The Nebraska Governance and Technology Center has announced a $50,000 investment in existing projects across the University of Nebraska–Lincoln through Supplemental Nebraska Governance and Technology Center Research Awards.
The awards will provide $10,000 to supplement existing research funding to teams that are already engaged in active internally or externally funded research at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. These supplements will facilitate consideration of law and policy topics relating to ongoing research.The goal of NGTC Supplemental Research Awards is twofold: in the near term, to encourage researchers developing new technologies to consider potential policy aspects of their research and, in the longer term, to facilitate new interdisciplinary collaborations.
NGTC studies the ever-changing relationship between law and technology — how the law can regulate technology and how new technologies affect what the law can do.
“Much of how our society operates is structured around how technologies work, often through legal and policy mechanisms,” said Gus Hurwitz, professor, founder and Menard Director of the center. “Studying the relationship between the technologies that shape our society and the legal and political structures that result (that is, technology governance) is a fundamentally interdisciplinary endeavor.
As such, the selected projects come from a variety of colleges and disciplines.
The following is a list of awardees:
• Law and Policy Analysis of AI-Driven Health Technologies, led by Ming (Bryan) Wang from the College of Journalism and Mass Communication. Other team members on this project are Mohammad Hasan, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, and Kelly Cawcutt, Division of Infectious Diseases and Pulmonary & Critical Care Medicine at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.
• Legal Challenges Impeding State DOT Investment in Connected and Automated Vehicle Technologies, led by Cody Stolle, with contributions from Ricardo Jacome and the faculty and staff of the Midwest Roadside Safety Facility, a non-profit academic research institution at Nebraska and part of the umbrella of the Nebraska Transportation Center.
• Linking Policy, Land Use Land Cover Change, and Weather and Climate in Nebraska, led by Rezaul Mahmood, School of Natural Resources, Public Policy Center, Department of Agricultural Economics, with team members Tarik Abdel-Monem, Lilyan Fulginiti and Richard Perrin.
• Public Insights Lab at the College of Journalism and Mass Communication, led by Valerie Jones.
• Electrified Transportation Initiatives in Nebraska, led by Moe Alahmad, Durham School of Architectural Engineering and Construction, with support from Ahmad Almaghrebi, Subhaditya Shom, Kevin James, and in conjunction with the Nebraska Community Energy Alliance.
NGTC hopes to continue to support researchers again in the future. Interested groups can learn more on the center’s website or contact its executive director, Elsbeth Magilton, at elsbeth@unl.edu.