From the Office of Public Affairs | http://www.news.ku.edu

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KU researchers partner with state to better understand experiences of Kansans on disability services waitlist
LAWRENCE — Researchers with the University of Kansas Life Span Institute are working with the Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services to collect and analyze data on a waiting list for Kansans to access the Home and Community Based Services program. Services such as personal attendants and other in-home supports, supported employment and in-home specialized medical care help Kansans live and work in their community.

Influential ‘Instavangelists’ blur line between religion and social media
LAWRENCE — A new article from a University of Kansas professor of religious studies examines the rise of online personalities, primarily women, who have replaced traditional faiths with their own gospel through Instagram and other online platforms. They preach to other women about “how to be their best selves,” even though both the media and the message further blur the lines between religion and the secular. The article appears in the Journal of Religion, Media and Digital Culture.

New core lab enhances infectious disease research at KU
LAWRENCE – A new core laboratory at the University of Kansas will enhance the speed, quantity and quality of research into infectious diseases, neurological disorders, cancer and immunology. The Flow Cytometry Core Lab opens its services to KU and regional researchers Sept. 1. The lab includes three new instruments allowing researchers to study individual cells within a liquid sample.

Full stories below.

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Contact: Christina Knott, Life Span Institute, [email protected], @kulifespan
KU researchers partner with state to better understand experiences of Kansans on disability services waitlist
LAWRENCE — Like many 24-year-olds, Katie Pine loves pop and country music, her job and reading novels such as “The Hunger Games.” The Olathe resident, who currently lives at home with her parents, would like to have her own apartment — roommate optional.
Kansas strives to support people such as Pine, who has an intellectual disability, to meet their career and life goals through the Home and Community Based Services (HCBS) program. However, Pine is one of more than 5,000 Kansans with a disability unable to access the services.
The HCBS program allows states to use Medicaid funds to offer a broad array of nonmedical services not otherwise covered by Medicaid. The provided services such as personal attendants and other in-home supports, supported employment and in-home specialized medical care help people live and work in their community.
Kansans such as Pine who are on the waiting list face an extensive wait for services estimated to stretch as long as 10 years. This means that when people with intellectual disability transition out of education services at age 21, they often have no formal paid supports for years after leaving school. Without continued support, those individuals may begin to lose skills they’ve gained.
The Kansas University Center on Developmental Disabilities (KUCDD) and the Institute for Health and Disability Policy Studies, both based at the KU Life Span Institute, and the KU Center for Research on Aging & Disability Options in the School of Social Welfare are partnering with the Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services to collect and analyze data on the waiting list to determine how to address the needs of people on the state’s waiting list for services effectively and efficiently.
One of the benefits of the HCBS program is that support services in one’s home are usually less than half the cost of residential care, according to figures shared by the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention. “In other words, it is both more cost-effective and more desired by individuals for them to receive HCBS at home than to be placed into institutional care,” said Jean Hall, a researcher on the project and director of the Institute for Health and Disability Policy Studies.
In Kansas, HCBS waiver programs are funded by a 60/40 allocated federal/state match. Each state oversees the approval process for waivers and can limit enrollment based on available funds. When the number of funded spots in HCBS programs are full, individuals are added to waiting lists.
“The waiting list in Kansas is long enough that often times, Kansans with intellectual or developmental disabilities can only receive services when they experience a crisis such as the death of a parent or caregiver,” said Evan Dean, associate director of community services at KUCDD and a researcher overseeing the project.
Dean said the ultimate purpose of the study of the IDD waiting list in Kansas is to provide information on how to best serve those who remain on the waiting list and to find how to prevent future backlogs from happening.
“People’s support needs can change a lot over 10 years, and then they are entering services when they are most vulnerable after a crisis,” Dean said. “It’s a big challenge for organizations providing services to determine how best to support the person in those situations.”
Landing on the waiting list can interrupt the health, independence and development of an individual as they progress from education systems where there are many supports, on to adulthood, when they may be waiting for services, said Sean Swindler, a project manager involved in the research and a director community program development and evaluation at the Kansas Center for Autism Research and Training at KU.
The project is important because it addresses the right of everyone to be allowed to contribute and be a part of their community, Swindler said.
“People with disabilities have a rightful presence within our community,” he said. “They have the same rights as everybody else to live, work and play. And we have tools that can assist people with doing that with the IDD waiver program.”
Last fall, a Kansas legislative committee, the Special Committee on Intellectual and Developmental Disability Waiver Modernization, met to address HCBS waiver and consider alternatives. In the process, the committee heard testimony from officials from other states, researchers from KU, advocacy groups, parents and individuals with disabilities affected by the waiver delays.
Parents shared stories of being overwhelmed by the physical toll of being a caregiver 24 hours a day without support, as well as the cost of care, which can reach $50,000 a year. Some parents reported struggles with their own declining health as they, too, age while waiting for help to be approved.
Individuals on the waiting list also shared frustrations about wanting to live more independently. Among those providing testimony was Pine, who wrote a letter describing her desire to see changes to the waiver system that would help those like her to be successful.
“We need to change and update the system in Kansas to allow me to live where I want to live and not have to wait on a long list to get the services I need to have to be successful,” she said. “As an individual with a disability, I should get to choose where I want to live, where I want to work, who I want to be friends with — and right now this system is not designed with all that in mind.”
