Hellman Fellowships Give Early-Career Faculty a Research Boost

Real-Time Visual Feedback for Speech Research and Teaching

Vowels are difficult to research or learn in a new language because the differences between them can be very subtle. When speakers can’t “hear” a new vowel distinction, their auditory system can’t help them learn to produce the new sound. Barreda-Castanon has designed software that provides real-time visual feedback, which helps guide speakers by giving them visual information about their speech as they produce it. This tool has the potential for applications in speech research, teaching and clinical work.

A Microclimate of One: Models for the Near Future
Hyde’s art project connects the tools, materials and visual language of conceptual photography and climate science to produce models of possible futures for planet Earth. The project has evolved from an ongoing dialogue and collaboration with climate scientists at Cambridge University in England and L´Ecole Polytechnique in France.

Money Games: Precarious Play and Risky Business in the Post-2008 Economy
After the U.S. housing bubble burst and the global financial industry crashed in 2008, and with the emergence of the gig economy, crypto assets and platform capitalism, money has been transformed. The award will support LeMieux’s research for a book that investigates and intervenes in the intersection between work and play as well as the longer, intertwined history of gambling and gaming by following the money across different technologies, communities and countries.

Playing with Systems:  Tactile Games as a Way to Explore Systematic Challenges
This project proposes ways for people to explore, interact and engage with complex systems like climate change and racial inequality through physical games. These games will transform the perception of a system from an intimidating, impenetrable, abstract concept to an entity that one can engage and influence. This fellowship will allow Maiorana to develop this creative work and disseminate it to national and international stages.

The Work of Art Designed for Technological Reproducibility 

This project will reflect issues in society related to the mechanization of labor and the distortion of fact. Analog forms of printmaking and digital imaging technology will be in dialogue with critical theory, art history and contemporary art. The outcome will be McDougals’s production and exhibition of large-scale artwork

The DACA Longitudinal Study
Undocumented immigrant youth experience a range of disadvantages, leading to substantial socioeconomic and health disparities. The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program granted a subset of undocumented youth temporary work authorization and relief from deportation. Using data from 500 immigrants in California, Patler analyzes DACA’s long-term impacts, comparing recipients to nonrecipients. Findings will inform policymakers and practitioners seeking to reduce inequality based on immigration status.

Using Stars as Gravitational Antennae to Measure Dark Matter
Using the world’s most powerful supercomputers, Wetzel generates cosmological simulations to model the formation of cosmic structures, including galaxies and their stars. He then uses these simulations as theoretical laboratories to develop and test models of galaxy formation, stellar dynamics, and the nature of dark matter, with emphasis on understanding our own Milky Way galaxy.