Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) Americans may at times feel as though they’re invisible. An estimated 3 million of them live in the U.S. yet have no box to mark their identities on government forms, such as the Census, and other surveys. Professor Neda Maghbouleh, who has spent years studying the exclusion faced by MENA Americans, laid out how the misrepresentation of their race impacts their lives. She explained what steps need to be taken to increase visibility for those who fall in the MENA category as well as what changes are already underway – thanks to efforts by Magbouleh and her colleagues René D. Flores and Ariela Schachter. 

For more on this topic:

Check out Neda Maghbouleh’s OpEd in Newsweek, coauthored by René D. Flores and Ariela Schachter: 5 Years After Muslim Ban, Middle Eastern and North African Americans Remain Hidden.

Read an interview with Maghbouleh conducted by the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights: Why a MENA Category Matters.

In the American school system, math and science are considered essential building blocks of a good education. But for many students, those building blocks can topple over somewhere along the way. We spoke to Professor Lara Perez-Felkner, who laid out invisible barriers faced by racially minoritized and economically disadvantaged students pursuing STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics). Perez-Felkner discussed ways that school administrators, policymakers, and families can come together to remove these barriers and increase opportunity –  all the way from kindergarten classrooms to college laboratories. 

For more on this topic:

Check out Lara Perez-Felkner’s SSN brief: Transforming Opportunity to Support STEM Success for All. 

Read her paper, co-authored by Samantha Nix: Difficulty Orientations, Gender, and Race/Ethnicity: An Intersectional Analysis of Pathways to STEM Degrees

Gone are the days of file cabinets, wall calendars and phone books, as advances in technology have made storing information easier than ever. But given a slew of high-profile data breaches in recent years – both at governmental agencies and private companies – cybersecurity is quickly becoming one of the most pressing issues facing our country. How can our government better protect against increasingly sophisticated cyber attacks? And how might these data breaches impact the lives of everyday Americans? Professor Jeremy Straub answered these questions and more, emphasizing what needs to happen to prevent a truly catastrophic data breach – and what such a breach could mean for the world. 

For more on this topic:

Check out Jeremy Straub’s SSN brief: Cybersecurity Incidents Can Be Unwelcome Wakeup Calls for Unprepared Agencies.  

Read his paper: Defining, Evaluating, Preparing for and Responding to a Cyber Pearl Harbor.