July & August 2024 Chronicles

The SSRC's monthly newsletter

New Projects

Dr. Megan Stubbs-Richardson is part of a team led by Dr. David May that will soon begin work on the Department of Justice-funded "Updating Law Enforcement Data in Mississippi" project.

Dr. Megan Stubbs-Richardson and colleagues were also recently awarded two new National Science Foundation-funded projects. "CISE MSI: RCBP: III: Advancing Hate Speech Detection: A Hybrid Approach Using Large Language Models and Graph Neural Networks" and "CIRC: Planning-C: Synergistic Graph Flow Analytics: An Integrated Infrastructure for Bridging Complexity, Fragmentation, and Interdisciplinary Gaps" will begin work in the fall and winter.

Recognitions & Awards

Dr. Heather Hanna will serve as chair of the Mississippi Early Intervention Task Force Delivery Model Workgroup, which facilitates the co-creation of a new early intervention implementation model among statewide partners.

Mississippi Alcohol Safety Education Program

This year's Annual Training was held July 19th and 20th in Hattiesburg, with 48 facilitators in attendance. On Friday, Colonel Steve Maxwell of the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics presented on drug trends in Mississippi.
Saturday morning, Dr. Angela Robertson briefed attendees on her work in MASEP R&D. This was followed by a Motivational Interviewing update by Dr. Blythe McCance, and the last training session of the day involved IT updates by the MASEP staff.

Gender Impacts Lab

Pictured Left: Katie Roman assists with clean-up following a ComFA+Fish Sensory Panel with infants and mothers. Pictured Right: Madeline Burdine & Katie Roman assist with data collection during the training. (Photos by Kathleen Ragsdale)

Members of the Gender Impacts Lab spent ten days in Zambia as part of the "Scaling ComFA+Fish for Rural Zambia" project, sponsored by USAID and the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Fish. Dr. Kathleen Ragsdale (project lead PI), Madeline Burdine (SSRC research associate), and Katie Roman (SSRC undergraduate research assistant), along with co-PIs and project directors from around the U.S. and Zambia, produced and presented two trainings to more than fifty community leaders and community members from fishing communities in Zambia's Southern Province. Each training included a pre-test, a 3-hour presentation tailored to fishery community members, and a post-test to evaluate knowledge gained from pre- to post-test.

Wolfgang Frese Survey Research Laboratory

The Survey Research Laboratory is administering a telephone-based survey for the AFFIRM research project at the SSRC. The results will assist researchers in better understanding the health services information-seeking behavior of older adults and the digital barriers to reaching out to them. Funding for this research is provided by the Administration for Community Living. This telephone-based survey of the general public includes a representative sample of 600 adults, 50 years of age and older, who reside in the state of Mississippi.

Presentations & Conference Participation

Dr. Sujan Anreddy attended a three-day event organized by the Association of Traffic Safety Information Safety Professionals (ATSIP) Forum this August 11th in Sandiego, CA. This event was for data analysts, engineers, motor vehicle officials, emergency medical services providers, and highway safety professionals from government organizations, academic and professional associations, and private sector partners across the United States and international communities.

Hanna, H. (July 21). State Approaches to Address the Mississippi Early Childhood Education Workforce Crisis. Southern Legislative Conference. White Sulphur Springs, WV.

Harmon, K., Sbravati, C., & Anreddy, S. (2024, July 30). TRAPS - A Visual Analytic Tool for Public Health Surveillance [Poster Abstract]. MAS-MSU 6th Annual Summer Science and Engineering Symposium, Starkville, MS, United States.

Gaither, M. (July). Empowering Early Childhood Professionals and Families Through Case-Based Learning in the ECHO Tele-Mentoring Model. 2024 Mississippi Early Childhood Education Conference. Natchez, MS.

Gaither, M. (July). Project ECHO, Moving Knowledge, Not People: A Virtual Network for MS Families and Early Childhood Professionals . 2024 Mississippi Early Childhood Education Conference. Natchez, MS.

Gardner, S., Sergi, K., & Robertson, M. (August 2024). Project AWARE: A Multi-Tiered System of Support for School Mental Health in Mississippi. Active Minds Mental Health Conference, Washington D.C.

McMillen,R (Aug, 28). The Health and Economic Burden of Tobacco on Mississippi. MS Lung Cancer Roundtable Tobacco Prevention Workgroup, American Cancer Society.

Poole, C. (August 27, 2024). How Well is Mississippi's Early Childhood System Working? Mississippi Forum for the Future State of Babies.

Sergi, K., Richardson-Stubbs, M., & Myburgh, B. (July 12-13, 2024). AI in Humanities and Social Science Research. First Southern Spark Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Jackson, MS.

Sergi, K., & Stubbs-Richardson, M., (July 2024). AI in Education and Social Science Research.” Mississippi Southern Spark AI conference in Jackson, MS.

Stouffer C., & Anreddy, S. (2024. August 1). MSU evaluator conducted a virtual two-hour training on the TRAPS (Tobacco Reporting and Progress System) data reporting system. The training will equip the portal users with how to report on their scope of work activities and upload required documents. The training was for a newly hired Office of Tobacco Control Systems Change staff member.

Stubbs-Richardson, M. (August 14, 2024). Technology Facilitated Sexual Violence. Presentation for Mississippi Rape Crisis Centers for the Mississippi Coalition Against Sexual Violence.

Stubbs-Richardson, M., Brenner, D., & Sergi, K. (August 8, 2024). AI Tools for Supporting Education Research. The Institute for Advancing Computing Education. Webinar.

Valentine, N., (July 2024) Mississippi Lift Early Childhood Convening [Virtual Presentation].

Publications

Anreddy, S., Sergi, K., McMillen, R., Stouffer, C., & Valentine, N. (2024, July). TRAPS-A Visual Analytics System for Public Health Surveillance. In Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on (Vol. 101, pp. 83-92).

Cardozo-Gaibisso, L., Harman, R., Vazquez Dominguez, M., & Buxton, C. (Eds.). (2024). Pedagogies for equitable access: Reimagining multilingual education for an uncertain world. In L. C. de Oliveira & Y. Xu (Series Eds.), Teacher education in global contexts: Promoting culturally sustaining teachers and teacher educators. Virginia Commonwealth University.

Hemphill, T. V. (2024). Integrated Delivery of Health Care and Continuity of Care for Older Mississippians With Mental and Behavioral Health Concerns. Journal of Public Health in the Deep South, 4(1), 9. DOI: https://doi.org/10.55533/2996-6833.1090

McClelland E, Johnson T, McMillen R. (in press). Public support for tobacco control policies among Mississippi adults. Journal of Public Health in the Deep South.

Mississippi Tobacco Data. The Health and Economic Burden of Tobacco on Mississippi https://mstobaccodata.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/The-Health-and-Eco…

Poole, C., Bell, L. Hanna, H. (August 2024). State Models for Increasing Early Educator Compensation. Systems Change Lab at Mississippi State University's Social Science Research Center. https://scl.ssrc.msstate.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Early-Ed-Compen…

Published on September 11, 2024

May & June 2024 Chronicles

July 17, 2024