Searching the internet has become almost a prerequisite for travel (though considerably fewer trips, of course, are happening during the pandemic). Online articles and blogs are appealing sources of information because they offer up-to-date travel advice, often drawn from personal experiences. Despite their widespread use, online travel articles have received surprisingly little research attention. Dr….
How to Fix the Nursing Home Crisis, Now and After the Pandemic
This piece first appeared in the Tampa Bay Times. The COVID-19 pandemic has caused tens of thousands of deaths and more than three million infections, with predictions of many more to come. Nursing home residents have been among the most affected by the pandemic. In some states, half or more of all COVID deaths have…
Teaching Spotlight: How Should and Can We Help the poor? A Course on Global Development & Giving
In the Fall 2019 semester I launched a new undergraduate course titled Global Development & Giving (PUP 4931), which was supported by FSU’s Council of Research and Creativity. I have been visiting poor countries, predominantly in South East Asia, once or twice annually since 2014. These countries include Cambodia, Myanmar, Tibet (China), and, foremost, Laos….
Telemedicine Saved My Life
This piece first appeared in the Orlando Sentinel. Tragically, COVID-19 has already claimed the lives of over 2,000 Floridians. The virus is contagious and deadly, especially to the elderly and those with underlying conditions. But for me, the pandemic and the rules created to stop its spread created an odd confluence of events that likely…
Social Equity: The Predictable Disproportionate Impact of COVID-19 on Minority Communities
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has demanded global attention as it claims the lives of more than 560,000 humans globally and more than 135,000 humans in the United States alone. COVID-19 death data in the United States by race, reveals a striking image of inequity. The data indicate that there are disproportionate deaths in Black and…
DeSantis’ Coronavirus Leadership Reflects the Prudence Florida Needs Overall
This piece first appeared in the Tallahassee Democrat. Six months into America’s COVID-19 crisis and, remarkably, the virus continues to confound experts. Nevertheless, Gov. DeSantis continues to be attacked as if the best approaches are obvious and clear. In fact, DeSantis, like his peers in other states, is being forced to make severe policy trade-offs…
Research Spotlight: The Impacts of President Trump’s Midterm Endorsements
It’s not breaking news that President Trump likes to tweet. In 2018, he used that social media platform to dole out a rapid-fire of endorsements of congressional candidates running in the midterm elections. During that campaign, he gave out 134 endorsements to 45 congressional candidates on Twitter, and endorsed another 35 congressional candidates at 47…
Ph.D. Spotlight: Methods to Improve Existing Heat Wave Surveillance Systems
Elevated and prolonged exposure to extreme heat is an important cause of excess summertimemortality and morbidity. To protect people from health threats, some governments are currentlyoperating syndromic surveillance systems. However, a lack of resources to support time- andlabor- intensive diagnostic and reporting processes make it difficult establishing region-specificsurveillance systems. Big data created by social media…
Ph.D. Spotlight: Experiments in Bureaucracy, Insurance, and Monetary Economics
Dr. Daniel Neal’s dissertation consists of a set of economic experiments in bureaucracy, insurance, and monetary economics. While they are eclectic in their subject matter, they all rely on the same basic foundation: good experimental methodology. In today’s world of economics, research can usually be divided into one of two categories; theory-based or empirical. Theory…
Masks and Masculinity: Trump’s Strong Man Performance
This post first appeared on the Institute for Research on Male Supremacy blog. President Donald Trump’s refusal to wear a mask in public serves as a form of masculinity performance that characterizes Trump as a strong man—tougher than the COVID-19 virus, and unable to be controlled by establishment forces telling him what to do. While…
