The Academic Minute

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  Waruna Seneviratne, Wichita State University - Automated Toolless Manufacturing of Composite Structures in Space 06.08.2026 2мин

  On Wichita State University Week: Reducing lift-off weight can be crucial for spaceflight.Waruna Seneviratne, director of the Advanced Technologies Lab for Aerospace Systems (ATLAS) at the National Institute for Aviation Research, explores one way to do so.Faculty Bio:Waruna Seneviratne is the Director of the Advanced Technologies Lab for Aerospace Systems (ATLAS) at the National Institute for Aviation Research (NIAR), Wichita State University. With over 25 years at NIAR, he leads a diverse research portfolio in advanced manufacturing, inspection, durability, damage tolerance, certification, and aging of composite aircraft structures—supported by agencies including the FAA, DoD, DHS, NASA, and major aerospace manufacturers.In 2019, he founded the NIAR ATLAS Manufacturing Innovation Center to create a makerspace-style environment for accelerating advanced manufacturing research and prototyping. He also leads the Manufacturing for Affordable Sustainable Composites (MASC) initiative, sponsored by the Air Force Research Lab, which focuses on integrating in-process inspection technologies into manufacturing. His team’s automated fiber placement (AFP) inspection system received the 2023 JEC Composites Innovation Award for Digital, AI & Data. In 2024, his work on thermoplastic injection overmolded aircraft window plugs—adapting automotive technologies for high-rate aerospace production—earned both the Best Technical Paper Award at SAMPE and the CAMX Innovation Award.Waruna serves on the Technical Oversight Committee for NASA’s Advanced Composites Consortium (HiCAM) and the Executive Steering Committee for the Office of Naval Research’s Composites Manufacturing Technology Center through The Composites Consortium. He is a recipient of NASA’s Group Achievement Award (2022) for his contributions to the Advanced Composites Project, and the “Turning Goals into Reality” Honor Award (2002) for his work with the AGATE Alliance.Before joining NIAR, Waruna worked as a stress analyst on the Airbus A380 program, ensuring compliance with FAA and EASA certification standards. He holds BS, MS, and PhD degrees in Aerospace Engineering from Wichita State University and has lived in Wichita for over 30 years.Transcript:Today’s space structures are built to survive one of the most violent environments imaginable—launch. As a result, they are often overdesigned, carrying extra mass, cost, and complexity just to endure those few critical minutes. At the same time, everything we send to space must fit within the space of a payload bay. This constraint forces engineers to fold structures into compact, origami-like forms—packed with joints, motors, and deployment mechanisms that add weight, introduce risk, and create potential points of failure.But what if we didn’t have to build everything on Earth?What if we could build them in space instead?To meet this challenge, a new approach is emerging: Automated Tool-less Manufacturing, or AToM. This system uses two coordinated robotic arms to fabricate high-performance thermoplastic composite structures directly in space. Working together, they place continuous fibers with precision, creating strong, lightweight, three-dimensional parts—without molds, without ovens or autocalves, and without the constraints of traditional manufacturing.Think of it as additive manufacturing—but engineered for structural strength with continuous fiber composites.The impact is transformative. By eliminating tooling and reducing dependence on multiple launches, AToM removes traditional limits on size, weight, and complexity. Structures no longer need to fold or deploy—they can be built exactly as designed, with fewer joints and far less mechanical complexity and weight.And this isn’t theoretical. At the NIAR ATLAS Manufacturing Innovation Center, this technology has already demonstrated the ability to rapidly produce aerospace-quality composite structures on-site.Even more, the thermoplastic materials used are recyclable—opening the door to a circular manufacturing economy in space, where every resource matters.From orbit to the Moon, to Mars and beyond, this technology redefines not just how we build—but where we build.Read More:Advanced Technologies Lab for Aerospace Systems - ATLASNew Technology Can Create Composite Structures in SpaceIn-Situ Consolidation Thermoplastic Process Development for Toolless Automated Fiber Placement Manufacturing in Space This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org
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  JaeHwan Byun, Wichita State University - Rethinking Learning with AI 05.08.2026 2мин

  On Wichita State University Week: Should we change the way we think about using generative AI for learning?JaeHwan Byun, associate professor in the College of Education, explores this question.Faculty Bio:Dr. JaeHwan Byun is an Associate Professor in the School of Education, College of Applied Studies at Wichita State University. He joined WSU in 2015 and currently serves as Program Chair for the Master of Education in Learning and Instructional Design and Director of the Applied AI in Education Research Lab. Dr. Byun’s work focuses on how educators and learners can engage in learning experiences that are engaging, infused with meaning, and experienced as coherent and complete. Building on longstanding work in educational technology, his current scholarship foregrounds generative AI (GenAI) in education, including studies of teacher adoption and needs, design-based approaches to educator preparation, and how GenAI can function as “design material” that reshapes instructional activity and learning paradigms.Transcript:Today, many see GenAI as a quick tool to get answers. A shortcut. This view misses its real potential and leads to widespread concerns about cheating and shallow learning.My research, conducted with my colleague Dr. Mara Alagić, proposes a new paradigm called Generativism. We argue that real learning with GenAI isn’t about the answer it gives you. It’s about the cognitive work you do with that answer.We define this deep learning in a cycle: You prompt. The GenAI generates. And then, the most important part begins: the critique.That critique then becomes a new prompt to ask GenAI. This process iterates, until you and the AI build a refined learning outcome. This is a moment of critical reflection followed by action.The GenAI acts as a partner that challenges your thinking. Your job isn’t to simply accept its answer. Your job is to question it, validate it, and refine it. That reflective, iterative process is the learning in the era of GenAI.This process creates a dynamic learning space. The AI provides a “scaffold” that pushes you just beyond what you already know. In this model, the GenAI isn’t a simple tool. It’s a semi-autonomous partner and collaborator. Therefore, the learner cannot be a passive receiver. They must become the orchestrator of this complex process.The “ah-ha” moment is this: The true goal of GenAI in education is not to deliver information. It is to provoke the critical reflection and deep engagement needed to build real, lasting understanding.For the younger generations who will inevitably live with this technology, this means teaching them how to think critically is more important than ever.Read More:College of Education This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org
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  Heidi VanRavenhorst-Bell, Wichita State University - Measuring Performance of the Mighty Human Tongue 04.08.2026 2мин

