Cyrus P. Olsen III, D.Phil., subordinate prof of theology and spiritual studies astatine The University of Scranton, is co-director for a three-year interdisciplinary probe task that was awarded a $500,000 Templeton Grant. Dr. Olsen successful pictured successful Mweya, Uganda.
December 7, 2022
Cyrus P. Olsen III, D.Phil., subordinate prof of theology and spiritual studies astatine The University of Scranton, is portion of an inter-disciplinary squad of professors from Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School awarded a Templeton Foundation Grant. The multi-year assistance successful the magnitude of $500,000 funds probe connected however “social networks” among Ugandans includes one’s ancestors and whitethorn power health-seeking behaviour successful the discourse of encephalon health.
The task (Buffering, Porosity and Brain Health successful Uganda) is co-directed by Dr. Olsen and Ian Corbin, Ph.D., Harvard Medical School Faculty and co-director of the Human Network Initiative (HNI), an interdisciplinary probe halfway housed successful the Neurology Department of Brigham and Women’s Hospital. The 3rd subordinate of the U.S. probe squad is Amar Dhand, M.D., D.Phil., subordinate prof of neurology astatine Harvard Medical School and main researcher astatine the Dhand Lab, a objective neurology probe halfway specializing successful changeable wellness and societal web analytics, wherever Drs. Olsen and Corbin are objective observers.
“The probe is focused connected encephalon wellness of radical successful Kampala, Masaka and Bwindi/Buhoma, 3 cardinal locations made imaginable by Scranton’s 20 years of immersive education, created by Robin and Charles Pinches, named the Scranton-Uganda Partnership,” said Dr. Olsen. “It is to Dr. Pinches and his adjacent collaborators, Scott Kellermann, M.D., and Emmanuel Katongole, Ph.D., that the narration betwixt Uganda and Scranton remains cardinal to the University’s committedness to planetary education. The contiguous assistance is an outgrowth of that relationship.”
Dr. Olsen explained that the Dhand Lab and its subsidiary, HNI, widen societal web analytics into the regions of aesculapian anthropology, philosophy, sociology and religion. They are collaborating with the Dhand Lab and HNI to recognize however taste and spiritual factors interaction health-seeking behavior.
“Dr. Dhand’s planetary probe estimation with the National Institute for Health, among different assistance organizations, remains indispensable to the project,” said Dr. Olsen.
The probe project, titled “Buffering, Porosity and Brain Health successful Uganda,” is for the 2022-2025 period. Through the probe study, they volition cod and analyse empirical information connected diligent behaviour and societal connections of 50 participants successful Uganda to find the assorted ways that “social networks” interaction treatment-seeking actions. They volition besides attack the information collected from a theoretical position to make a mentation of the benefits and dangers of viewing humans arsenic “porous,” oregon readily influenced by extracurricular forces and actors, successful the discourse of healthcare.
“The applied imaginable of this mentation is to enactment the plan of culturally and contextually due encephalon wellness interventions,” according to the probe assistance proposal. Such interventions indispensable beryllium evidence-based and are portion of the aboriginal of the task aft this archetypal backing period. Their Ugandan probe assembly and collaborators passim the state volition usher the probe and guarantee section languages and customs are appropriately integrated into each plan and task execution.
For this world year, Dr. Olsen is connected permission from Scranton, serving arsenic the LoSchiavo Chair successful Catholic Social Thought astatine the University of San Francisco and a visiting student astatine the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley. He was named a chap astatine the Lonergan Institute astatine Boston College for the summertime of 2022.
At Scranton, helium was named an inaugural chap for the Gail and Francis Slattery Center for Ignatian Humanities for the outpouring 2021 semester. In 2017, Dr. Olsen received the University’s Excellence successful Advancing Interdisciplinary Study Award, which honors module members who transverse boundaries betwixt disciplines and departments to make innovative pedagogies that heighten students’ learning and hole them for real-world challenges.
A module subordinate astatine Scranton since 2006, Dr. Olsen has served connected galore committees and led aggregate projects during his tenure astatine Scranton. Most recently, helium served arsenic co-director, Health Humanities Concentration. He has published articles successful peer-reviewed world journals and has presented astatine much than a twelve nonrecreational conferences, meetings and workshops, galore of which were besides peer-reviewed. Additionally, helium is simply a adjacent reviewer for the National Endowment for the Humanities and a probe spouse with the Bethany Land Institute for an Esri Geo-information Systems assistance to representation onshore usage and reforestation successful Luweero, Uganda.
Dr. Olsen, received his bachelor’s grade from the University of Washington and some his master’s and doctorate degrees from the University of Oxford.
English (US)