Category: Research Awards

2020 COVID-19 Urban Research-to-Action Award: Assessing City Health Care Workers’ SARS-CoV2 Transmission to Families

PI: Diana Ceballos, PhD, MS, CIH, Assistant Professor, Department of Environmental Health, BU School of Public Health (SPH) Co-PIs: Jessica Leibler, DrPH, ScM, Assistant Professor, Department of Environmental Health, SPH; and Jennifer Greif Green, PhD, MA, Associate Professor, Special Education Program, Wheelock College of Education & Human Development Co-Is: Jonathan Levy, ScD, Professor and Chair, […]

COVID-19 Research to Action Seed Grant Awards

The Boston University Initiative on Cities (IOC) is proud to announce the recipients of its COVID-19 Urban Research-to-Action call for proposals. Five faculty-led teams will receive seed grant awards to help catalyze new research focused on understanding and addressing the disproportionate impacts the COVID-19 pandemic is having on marginalized urban residents. Selected teams represent the […]

2020 Early Stage Urban Research Awards

In Spring 2020, the Initiative on Cities issued its sixth request for proposals to support early stage academic research endeavors focused on urban challenges and urban populations, both domestic and global. We received 27 applications from 16 schools and departments at BU, and and we are thrilled to announce we have funded ten projects, including […]

2020 Urban Research Award: Assessing the association between combined sewer overflow events and gastrointestinal illness in the Merrimack Valley

PI: Beth Haley, MA, PhD Student, Department of Environmental Health, School of Public Health and BU URBAN Program Co-PIs: Wendy Heiger-Bernays, PhD, Clinical Professor of Environmental Health, School of Public Health; Jacqueline Ashmore, PhD, Executive Director of the Boston University Institute for Sustainable Energy and Research Associate Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering […]

2020 Urban Research Award: Mixed-methods Study of Female Homeownership in U.S. Cities

PI: Japonica Brown-Saracino, PhD, Professor, Department of Sociology, College of Arts & Sciences and BU Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies Program Co-PI: Robin Bartram, PhD, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Tulane University Despite lower wages, single women buy more houses than single men, and rates of single male and female homeownership vary substantially across U.S. cities. […]

2020 Urban Research Award: The Effects of Social Housing on Neighborhoods: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from Copenhagen

PI: Yuhei Miyauchi, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, College of Arts & Sciences Co-PI: Linh T. Tô, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, College of Arts & Sciences Collaborator: Bence Bøje-Kovács, Postdoctoral Researcher, Aalborg University Providing affordable social housing for socially and economically disadvantaged households is crucial for sustainable and equitable city management. However, […]

2020 Urban Research Award: The Politics of Rent: Power & Inequality in Low-Income Neighborhoods

PI: Nicholas J. Henninger, MPP, PhD Candidate, Department of Political Science, Graduate School of Arts & Sciences Co-PI: Katherine L. Einstein, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, College of Arts & Sciences Landlords in low-income urban areas hold immense economic and political power relative to their tenant populations. Depending on their motivations, resources, and […]

2020 Urban Research Award: Cities and Alternative Spaces of Memory: Monuments and Counter-Monuments in New Orleans

PI: Cynthia Becker, PhD, Associate Professor of African Art, Department of History of Art & Architecture, affiliated with the African Studies Center and the African American Studies Program Despite public outcry from some quarters, the New Orleans City Council voted to remove four monuments to the Confederacy in 2015. Cynthia Becker’s project, “Cities and Alternative […]

2020 Urban Research Award: Socio-Spatial Politics of Risk Mitigation: Building-Scale Urban Transformation Maps of Istanbul, Turkey

PI: Ladin Bayurgil, PhD Candidate, Department of Sociology, Graduate School of Arts & Sciences Co-PI: Japonica Brown-Saracino, PhD, Professor, Department of Sociology, College of Arts & Sciences and BU Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies Program In an era of ever growing global cities facing climate and environmental hazards, financial crises and pandemics, risk calculation and […]

2020 Urban Research Award: The Effects of Civil Service Reform on Local Government: Evidence from the Progressive Era

PI: James Feigenbaum, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, College of Arts & Sciences Co-PI: Abhay Aneja, JD, Assistant Professor of Law, UC Berkeley School of Law As populations grew throughout the early 1900s, questions of city governance grew in importance and complexity. How were the cities of the early twentieth century managed and governed? […]