  On Wichita State University Week: Your tongue matters more than you might think. Heidi VanRavenhorst-Bell, chair and associate professor in the Department of Human Performance Studies, explores why.Faculty Bio:Dr. Heidi VanRavenhorst-Bell has an established interdisciplinary line of research in clinical exercise physiology and orofacial myology. Her work in promoting healthy tongue muscle performance through physical activity has been internationally recognized and showcased on NPR’s Science Friday with Ira Flatow. Her research also includes R&D and product validation in the health & fitness industry. Dr. Bell has developed a systematic network purposed toward bridging the gap between healthcare and fitness. Her entrepreneurial background has further led to three start-up companies, secured intellectual property and established a platform to mentor students aspiring to be the next leaders in the field. Besides serving as Chair and Associate Professor of the Department of Human Performance Studies at Wichita State, Bell is the undergraduate coordinator for Exercise Science, manager of the Human Performance Laboratory, a Faculty Fellow for the Dorothy and Bill Cohen Honors College, and an affiliated faculty member in the Department of Biomedical Engineering.Transcript:Eight muscles. One tongue. And it might be the hardest-working muscle group you never think about. That is, unless you bite it. The tongue helps us speak, chew, swallow, and even keep the airway open during sleep. But for more than one in three people, tongue and facial movement patterns don’t work as efficiently as they should—what clinicians call orofacial myofunctional disorders, or OMD.Here’s the tricky part: in clinic, tongue performance measures are often recorded with tools that capture only a slice of what the tongue does. One challenge is slippage of the oral device within the mouth. The tongue’s anterior and posterior have different muscle fiber composition and functional roles, so even small shifts can change what’s actually measured. We tested and patented an oral-safe anti-slip patch, and participants reported better stability without meaningful changes in the pressure values, which is clinically important. Another area of consideration during assessments is head posture. Research shows even the simplest change in position may shift lingual measures.Measuring tongue motion and force in real life—not just during brief clinical visits—presents challenges, too. PARROT, a patented research prototype, could address this. Fitting like a palatal mouthpiece, it wirelessly captures spatial positioning of the tongue within the oral cavity, while also mapping how hard and for how long the tongue is pressing against various structures. The scientific goal? Attain objective, repeatable data that can improve screening, guide therapy, and support telepractice.A deeper physiology question involves fascia, which links human body structures from the tip of the tongue down the tips of the toes. Manipulating fascia and other physiological factors through physical activity and targeted stretching are shown to favor tongue strength or endurance.So, the next time you swallow, yawn, talk or even exercise… remember: your tongue is doing a quiet biomechanical ballet.Read More:Department of Public Health Sciences[Science Friday] - When Your Tongue Needs A Tuneup This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org
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  Nikki Keene Woods, Wichita State University - Why Patient Trust Determines Whether Technology Improves Care During Pregnancy 03.08.2026 2мин

  On Wichita State University Week: Technology can only help if people are willing to use it.Nikki Keene Woods, professor and chair of Public Health Sciences, reveals why some may not trust devices that could help them.Faculty Bio:Dr. Nikki Keene Woods is an applied behavioral scientist and public health professor. She joined WSU in 2012. She has master’s degrees in behavioral science and public health in addition to a PhD in Behavioral Psychology from the University of Kansas. She is a member of the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE) and the local chapter the Kansas ACHE. Her research centers on maternal/child health, with an emphasis on advancing health outcomes for women and underserved populations through applied interdisciplinary research. She has led or co-led numerous federally and state-funded projects, including a National Institutes of Health grant on wearable devices for fetal heart rate monitoring, a PCORI grant to improve women’s health, and authored more than 40 peer-reviewed publications. Dr. Keene Woods’ scholarship integrates community-engaged methods and applied data analytics to improve population health outcomes in Kansas and beyond.Transcript:When we think about new health technology, we often assume that better tools automatically lead to better care. But when it comes to care during pregnancy, that is not always the case. In my research, my team and I studied how women feel about using wearable devices that allow health care providers to remotely monitor a baby’s heart rate. These tools have great potential, especially for women in rural areas or communities with limited access to prenatal services. We surveyed women of reproductive age to understand what would make them willing or hesitant to use a remote fetal heart monitoring device. What we found was both practical and revealing. First, acceptance depended heavily on whether the technology fits into everyday life. Women were not opposed to technology, but they were clear about their expectations. Comfort and size mattered. Most women said the device would need to be small and fit easily into their daily routines. Second, age mattered in unexpected ways. Women in their thirties and forties were more accepting of the technology than younger women. We often assume that being younger automatically means being more comfortable or accepting of health technology, but pregnancy has a way of rewriting those assumptions. During pregnancy, trust, experience, and perceived risk may matter more than comfort with technology. Finally, privacy and accuracy were concerns as some women worried about who would have access to their data, and whether inconsistent readings might increase anxiety instead of providing reassurance. The takeaway is simple but important. If we want technology to improve care during pregnancy and reduce disparities, we have to design it with women. It’s about adding technology thoughtfully, in ways that make care feel more supportive, more human, and improve quality. Listening to women’s experiences and concerns is not a barrier to innovation. It is how innovation succeeds.Read More:Public Health Sciences at Wichita State University This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org
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  Sharaya Jones, George Mason University - Why Choosing Stuff to Share is an Ordeal 31.07.2026 2мин

