Two faculty members have received the Steven D. Manners Faculty Development Awards from the University Center for Social and Urban Research (UCSUR) for “promising research projects in the social, behavioral and policy sciences.”

The 19th annual awards — up to $10,000 each for pilot projects that are likely to receive external, peer-reviewed funding in the future — honor sociologist Steve Manners, former assistant director of UCSUR (1989-2000), whose research and service focused on improving social conditions in the urban environment.

The 2019 awardees are:

• Jessica Hamilton, a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, for the project: “Using smartphones to understand social media use and sleep among adolescents.” It will examine teen use of social media as it affects their sleep patterns, which Hamilton labels “a robust risk factor for poor mental health outcomes including depression and suicide.”

• Marlo Perry, assistant research professor in the School of Social Work, for the project: “Emotional awareness in child welfare professionals and its relationship with emotional variability, compassion satisfaction and commitment to the field: A pilot study utilizing ecological momentary assessment.” Perry’s study aims “to capture the variability of daily interactions of child welfare caseworkers, along with their emotional responses to those interactions,” in order to assess the positive aspects of working in this profession: “compassion satisfaction and restorative interactions that child welfare professionals have and how they relate to professional quality of life and intent to remain in the field.”