On September 19, 2024, Colin Wayne Leach, professor of psychology and Africana studies, was named a recipient of Incite Institute’s Breakdown/(Re)generation Grant.
Incite is a Columbia University interdisciplinary research institute committed to creating knowledge for public action. The institute’s Breakdown/(Re)generation Grant supports Columbia University Arts and Sciences initiatives related to breakdowns in the social and natural worlds.
With this grant, Leach will lead a multi-disciplinary team of researchers, including Barnard post-doctoral scholar, Shaunette T. Ferguson and Columbia psychology doctoral student, Nikhi Anand. Together, the team will work to better understand how Black Lives Matter, the movement and the meme, move people for, against, and away from racial justice in the U.S. and U.K. In particular, Leach and his colleagues will examine the use of Black Lives Matter in online discussions of racial justice following the 2020 murder of George Floyd in comparison to earlier periods. With their work, Leach and his team hope to promote a deeper understanding of the system dynamics of racial justice discussions and shed light on avenues for meaningful change.