  Making a decision about an activity for a group of friends can be stressful.Sharaya Jones, Assistant Professor of Marketing at the Costello College of Business at George Mason University, examines why emotions play a huge part in the process.Faculty Bio:Sharaya M. Jones is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at the Costello College of Business. Sharaya received her PhD in Marketing from the Leeds School of Business at the University of Colorado Boulder, and her bachelor's degree from the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto. Her research focuses on questions about how consumer perceptions shape consumer responses. In one stream of research, she examines how perceptions of congruity influence consumer responses such as donation behavior and new product appeal. In a second stream of research, she uncovers how consumers experience and make decisions for shared consumption, which are both heavily influenced by perceptions of group members’ preferences.Transcript:Picture this: you’re picking a restaurant for date night, snacks for a movie night with friends, or a group activity for a trip. Why does it feel like a struggle to choose something that will work for everyone? Seven experiments with over 2000 people revealed something surprising: these decisions aren’t actually harder than choosing for yourself – they’re more emotional. You feel a heightened sense of responsibility to avoid getting it wrong, and the less you know about others’ preferences, the less confident you feel that you’ll be able to make everyone, including yourself, happy. The anxiety is real and it shapes your choices.It’s why people gravitate toward “most popular” labels and choose variety packs: those options are a safer bet when satisfying everyone – including yourself. Here’s what’s exciting for brands right now: With AI and social media, we now have real-time signals about who a decision is for. Someone asking an AI “what book should I choose for my book club?” or commenting on a TikTok, asking their tagged friend “should we go to this?” are signals that smart brands can act on. Brands can create bundles or promote “crowd pleasers” for group decisions, as opposed to personalized picks for solo shoppers. These strategies not only help consumers but may also lead to higher conversion.For consumers: ask people what they want and if that fails, give them some options to help them reveal their preferences. And if someone else is choosing for a shared experience, don’t shy away from stating your preferences. It will reduce their anxiety and make the whole experience better for everyone.Read More:[George Mason] - Why choosing stuff to share is an ordeal[Sage Journals] - The Decision-Making Process and Impact of Individual Decisions for Joint Consumption This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org
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  Zihan Chen, Brown University - The Hidden Cost of a 1965 Medicare Rule 30.07.2026 2мин

  An old Medicare rule is keeping older adults in hospitals longer than necessary, so what can be done?Zoey Chen, PhD candidate in health services research at Brown University, looks into this.Faculty Bio:Zihan Chen is a PhD candidate in Health Services Research at Brown University. She studies Medicare policy, with a focus on post-acute and long-term care.Transcript:Imagine this: an older adult falls at home and is hospitalized with a hip fracture. After two days, their doctor says they’re medically stable and ready to leave the hospital—to continue recovery in a nursing home with physical therapy and monitoring.But they can’t leave.Not because of their health—but because of a rule.Medicare requires a minimum three-day hospital stay before it will cover care in a skilled nursing facility. This is known as the “three-day rule,” and it dates back to 1965.More than half a century later, this rule still shapes care for millions of older adults. Many argue that the three-day threshold is arbitrary, rigid, and inefficient. However, we didn’t have strong evidence on how the rule actually affects care.That changed in May 2023, when the rule was reinstated after being waived during the COVID-19 pandemic. This created a rare natural experiment.What we found was surprising. After this rule was reinstated, more patients stayed in hospitals just over three days. And the increase was larger among patients with dementia or hip fracture, who were mostly likely to need post-hospital care in nursing homes. Patients didn’t use nursing homes any less, they were just staying in hospitals longer than medically necessary to qualify.The result? Thousands of extra hospital days, higher costs for hospitals, and no clear savings for Medicare.This highlights a bigger issue: healthcare is full of eligibility rules like this. They might be valuable, but if we don’t evaluate these rules carefully, they can end up creating bottlenecks—delaying care, increasing costs, and potentially harming patients.Read More:[National Library of Medicine] - Changes in Inpatient and Skilled Nursing Facility Care After the Medicare 3-Day Rule Reinstatement This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org
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  Erin M. Kenney, Hartwick College - Taking a Closer Look at the Impact of Parent-Child Conversations 29.07.2026 2мин

  How do children learn to talk about themselves and other people?Erin M. Kenney, assistant professor of psychology at Hartwick College, looks into this using preschool-aged children.Faculty Bio:Erin M. Kenney is an assistant professor of psychology at Hartwick College in Oneonta, New York. Dr. Kenney’s interdisciplinary work includes time as an early childhood teacher, administrator, professor, and researcher. Her areas of expertise include developmental psychology, early childhood education, parent-child conversation.Kenney’s dedication to bridging the gap between developmental science and developmentally appropriate practice includes a commitment to research practices that center participants as knowledge producers and values community engagement. She and the members of the Family and Developmental Studies Research Lab study a variety of topics including parent-child conversation, neurodiversity, and personal intelligence.She earned her B.S. from the University of New England and her M.Ed. from the University of Hartford. She earned her M.A. and Ph.D. in developmental psychology from the University of New Hampshire.Transcript:We live in a world in which people are constantly judging other people. My research seeks to understand how kids learn to talk about others by investigating parent-and-child conversations. I am interested in the influence that a parent’s own personal intelligence has on a child’s development of personal intelligence, often described as the capacity to reason about personalities, both one’s own and those with whom we come into contact.Parent/child conversation research has existed for decades, but the act of including personal intelligence is brand new. It is all about understanding how children truly understand or interact with people, situations and other things that are different or similar to themselves. Our work is aimed at better understanding how kids develop the ability to describe other people using personality trait terms. They’re asked to have a conversation with their parent describing recent positive and negative interactions with a peer or friend. How do they build that skill set to make those determinations of what a good or bad friend is? The reason I went with three and four-year-olds is I used to be a preschool teacher. I understand that three- and four-year-old kids are very concerned with who’s doing the right thing, who’s doing the wrong thing. They’re also very much learning how to describe themselves and how to talk about other people--and my big question is: What are the mechanisms that underlie that? It appears that parents have a huge role in terms of how children learn to talk about the world around them and our interviews reveal that most parents seem to be trying to do the best they can. Through this research, we can gain insights that may be able to help society understand how to better shape future generations to be less divisive and better able to label and understand personality related behavior.Read More:Psychology | Hartwick College This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org
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  Aron Barbey, University of Notre Dame - Intelligence Emerges When the Whole Brain Works As One 28.07.2026 2мин

