PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] – Four PSTC faculty associates from Economics, History, American Studies, and Sociology have been selected by Brown University for 2018 Research Seed Funds and Salomon Awards. And one from Education has received a teaching award.

John Papay, assistant professor of Education, was selected as the recipient of this year’s William G. McLoughlin Award for Excellence in Teaching in the Social Sciences.

Daniel Björkegren, assistant professor of Economics, has received a Research Seed Award for his project, “Making Decisions with Manipulated Data: Applications to Credit Scoring in Developing Economies,” which aims to “launch a new research agenda to create algorithms that perform well in settings where the decision rule is transparent and individuals attempt to strategically manipulate their behavior.”

Linford Fisher, associate professor of History, received a Research Seed Award for his “Database of Indigenous Slavery in the Americas,” which will “allow researchers to lift names off of the pages of obscure manuscripts and put them out into the wider online world where thousands of [people] can use the information to reconstruct histories, chart networks, and make connections in ways that have never before been possible.”

New PSTC faculty associate Kevin Escudero, assistant professor of American Studies, received a Salomon Award for “Not 1 More Deportation: Movement Lawyering and Grassroots Community Partnerships in the Immigrant Rights Movement,” which aims to “demonstrate how activists display a high level of legal knowledge and influence attorneys’ approaches to litigation and defense of the undocumented community.”

Margot Jackson, associate professor of Sociology, also received a Salomon Award for her project, “Public Investments, Private Investments and Class Gaps in Children's Academic Achievement,” which will “examine how public investments in children and families affect class inequality in child investments and academic achievement.”

Seed Funds from Brown University “support activities necessary to advance competitive research proposals, such as performing preliminary work and facilitating collaboration.” Salomon Awards “recognize excellence in scholarship” and “fund exceptional faculty research projects.”