Dr. Jennifer Sclafani has received a Policy Across Disciplines Award from the John W. McCormack School for Policy and Global Studies and the College of Liberal Arts at UMass Boston to engage in interdisciplinary research with colleague Dr. Peter Federman, Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Public Affairs. The $10,000 grant will fund their research project, “Investigating Policy Discourse and Dialogue: Housing Insecurity and Substance Abuse at the (Literal) Intersection of Mass and Cass.”In this project, Sclafani and Federman will incorporate critical sociolinguistic and public policy perspectives to examine how public discourse informs policy implementation and outcomes related to Boston’s housing and public health crises, with an eye toward illuminating effective ways to strategically communicate urban policy initiatives in response to these problems. The ultimate goal of their project is to improve policy making practices not only in local government, but in cities across the US with populations undergoing similar hardships related to mental health, substance use, and lack of housing.