  We are redefining our view of human intelligence.Aron Barbey, the Andrew J. McKenna Family Professor of Psychology at the University of Notre Dame, looks at how our brain organizes information to do so.Faculty Bio:Aron Barbey is also the director of the University of Notre Dame Human Neuroimaging Center and the Decision Neuroscience Laboratory.Barbey’s research investigates how intelligence emerges from the network organization and dynamics of the human connectome, applying methods from cognitive neuroscience, experimental psychology and computer science. His work aims to achieve a deeper understanding of the neural foundations of intelligence and to enable scientific innovation in cognitive enhancement, neurorehabilitation and biologically inspired artificial intelligence.Over the course of his career, Barbey’s research group has won more than $26 million in research funding, with support from organizations including the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Department of Defense, the White House BRAIN Initiative, the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and private industry sponsors such as Abbott Nutrition, Google Brain and PepsiCo.Transcript:General intelligence is our ability to solve problems across many areas of life, helping us go beyond what we’ve experienced, make sense of the unfamiliar, and adapt to new challenges. What’s remarkable is not just this capacity, but its source: a finite, fragile system, the human brain, a three-pound organ powered by less energy than a lightbulb. The question is how the brain’s finite architecture makes such flexible intelligence possible.The answer may lie in how knowledge is organized in the brain. Rather than stored in one location, information is distributed across regions. The brain coordinates activity across these regions to construct mental models of the world. These models are built from reusable components of knowledge — information about people, objects, actions and events. Because these components can be combined in different ways across contexts, the brain can generate a variety of thoughts from a finite set of building blocks.But if knowledge is distributed and its components can be recombined in many ways, what determines which combinations are possible? The answer may lie in the network of connections linking brain regions. Like a city’s map, this network defines the possible routes of communication between different parts of the brain.Some regions communicate easily through direct connections, while others are more difficult to link. The brain’s flexibility arises from its physical wiring.This redefines how we understand human intelligence. The brain does not simply process thoughts, it gives them their structure. By shaping which ideas can be linked, how easily they can be reached, and how efficiently they can be recombined, it makes general intelligence possible in a finite system. Intelligence, therefore, is the ability to move through a landscape of ideas whose terrain determines what can be even thought at all.Read More:[Notre Dame News] - Key to human intelligence lies in how brain networks work togetherDecision Neuroscience Lab This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org
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  Esti Blanco-Elorrieta, New York University - Putting a Number on Bilingual Experience 27.07.2026 2мин

  Putting a figure on a person’s bilingual experience can be daunting. Esti Blanco-Elorrieta, assistant professor of psychology and neural science at New York University, looks into one way to do so.Faculty Bio:I am an Assistant Professor of Psychology and Neural Science at New York University. In my research, I combine insights from monolingual and multilingual individuals, who process language through speech or sign, to inform an inclusive and comprehensive neurobiology of language. My research combines data from neuroimaging, computational and behavioral methods with theoretical insights from linguistics, psychology and neuroscience.I obtained my PhD from New York University, where I worked at the Neuroscience of Language lab under Liina Pylkkänen’s supervision and completed my post-doctoral training at Harvard University, working in the Cognitive Neuropsychology lab under Alfonso Caramazza’s supervision. In 2019, I was recognized as a Forbes 30 under 30 scientist, and in 2025, I received the Early Career Award from the Society for the Neurobiology of Language.Transcript:For decades, bilingualism researchers have faced a deceptively simple question: how do we actually measure how bilingual someone is?We often collect rich language histories, but when it comes time to analyze the data, there’s no standard way to turn all that information into a single, interpretable number. As a result, different studies define “language dominance” and “degree of bilingualism” in very different ways, making it hard to compare results across labs and populations.In my research with my collaborator Jessica Chen, we set out to develop a simple, theoretically grounded way to quantify two things: how dominant someone is in one language versus another, and where they fall on the continuum from monolingual to highly multilingual.We built our approach around two variables that decades of work show are fundamental: self-rated proficiency and age of acquisition. Age of acquisition matters because the brain’s capacity for language learning changes over development, and later exposure typically limits ultimate attainment. Proficiency matters because it reflects how well the language is actually represented and used.We combined these factors into a formula that produces a continuous dominance score, ranging from perfectly balanced bilinguals to strongly dominant speakers of one language. We also introduced a multilingualism score that places individuals on a spectrum from monolingual to polyglot, while giving diminishing weight to each additional language, reflecting the fact that the jump from one to two languages is larger than from four to five.We validated these measures in large datasets, including both healthy adults and bilingual individuals with aphasia, and showed that our simple formulas closely match much more complex statistical methods.Our goal is to offer the field a transparent, biologically informed, and easily reproducible way to characterize language experience—so that when we talk about bilingualism, we’re finally speaking the same quantitative language.Read More:[NYU] - Neuroscientists Devise Formulas to Measure Multilingualism This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org
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  Mariah Purol, Union College - What Happens to Our Love Lives When the Rest of Life Gets Messy 24.07.2026 2мин

  On Union College Week: What happens to our love lives when the rest of life gets messy? Mariah Purol, assistant professor of psychology, examines this.Faculty Bio:Mariah received her PhD in Social & Personality Psychology from Michigan State University in 2024. She is currently a faculty member in the Psychology department of Union College. Her work examines how both individuals’ and their partners’ characteristics influence their relationship satisfaction, life satisfaction, and well-being. To that end, she’s interested in how we create happy, satisfying lives as individuals (studying traits like gratitude and optimism), and as relationship members (studying constructs like interpersonal perceptions and personality in romantic relationships/friendships).Transcript:We have lots of ideas about how life events, especially negative ones, might impact our romantic relationships. For example, what happens to a couple when one of them gets diagnosed with a chronic health condition? Has a parent pass away? Loses a child? Does relationship quality degrade in the face of these stressors, or do couples draw closer?In a recent project, I examined the relationship trajectories of over 10,000 couples in the U.S., the Netherlands, and Switzerland. I did this by combining data from three longitudinal datasets, each of which had information about couples’ relationship quality—like their satisfaction, their levels of support, or their closeness— and the life events that they experienced together. With this data, I examined how changes in relationship quality may be associated with the occurrence of these life events. Overall, it was extremely rare for negative life events to predict negative relationship outcomes (like decreased satisfaction). In a handful of cases, experiencing negative life events was associated with positive relationship outcomes. For example, individuals who experienced a potentially stressful life transition, like beginning a new job or experiencing a new negative health event, also reported feeling more support and responsiveness from their partner over time. However, these effects were rare, and, when significant, the size of the effects were very small. It was much more common for the occurrence of these life events to be unassociated with changes in relationship quality. While this may seem surprising, these results emphasize a point relationships theorists have been making for decades: the presence of a negative event alone is not enough to make or break a romantic relationship. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org
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  Stephen Schmidt, Union College - Making A [Tax] Effort for Black Students' Education 23.07.2026 2мин