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Contact: Jon Niccum, KU News Service, 785-864-7633, [email protected]
Influential ‘Instavangelists’ blur line between religion and social media
LAWRENCE — Social media has radically changed the way we do things, from communicating to purchasing to learning to voting. But according to a new article, it’s also transformed the way we define religion — particularly among women.
“Religious studies scholars are interested in how fluid religion is and how it’s really bound up with social processes and power struggles,” said Jacquelene Brinton, associate professor of religious studies at the University of Kansas. “Whereas outside of religious studies, people think of religion as something static and easily defined. Social media is showing us how that process of transformation happens.”
Her new article “Media and the Formation of Secular/Religious Networks” examines the rise of so-called “Instavangelists.” These are women (primarily) who have replaced traditional faiths with their own gospel through Instagram and other online platforms. They preach to other women about “how to be their best selves,” even though both the media and the message further blur the lines between religion and the secular. It appears in the Journal of Religion, Media and Digital Culture.
Brinton first came across the term Instavangelist while reading Leigh Stein’s 2021 New York Times article titled “The Empty Religions of Instagram: How did influencers become our moral authorities?” It notes how media personalities such as Gabrielle Bernstein (1.3 million followers on Instagram), Glennon Doyle (2.1 million followers), Brené Brown (5 million followers) and Gwyneth Paltrow (8.3 million followers) have become the “neo-religious leaders of our era.”
“What’s fascinating to me is when authors like those at the New York Times write about Instavangelists, they don’t realize what they’re doing is putting forth a new definition of religion without any self-consciousness about it,” said Brinton, who also chairs KU’s Department of Religious Studies.
“It is a little bit weird that we’re discussing people who are not affiliated with what we generally define as religion in a typical way: a church, institution or belief. This has just entered our common understanding of what religion is,” she said.
While her piece focuses specifically on social media, Brinton said she believed this process was started by earlier media such as print and television.
“But what social media does is give us the sense we know the individuals we’re following … when it’s really just marketing. It enables that ‘hiddenness of the secular,’ and it enables that secular thing to appear to be religious. And that all comes together through this notion of self-help and reinventing yourself,” she said.
Media has often given viewers/users the illusion of having a deep connection to the source. For instance, “CBS Evening News” anchor Walter Cronkite was considered “the most trusted man in America,” even though few of his admirers had ever met him.
“Yet you didn’t see pictures of Walter Cronkite at home eating dinner with his family. Whereas Instagram gives you the sense that you are in people’s homes and involved in their lives — and you can actually get involved in their lives. You can comment on what they’re cooking and tell them how beautiful their children are,” she said.
Also, she said, that when people were watching network news, the commercials came on in the middle.
“You’re not exactly sure where they are now. What part is a commercial? Back then, you knew who was paying Walter Cronkite,” she said.
When researching Instavangelists, Brinton said she was most surprised by their ties to marketing.
“Evangelical female preachers such as Sarah Jakes Roberts are brands. They have agents and publicists. It was surprising to me how much they were able to mix in this branding message through social media when they are preaching about Christ.”
Was there a reason she exclusively focused on women?
“I think self-help messages tend to be geared toward women, and the messages of these Instavangelists are primarily geared toward women. But it would be interesting to try to find some male ones to see how their messages are formed,” she said.
Now in her 13th year at KU, the Philadelphia native specializes in Islamic studies but also maintains a strong research interest in media and theory. She is also a member of KU’s Center for Global & International Studies.
Brinton said she hoped her article will give those outside of academia generally and religious studies specifically a sense of the fluidity of religion, so that people writing about the topic from a digital media perspective can think of ways in which using religion as a static term is not entirely accurate.
“How did we get to this point where a person like Gwyneth Paltrow could be considered a religious personality by a newspaper? It doesn’t seem logical to me,” Brinton said. “I think this topic needs more excavating.”
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Contact: Vince Munoz, Office of Research, 785-864-2254, [email protected], @ResearchAtKU
New core lab enhances infectious disease research at KU
LAWRENCE – A new core laboratory at the University of Kansas will enhance the speed, quantity and quality of research into infectious diseases, neurological disorders, cancer and immunology.
The Flow Cytometry Core Lab opens its services to KU and regional researchers Sept. 1. The lab includes three new instruments, which allow researchers to study individual cells within a liquid sample.
“The core is providing flow cytometry analysis and sorting services. Flow cytometry and sorting is a way of distinguishing and analyzing cells based on their size and granularity,” said Peter McDonald, Flow Cytometry Core Lab manager.
Flow cytometry works by funneling a liquid containing microbes — usually either a blood sample or solution of bacteria — through a tube thin enough to allow only a single cell to pass through at a time. Fluorescent dye that attaches to certain microbes is added to the liquid beforehand. A laser is beamed through the tube as the dyed microbes pass through it, and sensors surrounding the tube monitor the ways the laser reflects off the dyed microbes. This tells researchers the size, shape and quantity of microbes in the sample.
“A lot of different research labs have flow cytometer analyzers that are cheaper. What this core provides is a more expansive, full-spectrum or spectral flow cytometer and two sorters,” McDonald said.
Two of the three new instruments in the core lab have fluorescently activated cell sorting (FACS) capabilities. This means they can separate the different microbes after they pass through the tube, allowing researchers to experiment on just one bacteria or cell type in a sample. The other instrument, Cytek Aurora, cannot sort microbes from the sample but has more light-sensitive sensors.
“The major difference with the Cytek is that it has an expanded spectral capacity,” said Scott Hefty, professor and chair of molecular biosciences. “It just has a broader array of capabilities for analyzing spectral properties.”

