Targets' Tip develops onsite and virtual discipline-specific educational packages together with software applications (apps) on academic bullying and harassment. The combination of discipline-specific educational videos and the extracted aggregate data from the apps enables Targets' Tip to provide a functional tool for institutions and other academic stakeholders (e.g., funding agencies and gatekeepers) to improve their organizational health.
Our central mission is to increase awareness and knowledge of the scientific workforce about academic bullying and harassment; so, targets and bystanders of academic bullying and harassment can employ the learned knowledge to protect themselves and others while helping academic stakeholders to improve their organizational health.
Targets' Tip is committed to providing a safe and supportive environment for targets to share their stories and experiences, in addition to providing them with third party resources and tools they need to heal and move forward. We are also committed to providing a safe and supportive environment for bystanders to learn about the problem of academic harassment, and to provide them with the resources and tools they need to become active allies in the fight against academic bullying and harassment.
Academic harassment is a serious, yet unresolved, issue that affects both targets (e.g., college students, postdocs and faculties of various ranks) and the people around them and the scientific community. Academic harassment can cause complex mental and physical disorders, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and severe cardiovascular disease. The prevalence of academic harassment is greather than 30% in the US. The poor response to academic harassment by institutional entities and stakeholders (e.g., funding agencies and academic gatekeepers) is largely due to the lack of robust education and data in harassment types and their contextual behaviors. Surveys found that 2% of targets bullied and harassed in academia report it, mainly due to the fear of retaliation, job loss, visa cancellation, and/or mobbing (ganging-up against targets) behaviors. Left unresolved, academic bullying and harassment can affect scientific integrity and evolution of science and also the toxic behaviours can propagate to other sectors including industry.
The first step in solving a problem is bringing awareness to all the stakeholders that the problem exists; and then provide robust and effective education to all members of the stakeholders on how to recognize the problem and provide strategies to address it.
Through education and training, Targets' Tip aims to not only bring more awareness to the unresolved problem of academic bullying and harassment, but also newfound hope and support all members of scientific workforce including targets and bystanders. Targets' Tip's founders have been working in the field of academic bullying and harassment for many years and they proved that the lack of knowledge and robust training together with the lack of proper documentation of the cases and fear of retaliation are the main reason targets do not seek help. To meet these needs, Targets' Tip provides robust and effective educational courses and apps. For more information on our course curriculum, please click here.
Aside from the educational training course, Targets' Tip also provides two main apps to support targets of academic bullying and harassment:
The aggregate data from our applications will help to build out a comprehensive database of academic bullying and harassment cases, which will be used to identify patterns and trends in academic bullying and harassment in a discipline specific manner. Our hope is that this database will be used to inform the development of new policies and procedures to finally put an end on the age-old issue of academic bullying and harassment.
Dr. Morteza Mahmoudi is an Associate Professor at Michigan State University. Prior to coming Michigan State University, he was an Assistant Professor at Harvard University. His research focuses on investigating nanomedicine and academic bullying and harassment. He received postgraduate training from University College Dublin (Ireland), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (Switzerland), the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, Stanford School of Medicine, and Harvard Medical School. His studies on academic bullying and harassment have been published in top tier journals including Science, The Lancet, Nature, Nature Reviews Materials, and Nature Human Behaviour. He was among the highly cited researchers as reported by Clarivate Analytics in 2018, 2020, 2021, and 2022.
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Dr. Robert P. Dolan is a neuroscientist and learning scientist, and serves as principal of Diverse Learners Consulting which he founded in 2013. With his expertise in software development, instructional design, and user experience design, Bob designs, implements, and evaluates flexible and effective solutions for diverse learners, including those with disabilities and those from traditionally underserved communities. Prior to working in the educational technology field starting in 2000, Bob spent ten years in medical research and software engineering. He has served as principal investigator on multiple research and center grants funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the U.S. Department of Education, as well as private foundations, and he currently advises major educational publishers, ed tech developers, institutes of higher education, and state departments of education. Bob also serves as adjunct professor at Landmark College where he teaches educators about learning technologies appropriate for diverse learners. Formerly a target of academic bullying himself, he has been collaborating with Morteza Mahmoudi since 2022. Bob earned his B.S. in Biology from Cornell and his Ph.D. in Brain and Cognitive Science from MIT.
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Chris Landry is a filmmaker and communications strategist who works on issues of social, racial, and environmental justice. His most recent film, Not On This Land, tells the story of activists in Appalachia who successfully stopped a 600-mile pipeline after a 6-year fight. It is a Grand Jury nominee for best documentary at the 2023 Richmond International Film Festival. He lives in western Massachusetts.”
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Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Michigan State University.
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Yanping Lyu, Beijing, Beijing, China
Michael Monticciolo, New York, New York
Lydia Wibbelman, Huntington Woods, Michigan
Treasure Ogundiran, Ibadan, Oyo, Nigeria
Brandon Lam, Lansing, Michigan
Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Michigan State University.
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Lemmy Lin, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China
Logan Wolfe, Lansing, Michigan
Gigi Dauphinee, Midland, Michigan
Jacob Theobald, Brownstown, Michigan
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The Targets' Tip App is nearing completion and will be released soon. The application provides a user-friendly platform for secure documentation of academic harassment incidents, to make sure that no case goes unnoticed. Join the waitlist to be notified once we go live!