Originally broadcast at 10:30 a.m. ET Thursday, August 5, 2021.

Courtney Cogburn is co-director of the Columbia School of Social Work’s Justice, Equity, Technology (JET) Lab, and the lead creator of “1000 Cut Journey,” an immersive virtual reality experience simulating the experience of Blacks facing racism, discrimination and systemic brutality. At Chautauqua, Cogburn will discuss the project, what she’s learned since it debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2018, and the potential of technology like VR to foster empathy.

In her scholarship, Cogburn employs a transdisciplinary research strategy to improve the characterization and measurement of racism and in examining the role of racism in the production of racial inequities in health. She is also conducting research exploring the use of emerging technologies, including computational social science, to examine patterns and psychosocial effects of cultural racism.

Cogburn is on the faculty of the Columbia Population Research Center and a core member of the Data Science Institute, where she co-chairs the Computational Social Science working group. She also serves as a faculty affiliate of the Center on African American Politics and Society. Before postdoctoral training at Harvard University in the Robert Wood Johnson Health & Society Scholar Program and at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan, she received her Ph.D. in education and psychology and MSW from the University of Michigan, and her bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Virginia.

This program is made possible by Phyllis Schultz and Matt Gromet.

About Chautauqua Institution: Chautauqua Institution is a community on the shores of Chautauqua Lake in southwestern New York state that comes alive each summer with a unique mix of fine and performing arts, lectures, interfaith worship and programs, and recreational activities. As a community, we celebrate, encourage and study the arts and treat them as integral to all of learning, and we convene the critical conversations of the day to advance understanding through civil dialogue. CHQ Assembly is the online expression of Chautauqua Institution's mission.