Research Luncheon Webinar Series
Science has long been shaped by Eurocentric biases, favoring men, whites, and the wealthy, while excluding minoritized groups. Social science research has perpetuated harmful stereotypes, and environmental studies have neglected the impact of pollution and climate change on low-income communities. To address these inequities, researchers are embracing strengths-based perspectives and critical theories that challenge white bias and integrate diverse viewpoints, ensuring science serves all communities equitably.
This luncheon series explores epistemic injustice, racialized organizations, and anti-oppressive methodologies, culminating in an Afro-futuristic workshop to reimagine science as a tool for liberation and healing.
Webinar 6:
Friday, April 11, 2025 – ON CAMPUS in SSW Room 2027
Speaker: Dr. Lonny Brooks, California State University, East Bay
In addition to Dr. Brooks’ lunchtime presentation, there are two workshops available for interested University of Illinois faculty and students:
10:00-11:15am CST
Reimagining social justice in scholarship and research and storytelling
This in- person workshop is for tenured and specialized faculty.
Register for faculty workshop
12:00-1:00pm CST
Afrofuturism and AfroRithms as a practice in building Mothership AI
Dr. Brooks is a professor of Communication and Afrofuturism at California State University, East Bay. For the last two decades he has advanced futuristic thinking in communications curriculum. He has a passion for creating games to envision social justice futures including black and queer liberation. For more information please explore his work further at the AfroFuturist podcast. Lunch will be served.
Background: Afrofuturism is a literary and cultural movement that reimagines African American history through the lens of science fiction and fantasy. It offers a way of covering discussions about race, identity, alienation and the aspirations of the Black community in a utopic future. Applying the concept to social work offers an opportunity to rethink strategies for equal opportunity education. For example, Afrofuturism advances the idea that Black students are valued and welcome members in educational settings. Yet, the US has a history of both barring and criminalizing basic education of students and then segregating schools and communities. Afrofuturism offers opportunities to rethink the legacy of colonialism in everyday policies from the legacy of racial disproportionality in mandated reporting laws and to mass incarceration of Black youth and adults and the push for family separation in child welfare policy. It draws attention to zero-tolerance policies and punitive approaches. It believes that to create a racially just future there is a need to understand and protect history, identity and culture.
Learning Objectives
- Reclaiming the Future through Ancestral Intelligence (AI)*** – Participants will explore how Afrofuturism centers ancestral intelligence as a guiding force for technology and social innovation.
- Envisioning Liberatory Futures through Game-Based Worldbuilding – Through AfroRithms From the Future, participants will co-create speculative futures that reflect Black and Indigenous resilience and liberation.
- Interrogating and Redesigning Technological Futures – Participants will critically analyze AI narratives and reimagine technology through Afrofuturist principles of cultural continuity, ethical kinship, and collective empowerment.
Moderator: Liliane Windsor, PhD, MSW, Professor of Social Work and Associate Dean for Research. School of Social Work, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
2:00-3:00pm CST
Using afro-futurism to reimagine social justice in higher education
This in-person workshop is designed for undergraduate and graduate students.
Register for student workshop
Past Webinars (1-5)
Webinar 1: Is My Work Racist? Critical Thinking and Critical Discourse in Social Work Research
Recorded on Friday, September 13, 2024
12:00 to 1:00pm CST
Speaker: Holly Thurston, Senior Research Analyst, OSU College of Social Work
Dr. Thurston worked for 12 years as a QA officer for a county DHHS in a large metropolitan area, conducting investigations of child fatalities with prior government (CPS, Mental Health, and Public Health) involvement. She obtained a PhD in Nursing Science from UC Davis in 2016, and now specializes in spatio-temporal statistical analyses techniques to better understand the role of environment in child welfare and public health issues.
Based on the article Is my work racist? Critical thinking and critical discourse in social work research, this presentation focuses on critical thinking for the social work researcher, specifically, how to critique your past work to ensure that your current and future work aligns your world view and does not inadvertently perpetuate “status quo” ideology. An overview of critical thinking (dual process theory) and Critical Discourse Analysis theories will be covered, followed by an example of self-critique and suggestions for ensuring that your research continues to reflect a social justice framework.