Beyond enabling innovative research, having flow cytometry services is essential to keeping KU competitive with peer academic institutions. Robin Orozco, assistant professor of molecular biosciences and the scientific adviser for the new lab, uses the technique in much of her research. Hefty said having these services helps recruit and retain new faculty like Orozco.
“She’s one of the junior investigators that, as we were attempting to recruit her, we saw this was an immediate need that we needed to address in order to enable her research, but there were so many others,” Hefty said. “We have two new faculty who have been here since January, and both of them are utilizing the flow facility as well.”
The core lab is currently expected to serve users from more than 20 labs, representing a half-dozen KU departments. Collaborative funding for the new instruments came from the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, School of Pharmacy, Office of Research, Department of Molecular Biosciences, Chemical Biology of Infectious Disease and the University of Kansas Cancer Center. The Higuchi Biosciences Center also contributed to the acquisition prior to its restructuring.

The fee schedule has been announced for fiscal year 2023. Prospective users can contact McDonald for more information.

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Contact: Mike Krings, KU News Service, 785-864-8860, [email protected], @MikeKrings
Hurricane Idalia shows importance of long-term planning, sustainable recovery, KU public affairs experts say

LAWRENCE — Hurricane Idalia made landfall in Florida on Wednesday, bringing violent winds and massive storm surges to the northern part of the state, and threatened parts of Georgia and South Carolina as well. As communities throughout the region are dealing with flooding and the storm’s effects, two University of Kansas researchers can comment on the storm, its aftermath and public response.

Ward Lyles
Lyles, associate professor of urban planning in KU’s School of Public Affairs & Administration, can discuss the hurricane, natural disasters, government planning for such storms, reducing long-term risks from natural hazards, climate change, what planners and governments can do in the wake of disasters and related topics.

Lyles has led several National Science Foundation-funded research projects on city and governmental planning and has published work on climate change, green energy, the role of compassion in public planning and the built environment. He teaches courses on sustainable land use, hazards and disasters, mitigation, adaptation and more and can comment on recent natural events like the Maui wildfires, the tropical storm in Southern California, heat waves in the Midwest and how climate change-fueled disasters are increasingly affecting everyone.