  On Union College Week: What can we do to improve education for Black students in majority white communities? Stephen Schmidt, Kenneth B. Sharpe Professor of Economics, examines possible solutions.Faculty Bio:Stephen Schmidt has been professor of economics at Union College since 1994, after completing his Ph.D. in economics at Stanford University. He was appointed the Kenneth B. Sharpe Professor of Economics in September 2019. His research interests include the economics of education, especially education finance, and the normative evaluation of economic outcomes and policies. He has published articles in American Economic Review (Papers & Proceedings), Journal of Public Economics, Contemporary Economic Policy, Economics of Education Review, Journal of Higher Education, Theoria, Restoration Ecology, Journal of Economic Education, Journal of Transport Economics and Policy, Southern Economic Journal, International Journal of Industrial Organization, and others. He teaches courses in econometrics, game theory, intermediate microeconomics, the economics of race, and normative economics, as well as the College’s first-year inquiry seminar.Transcript:There is a racial divide in the United States economy, which means that people of different racial and ethnic identities don’t have the same economic prospects in life. One source of this divide is differences in education. Students of color, especially African-Americans, often don’t get the same level of education funding that other students get. One explanation for this pattern is stigmatization theory. It says that when members of a majority stigmatize a minority, they spend less on public services, since the stigmatized group cannot be excluded from the benefits of those services. My research examines the way school districts set spending levels to see if the patterns that stigmatization theory predicts are found in the data. In particular, I look to see whether the racial composition of a district’s student body affects spending levels differently when the adult voters in the district are dominantly White. There is good news, which is that in districts where the adult voters are less than about 90% White, education funding is higher when the student body contains more African-American or Hispanic students - presumably to address disadvantages children in those communities face. But, in districts with more than about 90% White voters, this effect is found only for Hispanic students, not for African-American students. Why are only African-American students, not Hispanic students, treated differently when districts have highly White voters? Stigmatization can explain this pattern. If White voters stigmatize African-American children - but not Hispanic children – and they can only act on this stigmatization when they are dominant in education politics, then we would see the pattern that we actually see in the data. What should we do? We can redraw district lines in ways that increase the diversity of voters, not just students, where that is possible. When it isn’t possible, state governments could provide funding that local voters are reluctant to provide.Racial Stratification and Local Education Funding This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org
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  Holli Frey, Union College -Tick, Tick… Boom! Unraveling the Secrets of Caribbean Volcanoes 22.07.2026 2мин

  On Union College Week: How do we unravel the secrets of volcanoes?Holli Frey, professor of geosciences, examines tiny crystals to gather clues.Faculty Bio:Holli Frey is a professor of Geosciences from Union College (NY). She studies volcanoes, trying to understand the plumbing systems beneath them, looking for clues as to how and why they erupt. She is particularly interested in mineral chemistry and chronology and uses a variety of analytical tools to address fundamental questions about magma evolution. She has active field-based projects in the Caribbean (St. Vincent and Dominica) and Central Oregon (Tumalo Tuff) and previously did work in the western Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt and plutons in coastal Maine. She enjoys mentoring students, who are frequently co-authors on her publications. Her most recent work is on the eruptions of St. Vincent and she is a project partner of Dr. Jenni Barclay (University of Bristol) on a funded, collaborative grant, “Ex-X: Expecting the Unexpected (Understanding Dangerous Volcanic Transitions)”. This summer, Dr. Frey will take several students to Dominica, continuing to explore the eruptive history of the island. Dr. Frey received her B.A. in geology from Franklin and Marshall College and her PhD in geosciences from University of Michigan, supported by a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship.Transcript:In early 2021, the volcano La Soufrière in St. Vincent in the Caribbean rumbled to life after more than 40 years. Thick lava slowly oozed out at the summit, not a real threat to the 16,000 people living in its shadow.Then, in April, everything changed. The shaking beneath the volcano shifted, prompting an evacuation. In less than 24 hours, powerful explosions began, sending ash high into the atmosphere. For two weeks, more than 30 explosions rocked the island, transforming the landscape and destroying more than 1000 homes.So, what happened inside the volcano during that sudden transition?To find out, we turned to the crystals locked inside the rocks that erupted in the first 48 hours. It was the smallest crystals – called microlites – that were key to understanding the volcano’s behavior. The microlites are like time capsules; they preserve clues about where magma has been and what it experienced on its journey to the surface. As these tiny crystals formed, they caused the magma to become more gas rich, increasing the pressure past a tipping point which caused the explosions.What we found in the microlite chemistry tells a story of magma moving through two very different environments on its way to the surface.The first crystals formed deep underground, more than fifteen kilometers beneath the volcano, where magma sat under intense pressure and water-rich conditions. Those crystals were carried upward, survivors from deep in the volcanic plumbing system.The next series of microlites didn’t come from depth however. They crystallized as the magma was moving more quickly to the surface, after the initial throat clearing first blasts that destroyed the lava dome.By reading the record preserved in the tiny crystals, we can better understand how quiet dome-building eruptions suddenly become explosive and hopefully improve how we anticipate hazards at active volcanoes.Read More:[Lyell Collection] - Petrology of the explosive deposits from the April 2021 eruption of La Soufrière volcano, St Vincent: a time-series analysis of microlites[Union] - Frey Awarded NSF RAPID Grant[U.S. National Science Foundation] - Award Abstract # 2132566 RAPID: The effusive to explosive transition of La Soufrière, St. Vincent: Insights from petrology and hygrometryDangerousVolcanoes.org This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org
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  Guillermina Seri, Union College - Democracy, Markets, Rights, and Emergency Rule 21.07.2026 2мин

