In May 2020, the BRIDGE initiative (Building Research on Inequality and Diversity to Grow Equity) at Rice University supported projects aiming to explore inequalities as they relate to the COVID-19 pandemic, including the impact of the viral spread as well as experiences and changing well-being linked to increased social distancing (e.g. school closures, business shutdowns). We were interested in projects that documented and/or explored inequalities that have emerged or been exacerbated due to this crisis with new information that can inform the unfolding crisis within Houston and the broader Gulf Coast Region. Our goal was to fund urgent or quick-response research on these topics, or in other words, to provide immediate support for Rice researchers who are working to study these issues as they are emerging in our community.

BRIDGE COVID-19 Rapid Action Grant Awardees

• Dr. Elaine Ecklund, “How Houston’s Religious Communities Are Responding to At Risk Populations in a Time of COVID19”
• Dr. Mikki Hebl, “How Discrimination Shapes People’s Experiences During COVID19: The Impact on Parents and their Adult Children and the Responsibility of Organizations”
• Dr. Melissa Marschall and Dr. Anshumali Shrivastava, “Census 2020 During the Coronavirus Pandemic: Do Digital and Virtual Complete Count Methods Exacerbate Racial and Socio-Economic Disparities in Non-Response?”
• Dr. Ozge Gurcanli, “The Effect Of Covid-19 On Student Experience: Working With Online-Learning, Socio-Economic And Immigration Related Contexts”
• Dr. Claudia Ziegler Acemyan, Dr. Philip Kortum, Dr. Robert M. Stein, Dr. Elizabeth Vann and Dr. Daniel Wallach, “Making Voting Safe for Voters and Poll Workers: Meeting the Challenge of the COVID-19 Virus”