“The hard truth is that our society, including governments, businesses and individuals, have invested trillions of dollars placing homes, roads, schools and other things we care about in dangerous places. The challenge moving forward, especially in the face of climate change contributing to rapid intensification of storms, is to avoid doubling down on poor decisions from the past,” Lyles said. “The communities damaged by Hurricane Idalia will face hard choices about not rebuilding in hazard-prone areas, even as they face huge pressures to get back to normal as soon as possible.”

Christopher Koliba
Koliba, Edwin O. Steene Distinguished Professor of Public Affairs & Administration, can discuss flood planning, flood hazards and mitigation, government response to natural disasters, sustainable development, community resilience and related topics. He has conducted extensive research on critical infrastructure, including water quality, flood mitigation, public health and disaster response, among other topics.

In addition to the effects of Hurricane Idalia thus far, he can discuss how governments can both plan for natural disasters and catastrophic flooding, as well as what comes after such disasters, such as intergovernmental collaboration at state and federal levels.

“A federal disaster for the region had been declared even before landfall. It is worth noting that President Biden and Governor DeSantis, despite their political differences, can unite around addressing the critical response and recovery needs of the region — proving the enduring worth of coordinated government action both during times of crisis and ideally for all stretches in between,” Koliba said. “The small businesses impacted by the storm, on the whole, will have the hardest time recovering, as well as those vulnerable residents who were already struggling to make ends meet. The bigger picture here is that we need longer-term planning and action to move people and property out of harm’s way. Simply rebuilding after each disaster is just not going to be sustainable. Climate change is exacerbating extreme weather events. These disasters will continue to grow in number and severity, with no regions of the country or globe spared.”

To schedule an interview with Lyles or Koliba, contact Mike Krings at 785-864-8860 or [email protected].

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KU News Service
1450 Jayhawk Blvd.
Lawrence KS 66045
Phone: 785-864-3256
Fax: 785-864-3339
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http://www.news.ku.edu

Erinn Barcomb-Peterson, director of news and media relations, [email protected]

Today’s News is a free service from the Office of Public Affairs

From the Office of Public Affairs | http://www.news.ku.edu

Headlines

Study demonstrates adding complex component of milk to infant formula confers long-term cognitive benefits

LAWRENCE — For decades, researchers have sought to create a viable complement or alternative to breast milk to give children their best start for healthy development. New research out of the University of Kansas has shown how a complex component of milk that can be added to infant formula has been shown to confer long-term cognitive benefits, including measures of intelligence and executive function in children. The study, published in the Journal of Pediatrics, shows that feeding infants formula supplemented with MFGM and lactoferrin for 12 months raised IQ by 5 points at 5 ½ years of age.

Author outlines AI in education ‘Bill of Rights’

LAWRENCE — Universities could be leaders in calling for the responsible use of generative artificial intelligence, according to one University of Kansas professor with a new article to be published in the journal Critical AI. Kathryn Conrad wrote “Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights in Education,” with protections for both educators and students.

Dole Institute of Politics awards 2023 archival research grants

LAWRENCE — The Dole Archives Research Fellowship and Travel Grant allow visiting scholars to explore the Dole Archives, a key repository showing how public policy and legislation are developed and telling the diverse stories of Americans. Michael Fortner, associate professor of government at Claremont McKenna College, has been selected for the Dole Archives Research Fellowship, and Raina Hackett, graduate student in sociology at George Washington University, has been awarded a Travel Grant.

KU welcomes 12 international Fulbright students and teaching assistants

LAWRENCE — This academic year the University of Kansas welcomed eight international students as part of the Fulbright Foreign Student Program and four Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistants. From Africa, Asia, Europe and South America, the Fulbright students and teaching assistants are joining programs in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences and the schools of Business, Education & Human Sciences and Engineering.

Full stories below.

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Contact: Jen Humphrey, Life Span Institute, 785-864-6621, [email protected], @kulifespan

Study demonstrates adding complex component of milk to infant formula confers long-term cognitive benefits

LAWRENCE — Breast milk is widely acknowledged as the most beneficial nutrition for infants, but many families face medical or logistical challenges in breastfeeding. In the U.S., just 45% of infants continue to be exclusively breastfed at 3 months of age, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

For decades, researchers have sought to create a viable complement or alternative to breast milk to give children their best start for healthy development. New research out of the University of Kansas has shown how a complex component of milk that can be added to infant formula has been shown to confer long-term cognitive benefits, including measures of intelligence and executive function in children.

