Recent Projects

Gorman Lake Park and Dodd Road in Le Sueur County under water.

Turning the Tide on Flooding in the Cannon River Watershed is a spring 2026 project with the Cannon River Watershed Joint Powers Organization and Southeast Minnesota Regional Sustainable Development Partnership. The project highlights the history and cost of flooding along the Cannon River, a plan for flood mitigation and improving water quality, maps of flood events and improvement projects, and a dashboard to tract project goals.  Finally, a section focused on community-engagement voices and future activities, intended as an active living document rounds out the page.…

The Census Bureau and American Community Survey (ACS) have been under attack from Congress and the White House for over a decade. Response rates (to this mandatory survey of population) are declining, funding for these critical programs are being cut, and every year new laws are proposed that erode public trust and effect the accuracy of the data shared back with the public. Data critical for planners, policy-makers, businesses, and researchers studying population change, housing, education, and economics. One of the most damaging proposals would consider making the American Community Survey voluntary not mandatory, which…

Researcher: Ceema Samimi (School of Social Work)

Abstract: The Inclusion Project addresses the disproportionate use of exclusionary discipline that exacerbates educational inequities. Current policies often lack non-exclusionary alternatives, and the political climate, including increased immigration enforcement and reductions in disability protections, heightens these risks. In alignment with Saint Paul Public Schools’ mission to inspire students, this project will equip educators with tools to reform discipline policies and practices. Using a Critical Transformative Mixed Methods approach, a cohort of…

Researcher: Sarah Hoffman (School of Nursing)

Abstract: Sexual and intimate partner violence directly or indirectly impacts a significant portion of the United States population. Structural inequities and systemic oppression challenge equitable access to Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) health services, which are critical for recovery and justice. Individuals with refugee, immigrant, and migrant (RIM) backgrounds experience compounded barriers to forensic healthcare. Our project aims to address these disparities by leveraging clinical data repositories to systematically analyze electronic health records of…

Researcher: J'Mag Karbeah (School of Public Health)

Abstract: The United States is facing an urgent youth mental health crisis with nearly a third of youth reporting that they’ve experienced poor mental health (e.g. depression, suicidal ideation, and completed suicides) with the largest increases being increase in among Black girls ages 10-17. Research suggests that the association between experiences of racial discrimination and adverse mental health is often mediated by positive ethnic racial identity formation and socialization. To date, no studies have looked concurrently at how racial socialization,…

Researchers: David Beard (Professor of Rhetoric, Department of English, Linguistics, and Writing Studies, University of Minnesota Duluth); Kim Dauner (Associate Professor of Healthcare Management, Department of Economics and Healthcare Management, University of Minnesota Duluth); Julie Slowiak (Associate Professor of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota Duluth); and Kathryn Van Wert (Assistant Professor of English, Department of English, Linguistics, and Writing Studies, University of Minnesota Duluth)

An interdisciplinary team works with critical access hospitals in Ely, Grand Marais, Bigfork Valley, and…

Researcher: Lynette Renner (School of Social Work)

Intimate partner violence (IPV) includes physical, sexual, emotional, and economic abuse by an intimate partner. It affects more than one-third of all women can have harmful consequences on the health, well-being, and safety of individuals, families, and communities. Most courts in the U.S. mandate participation in batterers’ intervention programs (BIPs) as part of domestic violence/IPV convictions, yet most BIPs are never evaluated. The purpose of this community-engaged project is to evaluate the BIPs run through Domestic Abuse Project (DAP), a Minneapolis-based non-profit agency whose mission is to build…

Researcher: Bonnie Keeler (Humphrey School of Public Affairs)

Tribal communities face unique threats from environmental contaminants due to high reliance on subsistence foods and cultural uses. Tribes seeking to protect their lands and waters from contamination can seek federal authority to establish and enforce water quality standards. However, the process of asserting tribal authority to regulate surface waters is expensive, time consuming, and requires careful legal and political calculations. The proposed project will work in collaboration with three Minnesota tribes to document past successes and challenges in asserting authority to regulate and protect…

Renewing the Countryside is a nonprofit organization that strengthens rural areas by championing and supporting rural communities, farmers, artists, entrepreneurs, educators, activists and other people who are renewing the countryside through sustainable and innovative initiatives, businesses, and projects.

In 2022-23, CURA partnered with Renewing the Countryside and a student researcher to study agricultural easements as a policy tool to preserve agricultural land in Minnesota. Agricultural easements protect the long-term viability of the nation’s food supply by preventing conversion of productive working lands to non-agricultural uses. Land protected by agricultural land…

Hennepin County contracted with CURA to convene an Anti-Displacement Work Group that centered community voices and brought together diverse stakeholders to study and recommend anti-displacement strategies to help ensure the value of light rail will benefit current corridor residents, and minimize physical, cultural, and economic displacement.

After meeting for more than a year, the work group published their recommendations in May 2023 for public review.

Read the recommendations report

Blue Line Extension Anti-displacement report (PDF)

Share your input…

Researchers: Madelaine Cahuas (College of Liberal Arts, Department of Geography, Environment and Society) and Jessica Lopez Lyman (College of Liberal Arts, Department of Chicano and Latino Studies)

This study analyzes Latina/o/x displacement and access to affordable housing for families whose children attend two charter schools—Academia Cesar Chavez (Eastside St. Paul) and El Colegio High School (South Minneapolis). Since these schools’ mission and vision are dependent on centering Latina/o/x identity and culture, the potential gentrification of these neighborhoods could lead to decreased enrollments and severe consequences for the schools such as…

Researchers: Dr. Ed Brands (Associate Professor of Environmental Studies, Division of the Social Sciences, University of Minnesota Morris) and Dr. Cristina Ortiz (Associate Professor of Anthropology, Division of the Social Sciences, University of Minnesota Morris)

Although the majority of food is produced in sparsely populated rural areas, food insecurity in these same areas is pervasive, likely increasing, and understudied. We propose a five-county regional food systems assessment, coincident with the Horizon Public Health Service area in West-Central Minnesota. This assessment will employ a variety of quantitative (e.g. survey) and qualitative (e.g.…

Researcher: Elizabeth Wrigley-Field (College of Liberal Arts, Department of Sociology, Minnesota Population Center, Institute for Social Research and Data Innovation)

2020 marked a major upheaval in how racial stratification and neighborhood socioeconomic deprivation (e.g., neighborhood poverty rates) intersect in structuring mortality risk in Minnesota. Before the Covid-19 pandemic, racial stratification in mortality aligned strongly with neighborhood deprivation. The early pandemic changed that. But what has happened since and what is happening now? Has Minnesota returned to its pre-pandemic patterns of inequity, has it maintained the new…