Updates from IRWG-Mcubed Research Incentive Grants

August 2020

Earlier this year, we awarded six Mcubed faculty teams over $48,000 in additional funding and support to incorporate gender or feminist perspectives into their existing research projects. While COVID-19 interrupted many of the projects, two projects were able to continue some of their work and reported back this summer.

Anonymous Autonomous

Did you know that Lane Hall was home to a robotics lab / art studio last year? Through the IRWG-Mcubed Research Incentive, we provided support for Anonymous Autonomous, an interactive art installation that transforms empty office chairs into driverless cars. The project was developed by Katherine Behar, Artist in Residence at U-M, together with a team of dedicated UROP students. This spring, UROP student James Kennedy took a chair home to Illinois to continue working. In May, two UROP students, Becca Cuomo and James Kennedy, put together a terrific poster and gave a Zoom presentation about their research experiences designing, building, programming, and demonstrating the chairs. Behar has continued to meet via video conference with her undergraduate research team to make design improvements on the chairs' software and hardware.    

Sexual Assault Discourse and the #MeToo Movement

Supported by an M-cubed grant and IRWG M-cubed Research Incentive Award, in May 2020 the UM-Dearborn based research team of Drs. Pamela Aronson, Francine Banner, Maureen Linker, and Lisa Martin and research assistants Grace Bradley and Islam Jaffal launched the Culture of Respect: Climate Survey. The survey asked employees from across the University of Michigan campuses about their impressions of the university’s 2019 mandatory sexual assault and harassment training and their opinions about the impact of the #MeToo movement on the culture at the University of Michigan.  The response to the survey was robust, garnering nearly 3,000 participants across the three UM campuses and Michigan Medicine.  Currently the research team is analyzing the data with an eye toward future publications and planning to conduct additional research via remote focus groups and virtual individual interviews during the 2020-21 academic year.  

See the complete list of awarded projects here.