Projects

RESEARCH GRANTS

Total funding as PI: $3.5M | as Co-PI: $4.6M

Projects span forced migration, humanitarian modeling, migration governance, public health, and misinformation. Methods include participatory research, simulation modeling, surveys, and cross-cultural fieldwork. In addition, I provided methodological and social science expertise to externally funded modeling and simulation projects led by VMASC colleagues, including work on risk assessment, infrastructure degradation, and public health response. Selected research grants below. 

Principal Investigator, OSD Minerva Research Initiative, “Beyond the Clock: Understanding Cross-Cultural Temporal Orientation of Military Officers,” September 2024 – September 2027 (revised: March 2025). $1.6M. (ODU Co-PIs: Jose J. Padilla, Krzysztof Rechowicz, Faryaneh Poursardar, Lee Slater, Angelica Huizar, D.E. Wittkower, Peter Schulman; Partner Institution PIs: Apostolos Spanos (University of Agder); Eteri Tsintsadze-Maass (Hampton University); Military Liaisons: Joseph Breedlove; Robert V. Gusentine).

Co-Principal Investigator, OSD Minerva Research Initiative, “Un-Resilience: Drawing Insights from Societal Collapse,” September 2024 – September 2027 (revised: March 2025). $1.6M. (ODU PI: Jose J. Padilla; ODU Co-PIs: Krzysztof Rechowicz, Faryaneh Poursardar, Joshua Behr; Partner Institution PIs: Katherine Palcio (UniNorte), Eteri Tsintsadze-Maass (Hampton University)).

Principal Investigator, OSD Minerva Research Initiative, “What’s Missing? Innovating Interdisciplinary Methods for Hard-to-Reach Environments,” July 2022 – July 2025 (revised: February 2025). $1.7M. (ODU Co-PIs: Jose J. Padilla (ODU VMASC), Michele Weigle (ODU Computer Science), Michael L. Nelson (ODU Computer Science), Jennifer N. Fish (ODU Women’s Studies); Partner Institution PIs: Katherine Palacio (UniNorte), Michaela Hynie (York University), Hanne Haaland (UiA), Hege Wallevik (UiA)). Independent Researchers: Zacheus Abang (South Africa); Cyrillus Swinne (Colombia).

Co-Principal Investigator, Virginia Commonwealth Cyber Initiative (CCI), “From Gap to Gain: Counter Human Smuggling by Identifying Deceptive Advertisements in Social Media,” December 2022 – December 2023. $60,000. (PI: Faryaneh Poursardar)

Co-Principal Investigator, Old Dominion University Data Science Seed Funding, “Data Science for Social Good:  Mining and Visualizing Worldwide News to Monitor Xenophobic Violence Towards Migrants and Refugees,” July 2022 – June 2023. $38,000. (PI: Michele Weigle, ODU Computer Science).

Senior Personnel/ Mentor, National Science Foundation, “REU Site: Research Experiences for Undergraduates in Disinformation Detection and Analytics,” March 2022 – February 2025. $323,082. (PI: Sampath Jayarathna (ODU Computer Science); co-PI: Jian Wu (ODU Computer Science); Senior Personnel/Mentors: Michele Weigle (ODU CS), Michael L. Nelson (ODU CS), Faryaneh Poursardar (ODU CS), Vikas Ganjigunte Ashok (ODU CS), Anne Perrotti (ODU Education)).

Co-Principal Investigator, US Department of Education, “Graduate Research Opportunities and Workforce Readiness in Modeling and Simulation (GROW M&S),” January 2022 – December 2024. $1.15M (PI: Jessica Johnson (ODU VMASC); co-PIs: Jose J. Padilla, Sachin Shetty, Masud Rana, Yiannis Papelis, Krzysztof Rechowicz, Rafael Diaz, Katherine Smith, Michael Nelson, Deri Draper-Amason, Heather Richter).

Principal Investigator, Hampton Roads Biomedical Research Consortium, “By the community, for the community: Participatory Research to Understand Disparities in Vaccine Uptake,” October 2021 – July 2022. $100,904. (Co-PI: Alexandra Leader (EVMS), Tancy Vandecar-Burdin (ODU)).

Co-Principal Investigator, OSD Minerva Research Initiative, “Computational Framework for Assessing Absorptive Capacity,” September 2019 – September 2022. $1.5M. (PI: Jose J. Padilla; Co-PIs: Joshua Behr and Michael Allen (ODU), Apostolos Spanos (UiA), Ioannis Spilanis (U. of Aegean), and Fred Bidandi (U. of Western Cape))

Principal Investigator, Old Dominion University Medical Modeling & Simulation Seed Funding, “Health Dynamics in Protracted Refugee Situations,” August 2017 – July 2018. $70,000. (Co-PI: Jose J. Padilla)

Principal Investigator, Old Dominion University Program for Undergraduate Research and Scholarship, “Social Justice & Transportation Equity,” January – December 2016. $8,086.10

Co-Principal Investigator, Virginia Department of Emergency Management, “Workshop on Long-term Degradation of Interdependent Critical Infrastructures in Hampton Roads,” January – March 2016. $20,100. (Co-PIs: R. Michael Robinson, Barry Ezell, and Andrew J. Collins)

FIELD RESEARCH EXPERIENCE

  • Greece (Lesvos) (2017–ongoing): Host community response to migration
  • Colombia (2019–2024): Venezuelan migration, host communities
  • El Paso, Texas (2022): U.S.-Mexico border migration and policy
  • Hampton Roads, Virginia (2021–2022): Vaccine equity and public health disparities
  • South Africa (2011; 2019): Refugee reception, citizenship, xenophobia
  • Rwanda (2011, 2013, 2014): Displacement, health systems, refugee populations
  • Haiti (2014): Gender-based violence, community organizing
  • Senegal (2012): NGO engagement, political dialogue

International Research Collaborations

  • University of Agder (Norway): Ongoing co-authorship and collaborative fieldwork on migration and humanitarian response, including ethnographic-simulation in Lesvos.
  • York University (Canada): Affiliate of the Centre for Refugee Studies; co-PI on interdisciplinary projects addressing science of team science and research in hard-to-reach environments.
  • Universidad del Norte (Colombia): Partner in mixed-methods research on Venezuelan migration and host communities; co-led survey design and field implementation in Barranquilla and Cucuta.
  • University of the Aegean (Greece) & University of the Western Cape (South Africa): Co-authored qualitative, quantitative, and social simulation studies on resilience and absorptive capacity through U.S. Minerva-funded grants.
  • Hampton University (USA): Collaborator on interdisciplinary studies of identity, resilience, and cross-cultural dynamics, including using arts-based methods.
  • University of Luxembourg: Digital History collaborations, with a pilot digital histories workshop held in June 2025 at UiA’s Metochi Study Center in collaboration with UiA.