The research by John Colombo, KU Life Span Institute director and investigator, along with colleagues at Mead Johnson Nutrition and in Shanghai, China, adds to the growing scientific support for the importance of ingredients found in milk fat globule membrane (MFGM) in early human development.

The study, which was published in the Journal of Pediatrics, showed that feeding infants formula supplemented with MFGM and lactoferrin for 12 months raised IQ by 5 points at 5 ½ years of age. The effects were most evident in tests of children’s speed of processing information and visual-spatial skills. Significant differences were also seen in children’s performance on tests of executive function, which are complex skills involving rule learning and inhibition.

All forms of mammalian milk contain large fat globules that are surrounded by a membrane composed of a variety of nutrients important to human nutrition and brain development, Colombo said. When milk-based infant formula is manufactured, the membrane has typically been removed during processing.

“No one thought much about this membrane,” Colombo said, “until chemical analyses showed that it’s remarkably complex and full of components that potentially contribute to health and brain development.”

The 2023 study was a follow-up to one that Colombo also co-wrote with colleagues in Shanghai, China, published in the Journal of Pediatrics in 2019. That study showed that babies who were fed formula with added bovine MFGM and lactoferrin had higher scores on neurodevelopmental tests during the first year and on some aspects of language at 18 months of age.

The global nutrition research community has been looking at MFGM for about a decade, Colombo said. Because the membrane is made up of several different components, it isn’t known whether one of the components is responsible for these benefits, or whether the entire package of nutrients act together to improve brain and behavioral development.

These benefits were seen in children long after the end of formula feeding at 12 months of age.

“This is consistent with the idea that early exposure to these nutritional components contribute to the long-term structure and function of the brain,” said Colombo, who has spent much of his career researching the importance of early experience in shaping later development.

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Contact: Rick Hellman, KU News Service, 785-864-8852, [email protected], @RickHellman

Author outlines AI in education ‘Bill of Rights’

LAWRENCE – Because ignoring the artificial intelligence elephant in the room is no longer feasible, the author of a new “Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights in Education” has proposed some principles for dealing with it.

The editors of the new journal Critical AI published the article, written by Kathryn Conrad, University of Kansas professor of English, online in July as a sneak preview of their February 2024 issue because they “were keen to get it out so that it could be helpful as people had conversations about the place of AI in education,” Conrad said.

Conrad’s scholarly work has centered on intersections of technology and culture, usually in the context of turn-of-the-20th-century Irish modernism.

Since November 2022, when the private company OpenAI introduced ChatGPT, a large language model chatbot that generates written responses to questions posed by users, leaders in any number of fields have pondered its implications.

After exploring the capabilities of the technology and related research, Conrad said she concluded that universities could be leaders calling for the responsible use of generative AI.

And while the initial buzz around ChatGPT, and more broadly AI, in education centered on its potential to write term papers for students, Conrad has delved deeply into other issues as well, from its potential to surveil users to its built-in algorithmic biases.

“What I’ve been working on, from both a scholarly and pedagogical standpoint, is critical AI literacy,” Conrad said. “And that means knowing something about how generative AI works as well as the ethics of these models, including the labor and copyright issues they entail, and some of the privacy and surveillance concerns that they raise.”

Conrad said students already know of ChatGPT/AI’s potential and deserve guidance on its proper usage in a university context, just as their teachers do.

“I like to say that for education, AI answered a question that no one was asking,” Conrad said. “Nobody in education asked for chatbots. But ChatGPT and other models came down to us anyway. And, as I mention in the article, they came down from people who are not concerned primarily with education. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is a college dropout, and he has been openly hostile, in some cases, to higher education. He has said he’s going to start an OpenAI Academy that’s presumably run by chatbots. So that raises the question of whether or why we might want to adopt these tools. We shouldn’t take for granted that these are specific tools that we have to use, or that we have to use uncritically.”

Conrad said that, far from taking “a technophobic perspective,” her research and that of her colleagues in the new journal “is bringing technologists into conversation with humanists and social scientists to tease out some of the larger, interesting issues around the deployment of these technologies.”

After much reading and many discussions of the subject of AI in education with colleagues, Conrad said of her intervention, “I decided it really needed to be a question of rights — student rights, as well — because we have responsibility as educators to protect them.”

