We’re excited to announce that ScienceOfRelationships.com is helping to support and promote an important research project that is being conducted by our colleague, Dr. Karen Blair, at the University of Utah. Or, more precisely, this work will be conducted with your help. Please keep reading to learn more about the project and find out what you can do to ensure that this research happens.

Karen is a post-doctoral fellow working with Dr. Lisa Diamond; many of you know that Dr. Diamond is a leading researcher in the field of sexuality, psychophysiology and same-sex relationships. Karen is crowdfunding her research on prejudice towards LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer) individuals, with the goal of developing interventions to reduce hate-based violence and crime. Friends, this is really important work that we should all care about. Rather than us telling you about her research, you can hear Karen describe it in her own words in the short video below (or click here to read about it).

What’s “crowdfunding”? Well, as we recently learned, it means that the research will move forward if we, as a community of folks that care about this sort of work, band together to make it happen. You might have heard of Kickstarter, where inventors and innovators can fund the production of their gizmos with the help of consumers. Karen is using Microryza, the scholarly equivalent of Kickstarter, to raise funds to support her research. She’s working towards a goal of $7,500 to pay for the cost of her project, and with all of our help we can make sure she is able to conduct her research.

If every fan of ScienceOfRelationships.com donated just $1, Karen would reach her goal. But, of course, please consider supporting her research with more than that if you can afford to. We just contributed, and hope that you will too.

You can read Karen’s articles on SofR here, and please take this opportunity to learn more about her research here, or in the video below.

The Psychophysiology of Prejudice: Combatting Hate Crimes with Science from Karen Blair on Vimeo.