  On Union College Week: Why are democracies suspending the rights of their people? Guillermina Seri, professor of political science, explores this.Faculty Bio:Guillermina Seri is a Professor in the Department of Political Science at Union College, NY, where she teaches courses in political theory and Latin American Politics. Seri is the author of the books Seguridad: Crime, Police Power, and Democracy in Argentina (Continuum, 2012) and Neoliberalism and Unlawful Governance. The Crisis of Democratic Rights (University of Michigan Press, 2026), and co-editor of the volume Police Abuse in Contemporary Democracies (Palgrave, 2018).Transcript:We often assume democracies are safe havens for human rights, but my research tracks a troubling trend: Across a number of democracies, state abuses and police violence are starting to mirror the abuses linked to emergency measures that suspend rights in authoritarian regimes.Drawing on media and archival research, I’ve found that while emergency powers used to be the tool of dictators in the 1970s, by the mid-2000s, democratic governments were actually using them more often than nondemocracies. These records challenge established beliefs in political science that democracies “almost never” suspend rights.Why is this happening? One trend associated with the rise of emergency regimes is the subordination of politics to protecting markets. We’ve entered an era where protecting the market has become the state's highest priority—its Reason of State—often bypassing legal safeguards. This global experiment began under the military dictatorship of 1970s Chile, then extended through and from the Global North. Today, it thrives in the “chainsaw” economics of Javier Milei's Argentina by subjecting everyone and everything to a market rationale, even when it may undermine rights protections.However, my research also highlights the democratic extraordinary moments when citizens reclaim voice and rights. These are the moments that open possibilities to strengthen democracy and take care of both people and the planet.Read More:[University of Michigan Press] - Neoliberalism and Unlawful Governance This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org
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  Kristin Bidoshi, Union College - What Does it Mean to Teach Language During War? 20.07.2026 2мин

  On Union College Week: Learning goes on, even during war.Kristin Bidoshi, professor of Russian in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures, discusses this through language teaching in Ukraine.Faculty Bio:Kristin Bidoshi is a professor of Russian in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures and the director of Russian and East European Studies program at Union College, a small liberal arts college in Schenectady, NY. She conducts fieldwork in Eastern Europe and publishes on topics including the use of oral tradition in the works of Anton Chekov, Nikolai Gogol and Liudimila Petrushevskaia. She also publishes in applied linguistics, specifically in Russian language pedagogy, and has recently presented workshops on building, evaluating and using custom AI tools in the language classroom. Kristin also directs a Teaching English Practicum in which Union College students teach English as a Second Language (ESL) classes online to Ukrainian children or in-person ESL classes to refugees and immigrants in the NY Capital District.Transcript:What does it mean to teach language during war? The answer seems obvious. Language instruction can resume remotely, focusing on basic communicative skills. But this captures only part of the problem. War-time language teaching is never pedagogically neutral. Instruction unfolds within asymmetries of vulnerability and responsibility as classrooms become places where global politics and ethical judgment emerge.My research, grounded in applied linguistics, examines foreign language education during war. Drawing on Michael Byram’s theory of intercultural citizenship, qualitative data from student teachers’ reflections and classroom observations of their remote English classes with Ukrainian children, this research examines how wartime English instruction moves beyond its expected focus on grammar and communication to become an ethical and civic practice, reshaping everyday instructional approaches, classroom roles and even student teachers’ understandings of language teaching, power and civic responsibility.A student’s apology for missing class because “the power was out,” is a stark reminder of how the war shapes daily life. When a student mentions life “before the war,” grammar becomes less important as the teacher decides how to preserve instructional routine and acknowledge hardship. In these moments, skill instruction gives way to responding with care to lives shaped by conflict.In times of war, education is fragile. This research reminds us that language pedagogy, theorized through intercultural citizenship, can sustain human connection when war seeks to undo it.Read More:[Space of Knowledge] - English speaking club with American students This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org
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  Carrie Cutler, Washington State University - From Future Tasks to Past Events Cannabis Intoxication Disrupts Memory in Many Ways 17.07.2026 2мин

  Cannabis may affect your memory after use, but to what extent?Carrie Cuttler, Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology and Co-Director of the Cannabis Research Center at Washington State University, investigates this.Faculty Bio:Dr. Carrie Cuttler is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology and Co-Director of the Cannabis Research Center at Washington State University. She directs the Health and Cognition (THC) Lab, where her research examines both the beneficial and detrimental effects of cannabis and cannabinoids. Her recent work focuses on the therapeutic potential of cannabigerol (CBG) and the effects of chronic cannabis use and acute cannabis intoxication on cognition (e.g., memory, creativity, executive functioning), mental health (e.g., depression, anxiety, autism, ADHD), physical health (e.g., pain, sleep), and stress. Dr. Cuttler has published several books and more than 80 peer-reviewed journal articles.Transcript:One of the most well-documented effects of acute cannabis intoxication is impairment in memory. However, memory is not a single process—it is a complex system composed of multiple subsystems that rely on different neural mechanisms. Despite this complexity, most previous research on cannabis has focused on a narrow set of memory tests, particularly verbal memory tests and working memory tests.Far fewer studies have examined how cannabis affects other types of memory that are more relevant to everyday functioning. These include temporal order memory, prospective memory, source memory, false memory, and autobiographical memory.To address this gap, we conducted a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study in which 120 participants with substantial experience using cannabis, vaporized either placebo, a moderate dose, or a high dose of cannabis. We observed significant detriments across several domains, including verbal memory, visuospatial memory, working memory, prospective memory, source memory, false memory, and temporal order memory. To our knowledge, this is the first study to detect significant detrimental effects of acute cannabis intoxication on prospective memory and temporal order memory.We did not observe significant effects on short-term memory or autobiographical memory. However, this is the first study to examine autobiographical memory following acute cannabis intoxication. Future research using more complex autobiographical memory tasks that capture real-world experiences is needed to corroborate this finding.It is important to note that participants were mostly young adults frequently using cannabis recreationally. Effects would likely be stronger in less experienced cannabis users and findings may not generalize to older adults or medical users.Read More:[Sage Journals] - Mapping the acute effects of cannabis on multiple memory domains: A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org
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  Jonas Mureika, Loyola Marymount University - Can You Paint Like Jackson Pollock? Physics has the Answer 16.07.2026 2мин