In the article, Conrad acknowledged the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy’s 2022 “Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights” and extended it for education.

Educators, she wrote, should have:

Input on institutional decisions to buy and implement AI tools.
Input on policies regarding usage.
Professional development (i.e., training).

Protection of legal rights.

Her proposed rights for students:

Guidance on whether and how AI tools are to be used in class.
Privacy and creative control of their own work.
Appeal rights, if charged with academic misconduct related to AI.
Notice “when an instructor or institution is using an automated process to assess your assignments.”
Protection of legal rights.

It is important, according to Conrad, to understand what the technology can and cannot do. She said that while ChatGPT can, for instance, write an essay or a legal brief, it is not always factual or accurate — often, the chatbot simply fabricates responses.

“It’s an important part of critical AI literacy to explain to users — students in this case, but also faculty — that there is never a guarantee that the output is going to be right,” Conrad said. “It is designed to be plausible, which is a different thing entirely.”

And while she said that educators “cannot ignore” AI, Conrad argued that universities, particularly, with their potential for high-level cross-disciplinary work, could help lead the way to a better future.

“We have the potential to develop technologies that are trained on ethically obtained datasets, that have privacy protections built in, that are ethically deployed. This is a place we could potentially lead,” she said.

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Contact: Maria Fisher, Dole Institute of Politics, 785-864-4900, [email protected]

Dole Institute of Politics awards 2023 archival research grants

LAWRENCE – The Robert and Elizabeth Dole Archive and Special Collections at the Dole Institute of Politics has awarded two 2023 research grants. Michael Fortner has been selected for the Dole Archives Research Fellowship, and Raina Hackett has been awarded a Travel Grant.

The Dole Archives Research Fellowship is an annual $3,000 award to support substantial research projects requiring the use of the Dole Archives. Fortner, associate professor of government at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, California, was selected for his project “Crack Cocaine and Congressional Leadership in the War on Drugs,” which explores the goals and intentions of members of Congress in their drafting of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986. His research will further his current book manuscript, “Crack: A Tragedy in Three Acts,” about the origins and consequences of the “crack epidemic” of the late 1980s.

“(My) questions and methodology are not only focused on the U.S. Congress, but explicitly on the actions, views and papers of congressional leaders, particularly Senator Dole, a primary sponsor of the 1986 Anti-Drug Abuse Act,” said Fortner, who will visit sometime during the 2023-24 award year to conduct archival research. “Moreover, ‘Crack: A Tragedy in Three Acts’ will advance the public understanding of the U.S. Congress and its role in the ‘war on drugs.’ (This fellowship) will support research… that will fundamentally revise extant accounts of this campaign, while contributing to an ongoing and critical policy debate over crime and public safety.”

Fortner is the author of “Black Silent Majority: The Rockefeller Drug Laws and the Politics of Punishment” (Harvard University Press, 2015), examining the rise of Black anti-crime activism in New York City and its impact on the passage of the Rockefeller drug laws. His scholarly articles on African Americans and crime policy development appear in Studies in American Political Development, Journal of Policy History and Urban Affairs Review. He has also recently been published in The Boston Globe and The New York Times.

“Being able to learn from congressional archive collections is crucial to our democracy,” said Sarah Gard, Dole Institute senior archivist and head of collections. “These collections show how public policy and legislation is developed, tell the diverse stories of Americans and provide insight into how the U.S. Congress works as one of our three branches of government.”

Congressional archives are geographically dispersed throughout the country, which makes visiting them more difficult. The intent of Dole Archives Travel Grants is to ease the financial burden of visiting researchers. Hackett received a $1,000 travel grant for her project, “Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm and the Expansion of Food Assistance – An Intersectional Analysis of the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC).”

Hackett is a graduate student in sociology at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., as well as a legislative assistant for U.S. Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman of New Jersey’s 12th Congressional District, covering agriculture and nutrition. Hackett’s project aims to retell and further explore the legislative history of the WIC revealing that a key player has been minimized in the history of the WIC program – Chisholm.

“Currently, the WIC program has been thrust into the political spotlight and has been the target of the intense political polarization our country is facing,” said Hackett, who visited the institute earlier this month. “I will use the archives to not only retell this story of WIC but also to show how Congresswoman Chisholm and Senator Dole – two politicians on the opposite side of the political spectrum – had a bipartisan relationship that confronted one of the greatest stains on our nation’s conscience, hunger.”