Moderator: Liliane Windsor, PhD, MSW, Professor of Social Work and Associate Dean for Research. School of Social Work, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Webinar 2: What if Epistemic Injustice is the Wrong Question?
Recorded on Friday, October 11, 2024
12:00 to 1:00pm CST
Speaker: Karen Staller, Professor of Social Work, University of Michigan, School of Social Work
Karen Staller, PhD, JD, received her educational training at Cornell Law School and Columbia University School of Social Work, where her dissertation on runaway and homeless youth was awarded with distinction. Staller practiced public interest law with low-income senior citizens and at-risk adolescents in New York City. Her scholarship focuses primarily on runaway and homeless youth (and other at-risk adolescents). She is interested in the complicated interplay between social problem construction, social service delivery, and social policy. Her book published by Columbia University Press, Runaways: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped Today’s Practices and Policies, entertains this interplay. Her scholarship starts from a constructionist epistemological perspective and is in the interpretivist tradition. She blends her legal and social work training in her scholarship, research methodology, and her approach to teaching. She teaches in the areas of social welfare policy, child and family policy, and qualitative research methods.
Moderator: Liliane Windsor, PhD, MSW, Professor of Social Work and Associate Dean for Research. School of Social Work, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Webinar 3: Bringing Health Equity to Clinical Research: Toward Reparative and Race-Conscious Approaches
Recorded on Friday, November 8, 2024
12:00 to 1:00pm CST
1 CE credit available
Speaker: Bram Wispelwey, Associate Physician in the Division of Global Health Equity, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School
Bram Wispelwey is co-director of the Palestine Program for Health and Human Rights, a joint program between Birzeit University’s Institute of Community and Public Health and the Harvard FXB Center, and he is a co-founder of Health for Palestine, a community organizing initiative in Palestinian refugee camps. Bram is an Associate Physician in the Division of Global Health Equity at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, an Instructor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and an Instructor in the Department of Global Health and Population at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Bram’s research, education, and implementation efforts focus on anti-racist strategies to address hospital inequities, community health worker impact, and the settler colonial determinants of health. Before the start of his medical career, he pursued LGBTQ-rights activism, which informs his health approach at the bedside and in advocacy. Bram is a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Fellows for Health Equity and a 2023 awardee of the Brigham and Women’s Nesson Fellowship for Boston-based community health work.
Racial health inequities represent a public health emergency, and many are generated or exacerbated through interactions with health institutions and personnel. This talk outlines a specific case of a hospital-derived inequity that inspired the creation of Healing ARC (acknowledgment, redress, and closure), a repair-based approach to health justice. Healing ARC will be discussed as a potential tool for challenging white supremacy’s hold in our institutions, professions, and practice.
Moderator: Liliane Windsor, PhD, MSW, Professor of Social Work and Associate Dean for Research. School of Social Work, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Webinar 4: Mismeasuring Impact: How Randomized Controlled Trials Threaten the Nonprofit Sector
Friday, February 14, 2025
12:00 to 1:00pm CST
Speakers: Jennifer Mosley & Nicole Marwell, University of Chicago
Moderator: Liliane Windsor, PhD, MSW, Professor of Social Work and Associate Dean for Research. School of Social Work, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Webinar 5: Experiments in Soulcial Work Praxis: Lessons in Radical Community-Engaged Research Speakers: Alexis Jemal & Diana Melendez, City University of New York
Friday, March 7, 2025
12:00 to 1:00pm CST
Alexis Jemal, associate professor at Silberman School of Social Work-Hunter College, is a critical-radical social worker and artivist who specializes in racial justice, radical healing, and liberation. Dr. Jemal’s research and scholarship are grounded in her Transformative Potential Framework that guides the development and implementation of holistic, socio-cultural, psychosocial, biobehavioral health interventions. She teaches courses at the Master’s level in clinical practice, critical social work practice, and human behavior, and at the doctoral level in public scholarship.
This series is sponsored by the School of Social Work Research Office, with support from Dr. Judy Havlicek and the Associate Dean for Engagement, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.