  Anyone can make a Jackson Pollock painting, right?Jonas Mureika, chair and professor of physics at Loyola Marymount University, examines what physics has to say on the matter.Faculty Bio:Jonas Mureika serves as chair and professor of physics at Loyola Marymount University. Mureika spent much of his academic training at the University of Toronto, where he earned his B.S. in astronomy and physics and Ph.D. specializing in theoretical cosmology. He also holds an M.S. from the University of Waterloo where he studied particle physics.His research is focused on modified theories of gravitation, from implications for early universe cosmology, to micro black hole formation in high energy particle collisions. One such proposal that Mureika has helped advance is the idea that at high energies, the effective dimensionality of space decreases. A novel implication of this theory is that the universe was effectively one-dimensional in the moments following the Big Bang.Mureika is currently interested in the observational signatures of quantum gravity that might arise in future experiments, including LIGO gravitational wave detections, and imaging of supermassive black holes through the Event Horizon Telescope. He has also spent years analyzing Jackson Pollock’s art through fractal and lacunarity analysis.Transcript:20th-century abstract expressionist Jackson Pollock is most well-known for his pour paintings. Though highly regarded in the art world and a household name, many people have wondered: “Is his technique random?” “Can’t a child do that?”There are many fascinating aspects of Pollock’s work, but one of the most striking is the fractal patterns consistent throughout. Fractals exist everywhere in the natural world: in coastlines, lightning, and plants, to name a few, and can be mathematically analyzed to understand the physics that made them and how the structure will evolve over time.A group of physicists, psychologists, and I studied the paintings of adults and children ages 4-6 to distinguish whether artistic style is defined by age and how to differentiate paintings made by the two groups, allowing us to understand not just Pollock, but how to distinguish between any artists’ work at a mathematical level.We used fractal and lacunarity analysis – the measurement of clusters and gaps between them – techniques used in astrophysics, geophysics, biology, and beyond, to examine the artwork. We found that age and biomechanics create distinct artistic signatures, with factors such as balance, height, and vision producing statistically different patterns. Children produce smaller fractal dimensions – less clustering of fine structure, and larger lacunarity – more gaps between clusters, while adults demonstrate the opposite.As part of the study, we analyzed Pollock’s “Number 14,” finding that the lacunarity and fractal measurement resembled those in the children’s paintings more closely.For decades, people have questioned Pollock’s legitimacy, yet his paintings are more complex than they appear when examined mathematically. Pollock’s work teaches us many things, but what is particularly fascinating is how his paintings show us that age, balance, and how you move through space all leave traces that physics can interpret.Read More:[Frontiers] - A question of Jackson Pollock’s balance: using lacunarity and fractal analysis to distinguish poured paintings by adults and children This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org
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  Kim Miller, Wheaton College - African Women's Friendships as Hidden Histories 15.07.2026 2мин

  What role does friendship play in political and resistance movements?Kim Miller, professor of art history, and coordinator of the Peace and Social Justice Studies Program at Wheaton College, examines this.Faculty Bio:Kim Miller is Professor of Art History, and Coordinator of the Peace and Social Justice Studies Program at Wheaton College. Formerly, she directed Wheaton’s Women’s and Gender Studies Program (2006 – 2020), served as co-director of the Institute for the Interdisciplinary Humanities, and held the Jane Oxford Keiter Endowed Chair in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Kim is also a research associate at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa, where she works to develop strategies to expand access to education for underserved populations. She serves as a professional mentor for South Africa’s “Future Professors” program, a nation-wide effort which aims to support young faculty and graduate students of color with their research and scholarship as they advance through the faculty ranks. Kim’s research focuses on the ways in which women artists and activists in South Africa use artmaking as a form of activism and empowerment, particularly in the context of that country’s anti-apartheid movement. Her forthcoming book, How did they Dare? Women’s Activism and the Work of Memory in South African Commemorative Art, examines how memorial practices and commemorative sites are associated with women’s political struggle in South Africa’s anti-apartheid movement. Kim is co-editor, with Prof Brenda Schmahmann, of the book, Bronze Warriors and Plastic Presidents: Public Art in South Africa, 1999 – 2015.Transcript:In 1955, two South African women brazenly defied apartheid laws when they slipped past the feared security police, boarded a plane for the first time in their lives, and crossed the world to speak the truth about what was happening to their country. Lilian Ngoyi and Dora Tamana were formidable activists, skilled organizers, and close friends — chosen as delegates of the Federation of South African Women to represent the anti-apartheid cause abroad. Their illegal journey took them to Switzerland, England, Germany, Romania, China, and Russia, where they stood before crowds and described the cruelties of apartheid with clarity and courage. When they returned home, they worked with other women activists to organize the 1956 Women’s March. The largest public demonstration in the history of the anti-apartheid movement. My research asks a question history has largely ignored: what role did friendship play in sustaining that movement? What role does friendship continue to play as a sustaining force in political and social movements? My work considers friendship as a “knowing practice” in the way that Audre Lorde imagined it, to understand the development of political subjectivity in the lives of female anti-apartheid activists. How might a close examination of women’s lives demonstrate how relationships between women strengthened the resistance movement and rejected the patriarchal and separatist ideology of apartheid?Through letters, diaries, newspapers, and photographs, I’ve been recovering what I call hidden histories — the intimate bonds between women that made political resistance possible. These were not incidental relationships. Ngoyi and Tamana’s friendship survived imprisonment, torture, solitary confinement, and house arrest. They held each other up when the state tried to break them down.African feminist scholars are now building a rich body of work that theorizes these bonds — understanding friendship and intimacy not as private matters, but as political ones. My work joins that conversation, centering the women who dared to resist, together.Read More:LinkedIn This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org
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  Jean Wactawski-Wende, University at Buffalo - A Women's Health Study for the Ages 14.07.2026 2мин

