In the Media
White House Pushes To Jump-Start Civil Rights-Era Cold Cases Board
Huffington Post -- 06/11/2021
Margaret Burnham, civil rights lawyer and former state court judge. Burnham, the first African American woman to serve in the Massachusetts judiciary, is currently a professor at Northeastern University School of Law. She is also the founder of the university’s Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project, which seeks to document unsolved race-based killings in the Deep South between 1930 and 1970.
How Vaccine Nationalism Risks Prolonging the Pandemic
The Washington Post -- 06/11/2021
Researchers at Northeastern University in Boston calculated that the monopolization of vaccines by wealthy nations — what’s known as “vaccine nationalism” — could result in almost twice as many deaths worthwide as distributing them equally…
Homicides are up, but GOP misleads with claims about blame
Associated Press -- 06/11/2021
James Alan Fox, a criminologist and professor at Boston’s Northeastern University, said small changes to a police budget, or the party affiliation of a particular mayor, aren’t likely to play a big role. Some violence fluctuations are part of long-standing problems.
These creepy fake humans herald a new age in AI
MIT Technology Review -- 06/11/2021
For another, perfectly balanced data sets don’t automatically translate into perfectly fair AI systems, says Christo Wilson, an associate professor of computer science at Northeastern University. …
Community college boosts employment among Black and Hispanic students, study finds
Boston Globe -- 06/10/2021
“Low income and underrepresented minorities typically come from high schools that make them less academically prepared to enter the job market,” said Alicia Modestino, lead author of the study and an economist and a professor at Northeastern University. “If they can attend a community college then they can get a much higher return than a higher-income individual who’s had better academic opportunities.”…
Newly detailed nerve links between brain and other organs shape thoughts, memories, and feelings
Science Magazine -- 06/10/2021
Lisa Feldman Barrett, a neuroscientist at Northeastern University, points to evidence that mood disorders can stem from metabolic problems—which in turn can have roots in stressors that affect the brain, such as early childhood trauma and neglect or sleep deprivation. Such experiences can also shape how we interpret internal sensations. Rather than passively receiving information, the brain is constantly constructing a model of its sensory conditions and guessing what caused them in order to direct the correct response, Barrett says. “You feel a tug in your chest, and your brain has to decide if it’s because you ate too much for dinner or if it’s the early sign of a heart attack.”…
Report: Massachusetts Community College Attendance Boosts Employment, Earnings
WBUR -- 06/10/2021
“There is a huge employment benefit,” said Alicia Modestino, the research director for the Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy at Northeastern University and the study’s lead author. The biggest payoffs came from when students actually completed a certificate program or associate’s degree.
Study finds big payoff for community college
CommonWealth Magazine -- 06/10/2021
“There is real labor market value to these certificates and to associate’s degrees,” said Alicia Sasser Modestino, an associate professor of public policy and urban affairs and economics at Northeastern University and co-author of the report, which was released Thursday. …
Op-ed: Employers need to support summer jobs
Boston Business Journal -- 06/09/2021
Alicia Sasser Modestino is the research director of the Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy at Northeastern University.
Editorial: Help wanted from Boston employers to provide summer jobs
Boston Business Journal -- 06/09/2021
As Northeastern University professor Alicia Sasser Modestino and John Hancock VP Thomas Crohan argue in a BBJ op-ed on the topic, the supervisors learn how to better manage such employees, while the ideas that grow out of marketing campaigns developed with input from diverse employees can help target a new set of customers.