National Initiative Seeks Researchers to Study Women and Girls of Color

NC State University is recruiting researchers from all disciplines to participate in a national initiative aimed at increasing research that focuses on women and girls of color. The recruitment comes in advance of a conference on the issue that will be held at Wake Forest University next month.

As part of a five-year, White House-led initiative, titled the Collaborative to Advance Equity through Research, NC State has launched the Growing Research On Women of color (GROW) Project.

“We are reaching out to all faculty who engage in research – from biomedical engineering and human health, to communication and social sciences, to history and the humanities,” says Blair LM Kelley, who is leading the GROW Project at NC State.

“If you are interested in pursuing research questions that focus on women and girls from under-represented groups, this is an opportunity to identify potential partners for interdisciplinary collaboration and to secure funding to support that research,” says Kelley, who is assistant dean for interdisciplinary studies and international programs in NC State’s College of Humanities and Social Sciences.

Interested researchers should contact Kelley directly by completing the GROW Project google form (users will need to access the Google form from the same browser where they are logged in to their ncsu.edu email account).

Kelley plans to hold informational meetings for interested parties in advance of the Advancing Justice for Women and Girls of Color Conference being held at Wake Forest April 28 and 29. The conference should serve as an opportunity for researchers to explore related research ideas and identify possible research collaborators.

“This initiative is a chance to evaluate what we know – and what we need to know – about a population that has long been overlooked by researchers of all disciplines,” Kelley says. “I’m excited to explore the possibilities of collaboration across disciplines and institutions. We’re expecting to identify new research questions and ideas that have the potential to benefit women and girls for generations.”

NC State announced its participation in the Collaborative to Advance Equity through Research in early February. The collaborative currently consists of more than 40 institutions which have, as of early January, committed more than $50 million to research on and by women and girls of color at their own institutions. Kelley says the collaborative expects to reach 50 members with a collective commitment of at least $100 million by this summer.