Dr. Sangeetha Madhavan, Chair of the Department of African American Studies, has been awarded a Seed Grant from the Maryland Population Research Center to extend her current NICHD-R01 study on marriage, kinship and child outcomes in Nairobi, Kenya to include men. Specifically, she will use the generous funding to conduct qualitative interviews this summer with partners of the women in the current study to learn about their understanding of the marriage process, their roles as providers and their investment in children. The findings from this work will contribute to a larger proposal to NICHD for funding to include a sample of men in the survey and follow them up for 3 waves. The knowledge gained from these efforts will greatly advance our understanding of men's involvement as partners, fathers and kin.

The Maryland Population Research Center invites proposals for projects that will enhance research activity bearing directly on the Center’s population research mission. The principal aim of this program is to assist in the development of research ideas that have the potential to significantly enhance scientific knowledge in the population sciences and to garner external research support. Madhavan joins behind Dr. Joseph Richardson who was awarded a Seed Grant in 2020-2021 for his research project titled, "A Tale of Two Epidemics: Understanding the Convergence of Coronavirus and Gun Violence in Baltimore, Maryland", which used a mixed-methods approach to measure twin epidemics of gun violence and COVID-19. Congratulations Dr. Madhavan and may this award be of assistance in the continuation of your research.