From Analysis to Action: An Interdisciplinary Practice Guide for Advancing Degree Progress
This interdisciplinary project aims to confront persistent inequities in college completion by developing a research-informed, interdisciplinary guide for institutional policy and practice. Despite widespread efforts to improve student success, graduation rates for low-income students remain significantly lower than those of their higher-income peers, even with comparable academic preparation. These disparities are not confined to specific majors; rather, they reflect systemic barriers across the curriculum and institutional structures. Drawing on the combined expertise of scholars in social science analysis, educational policy, and student affairs, the project will synthesize over a decade of research—both from the team’s own scholarship and from the broader literature—into a practical resource for campus leaders. The guide will synthesize siloed scholarship to illuminate how structural factors, both within courses and embedded in the institution, contribute to income-based gaps in academic outcomes and degree progression. With a focus on faculty, practitioners, and administrators, the guide will offer concrete, actionable strategies for addressing these persistent income-based gaps.
In the first week of their Obermann residency, the team will analyze and integrate findings across disciplines, vetting emergent insights with scholarly experts in student success. The second week will focus on translation: drafting the guide, engaging a diverse array of campus stakeholders for feedback, refining content to ensure usability and relevance, and finalizing the dissemination plan. The team anticipates sharing the guide via a university website and distributing through their extensive campus networks. Ultimately, this project seeks to bridge the gap between research and implementation, equipping faculty, advisors, administrators, and other student success personnel with tools to dismantle structural barriers and promote equitable degree attainment.
Co-directors: Katharine Broton (Educational Policy and Leadership Studies, College of Education, UI), Lindsay Jarratt (Higher Education and Student Affairs, Iowa State University), and Freda Lynn (Sociology and Criminology, CLAS, UI)
Leveraging Fruit Fly Genetics and Clinical Genetic Testing to Help Identify Genes Associated with Intellectual Disability
Intellectual disability (ID), a remarkably common neurodevelopmental disorder in the population (2–3%), is characterized by significant limitations in learning, memory, and problem-solving, as well as difficulties in social interaction and communication. While genetic factors play a large role in the cause of ID, and a variety of candidate genes have been identified, the proof that these genes actually contribute to ID is notably lacking in part due to the inability to screen the genes in a model system that allows for an efficient, high-throughput approach. Moreover, given that complex neurological disorders such as ID have a complex genetic underpinning, novel approaches to identifying new candidate genes are warranted.
This project seeks to address both of these shortcomings: it will leverage the expertise of a board-certified clinical and molecular genetic pathologist-scientist with extensive patient DNA analysis (Dr. Darbro), who will mine largescale patient databases of individuals with ID in order to discover previously unidentified ID genes. The approach will move beyond gene discovery in research-only cohorts and connect candidate gene selection to real-world clinical testing data from a large, diverse pediatric patient population. The project will also leverage the expertise of a geneticist (Dr. Manak) with over 25 years of experience using fruit fly models of human disease (including neurodevelopmental disorders) to functionally validate the genes that Dr. Darbro identifies. Once the fly homologs of the human genes are identified, Dr. Manak will utilize a gene-silencing approach to “knock down” the identified genes in the brains of the fruit fly, followed by high-throughput analysis to assess whether these “gene knockouts” result in clinical features consistent with those of ID. This proposal will lead to concrete outcomes (i.e., better diagnostic yields) that ultimately translate scientific discovery into better guidance and support for patients and their caregivers.
Co-directors: John Manak (Biology, CLAS, UI) and Benjamin Darbro (Pediatrics, Carver College of Medicine, UI)
Pressing Matters: Community Printmaking to Support Recovery
This project brings together public health, addiction medicine, artists, and community members with a personal connection to substance use to co-create innovative public health communication tools. Partnering with Public Space One, an artist-led, community-driven, contemporary art center in Iowa City, the group will host a two-week series of printmaking workshops. Each workshop will introduce participants to a different printmaking method: letterpress, screen printing, monoprinting, and zines, while engaging them in a collaborative process to develop messaging and imagery about substance use disorder (SUD), treatment options, and pathways to recovery. Workshops will be free and open to approximately six participants per session, specifically recruiting individuals with personal connections to substance use. In exchange for their participation, participants will grant permission for their artwork to be photographed and adapted for public communication materials. At the conclusion of the two-week residency, the group will host a gallery-style art show at Public Space One to showcase participants’ creations and invite the broader community to engage with the messages and stories behind the art.
The project’s goals are twofold: to foster healing and creative expression among participants through hands-on artistic practice, and to generate visually striking, community-informed educational resources that reduce stigma and improve access to SUD care. By embedding the voices and artistry of people with lived experience directly into public health communication, the co-directors hope to shift narratives about SUD and improve recognition of treatment options in Iowa.
Co-directors: Nichole Nidey (College of Public Health, UI), Alison Lynch (Psychiatry, Carver College of Medicine, UI), and Kalmia Strong (Public Space One)
The Role of Public Transit Improvements in Advancing Mental and Physical Health in Johnson County, IA
Transportation is a social determinant of health. Low-cost, safe, and accessible transportation has a major impact on physical and mental health by increasing individuals’ access to essential resources and by reducing stress. This interdisciplinary project will examine the extent to which two recent improvements to public transit services in Johnson County—free fares and an increase in service area from a new on-demand transit program—led to better access, more physical activity, and reduced levels of stress among two important groups of riders: young adults and low-income residents in Johnson County, IA.
Co-directors will rely on the base knowledge acquired through the two studies that investigated the Iowa City and Johnson County programs using secondary data sources on travel patterns, service utilization, and customer satisfaction. They will also survey a purposive sample of Johnson County residents who regularly use transit in the region to evaluate the changes in physical and mental health they experienced in the last two years. This project will draw on team members' distinct expertise in transport planning, travel behavior, social and structural determinants of health, and population expertise related to young adults and low-income adults to produce a manuscript for a peer-reviewed journal, a conference presentation, and a policy memorandum for local decision-makers.
Co-directors: Bogdan Kapatsila (School of Planning and Public Affairs, UI), Megan Gilster (School of Social Work, CLAS, UI), and Shannon Lea Watkins (College of Public Health, UI)