In the News
-
April 22, 2019
Jerry Davis, professor of management and organizations, discussed social entrepreneurship, whereby employees change their workplace inside out to be more aligned with their values: “Leading change in an organization is a lot like leading a social movement. You want to find allies. You want to understand what the culture’s like. You want to frame your initiative in a way that works well.”
WEMU Radio -
April 22, 2019
Stephanie Preston, professor of psychology, was quoted in a story about the psychological benefits of “fatalistic phrases”— phrases used in common situations that are generally negative but leave you no alternative but to get over it, such as “What’s done is done,” “It can’t be helped,” “It is what it is” and “Let it go and move on.”
BBC -
April 21, 2019
Shobita Parthasarathy, professor of public policy and women’s studies, says bias against poor people and people of color are still baked into pretrial risk assessment tools that use algorithms to help judges decide bail or jail for a defendant: “As with all areas of society, we in the criminal justice system are always trying to reach toward scientific explanations because somehow we see that as objective, as standardizable, and that that can somehow take out human judgment in the system.”
Michigan Radio -
April 21, 2019
“Smartphone apps can be a great way to track health data, but there are many inconsistencies, flaws and shortcomings that need to be worked out. There is tremendous variability in available apps, and there is minimal regulatory control to ensure content is accurate or efficacious,” said Kevin Platt, chief medical resident in internal medicine.
Reuters -
April 21, 2019
“More than half our states produce some amount of oil and gas. All states use oil and gas. And notice I haven’t even used the ‘C word’ of coal. One of the reasons we’ve accomplished so little in the United States on climate policy is that it’s really hard,” said Barry Rabe, professor of public policy, environment and political science, on how fossil fuels influence the political conversation about climate change.
The New York Times -
April 18, 2019
“We (should) acknowledge that they are doing something but it remains not enough and not effective at stemming the tide of malicious behavior that happens on Twitter,” said Libby Hemphill, associate professor of information, on Twitter’s claims that it’s getting better at finding and removing abusive tweets.
Fortune -
April 18, 2019
A floating city concept to cope with climate change, put forth by startup Oceanix, earns cautious praise from Geoffrey Thün, associate professor of architecture: “(It) offers an ideal model for how we should be thinking about the metabolism of our cities … but they seem to exclude much of the gritty realities of complex urban life.”
NBC News -
April 18, 2019
Research by Elizabeth Bruch, associate professor of sociology and complex systems, and Mark E. Newman, professor of physics and complex systems, shows that single men and women search for an online dating match close to where they live: “Whether or not the influence of geography is exacerbated by the setup of online dating sites, however, depends on how local dating is to begin with. My sense from cell-phone studies of routine activity is that people typically stay within a given urban area, which suggests that offline dating is also fairly local,” Bruch said.
CityLab -
April 17, 2019
“I do think the way that 9/11 is being used against Ilhan — it’s being done to silence her. It’s being done to say, ‘In reality, you have no right to speak in this public space,’” said Sally Howell, director of the Center for Arab American Studies and associate professor of history at UM-Dearborn, on the backlash toward U.S. Rep Ilhan Omar, a Muslim, for her comments about 9/11.
The Atlantic -
April 17, 2019
Abram Wagner, research assistant professor in epidemiology, says the vaccination exemption rate in Michigan’s Oakland County is 4.8 percent, more than twice the national average: “The reason why measles has been making its way so quickly through Oakland County is because a large number of children are unvaccinated and parents are asking for nonmedical exemptions to vaccination requirements in school.”
Fox 2 Detroit
