
Sarah Jackson (left) and Duncan Watts (proper) are the sixth and seventh Penn professors to be named Andrew Carnegie Fellows.
Two Penn professors have been named 2020 Andrew Carnegie Fellows by the Carnegie Company of New York, receiving $200,000 every in analysis funding.
Professors Sarah Jackson and Duncan Watts will receive the grant for analysis initiatives within the humanities and social sciences that target pertinent points dealing with society. Jackson and Watts are the sixth and seventh Penn professors to obtain the award within the Carnegie Fellows program’s six 12 months historical past.
Over 300 scholars from throughout the US submitted analysis proposals after receiving nominations for the award. After a primary spherical of evaluations, a panel of 17 jurors, together with Penn President Amy Gutmann, chosen 27 fellowship recipients based mostly on the potential influence of their analysis proposal, together with the scholar’s particular person functionality to speak the findings to a large viewers.
Jackson, a Presidential Affiliate Professor on the Annenberg Faculty for Communication, will examine the function of 21st-century Black media-makers and storytellers, particularly journalists, filmmakers, podcasters, and digital influencers in her Carnegie project.
“There isn’t a doubt that at this time’s Black media-makers face a brand new panorama each culturally and professionally from these of previous eras,” Jackson told Penn Today. “The beneficiant help of the Carnegie Basis will permit me to element this panorama and take into account the alternatives, limitations, and affect of Black storytellers now.”
She plans to look at the legacy of Black media, the challenges media-makers face, and the way their work has expanded public coverage on housing segregation, prison justice, training inequality, and voting rights.
Watts, a Penn Integrates Data Professor with appointments on the Faculty of Engineering and Utilized Science, the Annenberg Faculty for Communication, and the Wharton Faculty, will examine various media datasets to sort out the problem of misinformation by means of his Carnegie undertaking.
“My hope is that our work will assist everybody, not simply [the researchers], achieve a greater understanding of how the media produces details about politics, science, and different topics related to our democracy, and the way that influences public opinion and understanding,” Watts stated.
Along with his collaborators from peer establishments corresponding to Massachusetts Institute of Expertise and Stanford College, Watts will look at the democratic implications of misinformation by means of interactive dashboards that permit policymakers, journalists, and the general public to have conversations based mostly upon information and proof.
Jackson and Watts be a part of Penn professors Beth Simmons, Daniel Guillon, Diana Mutz, Marwan Kraidy, and Philip Tetlock, who’ve obtained Carnegie Fellowships in earlier years.
Penn, the College of Michigan–Ann Arbor, and Yale College are the one universities with a number of recipients this 12 months.
— to www.thedp.com