Ryan Cordell, Associate Professor and Graduate Program Director of English, picked up his guitar as news of Dolly Parton’s gift in support of a COVID-19 vaccine was shared across the internet. His rendition of Parton's song "Jolene" (with new lyrics from linguistics scholar Gretchen McCulloch about the vaccine and the pandemic) went viral on twitter.

Twitter | New York Times

Margaret Burnham, University Distinguished Professor of Law and Affiliate Professor of Africana Studies, led last week's virtual conference "Lynching: Reparations as Restorative Justice," co-sponsored by the School of Law and the Africana Studies Program. The conference brought together families of descendants of victims with racial justice and reparations activists, legislators, and scholars.

David Lazer, University Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Computer Sciences, was interviewed by the Boston Globe, WGBH, and WBUR on new survey findings that point to increased socializing as a major cause of the recent rise of COVID-19 cases in Massachusetts.

Daniel Aldrich, Professor of Political Science, Public Policy and Urban Affairs and Director of the Security and Resilience Studies Program, spoke with Salon to contextualize the change in messaging around mask wearing by the CDC.

Madhavi Venkatesan, Assistant Teaching Professor of Economics, was interviewed by the Cape Cod Times on the environmental impact of plastics on Massachusetts beaches.

Jessica Linker, Assistant Professor of History, was selected as a Digileader as part of the 2020 Future DigiLeader Cohort organized by KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden. The international, interdisciplinary cohort of early-career women and non-binary individuals who use technology in cross-disciplinary ways met to think about academic life and careers.