  Healthy aging is critical for the present and the future.Jean Wactawski-Wende, SUNY Distinguished Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Environmental Health at the University at Buffalo, discovers more.Faculty Bio:Jean Wactawski-Wende, PhD, is a SUNY Distinguished Professor and dean of the University at Buffalo School of Public Health and Health Professions. She is an epidemiologist who focuses her research on understanding factors that influence women’s health.With more than 25 years of research experience, she is the principal investigator of UB’s Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) Center and also leads the WHI Northeast Regional Center, comprising 9 other institutions. Initiated in 1993, the WHI is an National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded, multi-centered study that involves both randomized clinical trials and an observational longitudinal study examining the major factors influencing morbidity and mortality in older women.In addition to the WHI, she has been principal investigator on dozens of research studies funded by the NIH and other federal agencies. Her interests include research on risk factors and prevention of cancer, osteoporosis and periodontal disease in postmenopausal women. Her current research focuses on the oral microbiome and health outcomes. She has also conducted several studies on reproductive health issues in younger women. As part of this work, she has led several large-scale prevention clinical trials in women.Transcript:Thanks to the generosity of thousands of women across the country, researchers like me continue to learn more each day about the major causes of death and disease in postmenopausal women.Many of these women have completed yearly surveys as part of the Women’s Health Initiative, a long-term national study that began in the early 1990s and has yielded important insights into the risk factors for cancer, heart disease and osteoporosis, among other conditions, in a rapidly growing U.S. demographic. We’re also learning more about the role the microbiome plays in influencing human health and disease.This research is critical. The number of Americans 65 and older is projected to increase by 42%, to 82 million, by 2050, with women accounting for the majority of this group.That’s why it is so vital that we continue to learn about how things like diet and exercise play a role in healthy aging.WHI ancillary studies have allowed my research colleagues and me to report recently in major journals on associations between muscle strength and reduced risk of death in women between the ages of 63 and 99, and the use of menopausal hormone therapy and incidence of a leading cause of corneal blindness. We’ve also investigated how two types of gut bacteria may be associated with a diet high in red meat, eggs and full fat dairy products, which can lead to the hardening of arteries.Through WHI, we will continue to make further discoveries, while giving young researchers opportunities to advance their careers. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org
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  Jean-Baptiste Ruffio, Unviersity of California, San Diego - How Big Can a Planet Be? 13.07.2026 2мин

  Is there a size limit on planets?Jean-Baptiste Ruffio, research scientist in astronomy at the University of California, San Diego, checks in to find out.Faculty Bio:Jean-Baptiste Ruffio is a research scientist studying extra-solar planets in the Astronomy & Astrophysics department at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). He has been developing statistical and instrumentation techniques to push the frontiers of planet detection and characterization with the largest telescopes in the world, both on the ground and in space.Transcript:How big can a planet be before it’s no longer called a planet? We used the James Webb Space Telescope to answer this question. In our own solar system, Jupiter is the largest planet. But astronomers have found much larger planets around other stars. In 2008, astronomers took the first picture of a surprising system called HR 8799. They saw four massive “maybe” planets orbiting the same star, each being 5-9 times the mass of Jupiter. We have tried to understand if they are planets or brown dwarfs. Brown dwarfs form like stars but they don’t get big enough to trigger the fusion of hydrogen. On the other hand, we believe planets generally from in a disk of dust and gas around young stars. Grains of dust collide and get bigger to form planetary cores. When a core gets big enough, it also pulls in large amount of gas to form gas giants like Jupiter. However, classical theories of planet formation struggle to explain the formation of the largest systems like HR 8799. In order to determine if they are truly planets or brown dwarfs, we can measure the composition of their atmospheres. Indeed, if we see a lot of icy and rocky material, that is the telltale sign of a planet. Brown dwarf would instead have a composition similar to the star. We therefore used James Webb to image the four planets around HR 8799. We then spent two years developing new analysis techniques to be able to measure the composition of these planets in unprecedented detail. We found that the planets had much more carbon, oxygen, and sulfur than their star. These observations finally provided the most direct evidence that HR 8799 is truly a planetary system and that planets can be much bigger than we thought.Read More:[UC San Diego Today] - How Big Can a Planet Be? With Very Large Gas Giants, It Can Be Hard to Tell[Nature Astronomy] - Jupiter-like uniform metal enrichment in a system of multiple giant exoplanets[ARXIV] - The compositions of the HR 8799 planets reflect accretion of both solids and metal-enriched gas This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org
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  Samantha Dodson, University of Calgary - She Sees the Trees, He Sees the Forest: Gender Stereotypes of Concreteness and Abstractness 10.07.2026 2мин

  Why do implicit biases still exist in hiring decisions?Samantha Dodson, assistant professor of organizational behavior and human resources at the University of Calgary, answers this.Faculty Bio:Samantha Dodson’s research program focuses on when and why women experiencing roadblocks and adversity are evaluated as deserving of opportunities and support at work.Transcript:Since women began joining the modern workforce after World War II, support professions such as secretaries and paralegals have been predominantly occupied by women. The more powerful professions they support, such as executives and lawyers, are predominantly held by men. These low-power support professions often involve developing efficient processes and paying close attention to detail. In contrast, individuals in high-power organizational roles tend to engage in tasks like identifying and creating values, strategies, and visions. Thus, women are more likely than men to be in roles that require concrete mindsets and less likely to be in roles that require abstract mindsets. Drawing on research linking gender role segregation to gender stereotypes, we theorized that people might believe there are innate attributes that enable women to perform well in process-based roles requiring specificity and attention to detail, whereas men have attributes that help them excel in roles that require seeing the big picture.Six experiments showed that we do, in fact, hold implicit and explicit descriptive stereotypes – or beliefs about what men and women are – such that people tend to believe women are more concrete than men, women are more concrete than abstract, and men are more abstract than concrete. Women tend to hold these beliefs more deeply than men, and these stereotypes arose across dozens of occupations and industries. These beliefs have real-world consequences. In one study, we found that in nearly 550,000 LinkedIn recommendations, connections are more likely to use words such as “detailed and exact” to describe women and “visionary and farsighted” to describe men. Critically, we also found that these beliefs increased the likelihood of women being assigned detailed tasks at work, such as filing paperwork and proofreading, on top of their existing workload, perpetuating gender roles and organizational inequity.Read More:[APA PsyNet] - She sees the trees, he sees the forest: Descriptive gender stereotypes of concreteness and abstractness This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org