The research grants, established in 2010, intend to foster archival research in the Dole Archives among scholars of all professions and disciplines. Support for the Research Fellowship and travel grants is provided by the Friends of the Dole Institute.

There is still travel grant funding available for 2023-24. Visit https://dolearchives.ku.edu/research/grants for more information.

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Contact: Christine Metz Howard, International Affairs, [email protected], @KUintlaffairs

KU welcomes 12 international Fulbright students and teaching assistants

LAWRENCE — This academic year the University of Kansas welcomed eight international students as part of the Fulbright Foreign Student Program and four Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistants.

From Africa, Asia, Europe and South America, the Fulbright students and teaching assistants are joining programs in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences and the schools of Business, Education & Human Sciences and Engineering.

“Every year, our campus is enriched by Fulbright students and language teaching assistants from around the world,” said Rachel Sherman Johnson, director of internationalization and partnerships at KU International Affairs. “While at KU, they will not only pursue their research or teach courses, but they will also contribute to the foundational mission of the Fulbright program: building mutual understanding between nations, advancing knowledge across communities and improving lives around the world.”

The Fulbright Foreign Student Program enables graduate students, young professionals and artists from abroad to research and study in the United States for one year or more at U.S. universities.

The Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant Program allows young teachers of English as a Foreign Language the chance to improve their teaching skills and learn more about American culture while teaching foreign languages at a U.S. college or university.

The Fulbright Program, the flagship international educational exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government, offers more than 8,000 grants each year to U.S. and foreign students, scholars, teachers, artists, scientists and professionals.

Fulbright students visiting for the 2023-2024 academic year:

Rocio Arasy Chamorro Jara is a graduate education & social policy student from Paraguay. She holds a bachelor’s degree in literature, arts and cultural mediation from Federal University of Latin American Integration in Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil. She is studying topics of language and cultural diversity in education.
Ina Fendel is a graduate computer science student from Germany. She holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science from the Free University of Berlin.
Israel Ignacio Herrera Rivera is a graduate petroleum engineering student from Bolivia. He holds a bachelor’s degree in petroleum and natural gas engineering from the Private University of Bolivia. He is researching hydrogen storage.
Moises Ruben Gualapuro Gualapuro is a doctoral computational biology student from Ecuador. He holds a bachelor’s degree in biotechnology from University San Francisco of Quito and a master’s degree in bioinformatics and systems biology from the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom. He is researching protein features to determine its catalytic activity.
Alexandra Celina Navarro Espinoza is a graduate global & international studies student from Honduras. She holds a bachelor’s degree in law from the Technological University of Honduras. She is researching migration and violence in Central America.
Janaina Reis do Nascimento is a graduate business analytics student from Brazil. She holds degrees in international relations from São Paulo State University and Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo. She is researching social and financial systems.
Zenia Patricia Ruiz Utrilla is a doctoral student in ecology & evolutionary biology from Mexico. She holds a bachelor’s degree in biology from the Meritorious Autonomous University of Puebla and a master’s degree in natural resources and rural development from the College of the Southern Border. While at KU, she is using information available in repositories, GIS tools, the theory of the ecology of biological invasions and ecological niche modeling to propose a unified framework for prioritizing species and sites for invasive species management.
Andres Felipe Salamanca Saavedra is a doctoral student in geology from Colombia. He holds a bachelor’s degree in geology and master’s degree in geophysics from the National University of Colombia. He is researching groundwater flow and contaminant transport.

Foreign Language Teaching Assistants visiting for the 2023-2024 academic year:

Begüm Çolpan, from Turkey, is teaching Turkish and working for the Center for Russian, Eastern European & Eurasian Studies. She graduated from MEF University in Istanbul.
Saidkhoja Mahmadiev, from Tajikistan, is teaching the Tajik language for the Department of Slavic, German & Eurasian Studies. He holds a bachelor’s degree in English language instruction and a master’s degree in linguistics from Tajik National University.
Deniz Tozaraydin, from Turkey, is teaching Turkish for the Department of Slavic, German & Eurasian Studies. She holds a bachelor’s degree in English language literature from Boğaziçi University in Istanbul.
Muwayyid Abu Shaefah Mohammed, from Libya, is teaching Arabic for the Department of African & African-American Studies. He has a master’s degree in English from Tripoli University.

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Erinn Barcomb-Peterson, director of news and media relations, [email protected]

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