to reduce SSI by providing information on preventive methods that patients can implement themselves. My final project will consist of a public website where all this information can easily be accessed. 

Using Visuals to Combat Language Barriers in Mental Health Care: Drawing on Information Graphics and Graphic Medicine to Aid Medical Care of Boston-area Patients with Limited English Proficiency

Jessica Lee

This project aims to investigate and improve health outcomes for people with limited English proficiency in Boston, suggesting the use of graphics. More specifically, the graphics suggested are images with limited words to convey information and bridge the gap between providers’ and patients’ comprehension with medical language.

In this video about service at BU, Jessica Lee shares how her family’s story inspired her SIRF project—addressing language and cultural gaps in healthcare for patients with limited English proficiency.

The Environmental Impact of BU’s Lobster Night: Considering the Supplies, Sustainability, Ethics, and Waste Management associated with Lobster Night

Veronica Gates

After going to Lobster Night my sophomore year at BU I found myself questioning both the logistics and ethics of this annual event. Considering that each student gets their own lobster, I couldn’t comprehend how buying thousands of lobsters for just one night could possibly be a sustainable practice. I also took note of the immense amount of waste produced in the just one hour that I was there. Through this project I want to look into the potential impact on New England lobster populations, where the waste is going, and the ethics of live boiling as a cooking technique. I’m aiming to come up with some data backed solutions and take suggestions from the student body that can reduce the amount of waste and cost, while keeping the tradition alive.

People Not Pawns: Migration as a Humanitarian Issue, A Boston University Spring Forum

Camila Olivo

My research project will investigate migration as a humanitarian issue, focusing on the sociopsychological and systemic challenges migrants face in the U.S. immigration process. Drawing on my experience in an immigration law office, I will examine the path to obtaining a U-Visa, a critical yet often misunderstood avenue for victims of serious crimes seeking protection and stability in the U.S. My overarching goal is to challenge the prevailing perception of migrants as political problems and instead advocate for their recognition as people with inherent dignity. This research will culminate in a symposium I will host in the spring, inviting dialogue around the central question: How can migration be addressed with humanity at its core?

Previous Projects

Democracy on Earth: Exploring the Roots of Environmental Justice

Valeria Yraita-Zevallos and Tsz Ching (Jeffrey) Ho

Valeria Yraita-Zevallos and Tsz Ching (Jeffrey) Ho propose to create six well-researched and vibrant videos, each one profiling an environmental justice activist or movement. They plan to feature their profiles on Professor Sam Deese’s website, along with their own Spanish and Chinese translations of each video transcript. Valeria and Tsz Ching have already created (and translated) video profiles that currently appear on the website. They seek now to add substantially to this online collection. They propose profiles of Dolores Huerta, Wangari Maathi, the UK Miners’ Strike, among others.

Risks of Soil Contamination: The Evaluation of Microbial and Chemical Composition Changes by Transportation and Occupational Accident

Anthony Martinez

Anthony Martinez proposes lab work intended to add to the existing research on treating chemically contaminated soil (from, for example, hazardous waste accidents such as that associated with the battery manufacturing company Exide Technologies) with nutrients in order to measure and promote ecological recovery. Anthony plans a literature review, soil work supervised by CGS Professor Sandra Buerger, a presentation at a scientific conference in the spring, and, if possible, a scientific paper documenting his experiment and results.

Food for Thought: Investigating Stigmatization’s Effects on Boston’s Homeless

Ben Myers

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.

Pursuing a Safe and Inclusive “Izakaya” Culture: Examination of Alcohol and Sexual Harassment in Japan’s Izakaya

Miho Namba

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.

Probiotics Efficacy with Chronic Kidney Disease Patients

Maria Torres

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. 

Tracking the Spread of Microplastics Polluting the Massachusetts Coast

Gabriel Calistro

Gabriel Calistro’s research project was focused on tracking the spread of microplastics polluting the Massachusetts coast. Working with CGS Lecturer Sal Genovese, Calistro designed the project, which required him to spend mornings and evenings pulling samples from estuaries, mudflats, rivers, and salt marshes to measure the density of the tiny bits of plastic—all under 5 millimeters—in areas north and south of Boston. After collecting the samples, he analyzed them in a CGS lab.

Before funding the SIRF, Kraut initially funded the Global Impact Research Fund (GIRF) for several years, which, like the SIRF, sponsored research projects with the potential to positively impact society. These projects were led by faculty but also included undergraduate researchers.  With SIRF, students are invited to lead the research, while still involving faculty mentors. Details on previous GIRF projects are below.

How Democracy Survives with Richard Samuel Deese and Michael Holm

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.

Exploring Service Learning Partnerships with Stephanie Byttebier

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.

Examining the Evolution of Beaver Foraging Behavior with Peter Busher

“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.