University of Wisconsin–Madison

Year: 2026

Junior Conference

Tuesday, June 16, 2026 10:00am – 12:00pm Location: Multicultural Greek Council Room, Memorial Union On Tuesday, June 16th, IDS will host the second annual spring IDS Junior Conference, a fast-paced interdisciplinary conference featuring research conducted by IDS Graduate Fellows. Schedule9:45-10:10 am: Registration, networking (coffee, tea, snacks)10:10-10:50 am: First session of talks 10:50-11:10 am: Break, networking (coffee, tea)11:10-11:50 am: …

Human Capital and Racial and Ethnic Gaps in Mid-Life Labor Market Outcomes: Evidence from High School and Beyond 1980

Economics of Education Review (2026) Authors: Soobin Kim, Michael J. Culbertson, Eric Grodsky, Chandra Muller, John Robert Warren Abstract: We document the role of premarket human capital in explaining racial and ethnic income disparities in labor market outcomes for individuals from their late 20s to mid-50s. Using comprehensive measures of the human capital students possess …

Why Expert Advising Matters for College Access

Brookings (2026) Authors: Isabel McMullen and Taylor Odle Abstract: States are increasingly seeking ways to invest in programs that strengthen the workforce and widen the pipeline of those entering college and other career preparation programs. One type of intervention, college advising and coaching, is designed to help students navigate the complex college-going process. Using a statewide advising program …

Best Practices to Promote the Success of Students of Color: Insights From a New Type of Climate Survey

Frontiers in Education (2026) Authors: Kamila Redd, Kevin Kennedy, Markus Brauer Abstract:  Despite attempts to promote inclusion in STEM, disparities in belonging, academic achievement, and experiences of discrimination persist between students of color and their White peers. In alignment with the Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation’s (LSAMP) focus to better understand the factors contributing to …

Normative Discrimination and the Gender Binary: Negative Evaluations of People with Nonconventional Pronouns

Social Psychology Quarterly (2026) Authors: Chloe Grace Hart, Aliya Saperstein, Shelley J. Correll Abstract: Pronoun sharing has become a common inclusion practice in U.S. schools and workplaces. Drawing on normative discrimination theories, however, we predict that pronoun sharing can lead to negative evaluations of people who share nonconventional pronouns. In a preregistered survey experiment (N = 1,516), …

Study Finds Strong Social Ties Among Low-Income Urban Families May Limit Use of Government Aid

For many low-income families, the first call for help doesn’t go to the government — it goes to a relative, a neighbor, or a community organization. A new study by IDS affiliate Denia Garcia of UW-Madison’s La Follette School of Public Affairs suggests that families that have access to these informal supports, or forms of …

Refusal as Silence: Gendered disparities in Vision-Language Model Responses

 New Media and Society (2026) Authors: Sha Luo, Sang Jung Kim, Zening Duan, Kaiping Chen Abstract: Refusal behavior by Large Language Models (LLMs) is increasingly visible in content moderation, yet little is known about how refusals vary by the identity of the user making the request. This study investigates refusal as a sociotechnical outcome through a …

Karumbaiah receives Vilas Early-Career Investigator Award

IDS affiliate Shamya Karumbaiah was one of 48 University of Wisconsin-Madison faculty recently honored with a Vilas Award. Karumbaiah, an assistant professor in the Department of Educational Psychology in the Learning Sciences area. Karumbaiah studies human-centered AI for teaching and learning with the aim to augment human intelligence. Her current research focuses on constructing a …

Moral Framing in AI-Mediated Communication: Exploration of LLM Effects on Engagement Patterns Among Black Americans

Journal of Interactive Advertising (2026) Authors: Kristen L. Sussman, Lucy Atkinson, Joshua Anderson, Lillie Williamson, Sean Upshaw,  and Jean-Louis Ntang Bebe Abstract: Artificial intelligence (AI) technology is widely used in social media to offer personalized experiences and shape user engagement, but questions persist about AI’s potential. Due to the nascency of the technologies, little understanding …

Is Your Chatbot a Tourist or a Townie? Quantifying Geographic and Localness Disparities in LLM Representations of Place

Proceedings of the ACM Human-Computer Interaction (2026) Authors: Zihan Gao and Jacob Thebault-Spieker Abstract: People are increasingly using Large Language Models (LLMs) for a sense of “localness,” yet their ability to accurately and equitably represent local knowledge remains unexamined. To investigate this, we conducted a large-scale evaluation using a benchmark of over 12,000 question-answer pairs spanning …