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Eight University professors received $25,000 grants as part of their inaugural Harvard Impact Labs fellowships to launch social science projects in collaboration with public and private sector leaders.

The Impact Labs, housed at the Harvard Kennedy School, will also support sabbatical semesters in the public sector for Ingrid Bassett of Harvard Medical School, who will pilot vaccine communication strategies, and Faculty of Arts and Sciences professor Alisha C. Holland, who plans to spend her time in Argentina, serving on the President’s Council of Advisors.

Four of the projects will address public health-related issues, including immigrant eligibility for government assistance programs, malnutrition in Sub-Saharan Africa, and access to stroke treatment. Other fellowship recipients include law school professors Andrew M. Crespo ’05 — who will study the rights of journalists to report in prisons — and Christine A. Desan, who will explore ways to better finance small businesses and local government.

HKS faculty Danielle Allen and Jeffrey Liebman launched the Impact Labs initiative in March to help social scientists connect their research to governments and help implement their recommendations. The Impact Labs mirrors a similar program at Stanford, developed by current HKS Dean Jeremy Weinstein while he was teaching on the West Coast.

In addition to the 10-month fellowships and the public service sabbaticals, the lab plans to announce start-up funding grants of up to $500,000 in the spring for faculty to implement their proposals.

For faculty, the lab offers a new funding stream at a time when spare grants are hard to come by at Harvard. Though some research grants have begun to flow back after a judge ruled the Trump administration’s funding freeze was unconstitutional, the University is still contending with large-scale grant cuts and a recent endowment tax hike.

In the public health sphere, Harvard School of Public Health professor Wafaie W. Fawzi will use the grant money to provide sustainable school meals at scale in Ethiopia, while HSPH professor Rita Hamad ’03 will address gaps in the social safety net for immigrants the the U.S., and Harvard Medical School professor Sandeep Kumar will work on expanding access to treatment for strokes.

Fellowships were also awarded to Graduate School of Education professor Sarah E. Dryden-Peterson ’97, who will work with schools to better support refugee children; HKS professor David Pedulla, who will help employers implement fair hiring practices; and Patrick Slade, a bioengineering professor who will refine health data collection in Peru.

Liebman said the lab received 40 faculty applications across the three initiatives after they launched in March.

“It’s exciting because this is all about putting Harvard’s research and expertise to work for society,” Liebman said. “It’s exciting that there’s so many faculty who want to do this kind of research.”

The lab also serves to create public ties to Harvard scholarship as universities across the country are criticized for their insularity. The Trump administration in particular has argued Harvard does not provide enough benefit to the country to warrant its federal funding.

“The initiative wasn’t designed because of this particular moment,” Liebman said. “At all moments, it’s imperative that we do as much as we can to take advantage of the expertise and research skills of Harvard faculty and students to try to benefit society.”

The lab was funded for a two-year pilot phase by Julian C. Baker ’88, a member of the Kennedy School Dean’s Executive Board — a group of established donors who advise the dean. Liebman said the lab will likely become a permanent initiative.

“We have strong indications that this will continue, assuming that we demonstrate, as we have in this first round, that there is tremendous faculty interest in this activity,” Liebman said.

—Staff writer Elise A. Spenner can be reached at elise.spenner@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X at @EliseSpenner.