USAID | Notre Dame Global Development Fellowships
2016 Profiles
USAID | Notre Dame Global Development Fellowships How can we engage communities and families to promote the literacy skills of students in under-resourced schools? How can we use genetically modified mosquitoes to reduce the burden of dengue and other mosquito-borne diseases? How can leaders in Muslim, Christian and indigenous communities utilize their role in civil society to engage communities through a peace process? How can we use mobile phones to increase surveillance of palliative care services? These are just a few of the questions that Notre Dame students are researching while abroad during the 2016–2017 academic year. The Notre Dame Initiative for Global Development is working with the U.S. Global Development Lab to offer research and innovation fellowships to graduate students. Focused on science, technology, and social sciences, the program’s goal is to solve development challenges through innovative research.
2016 fellow academic programs
1 Anthropology 1 Computer science 1 Education 1 English 2 Global health 2 Peace studies 2 Political science 1 Sociology 2 Theology
USAID | Notre Dame Global Development Fellowships allow students to work with cutting edge scientists, scholars, and innovators from around the globe, and provide the opportunity to form new and lasting professional networks.
From efficient data dissemination to disease prevention, education to peace, this year’s Fellows are working with local organizations, research labs, and universities in Cambodia, Colombia, El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, India, Mexico, Philippines, South Africa, South Sudan, and Uganda for two to twelve months. Their work is poised to leave a lasting impact on the world.
Anderson
Corriston
Coldwell
Dillon
Kathryn Anderson Masters Student, Global Health • Kampala, Uganda Palliative Care Surveillance: Kathryn is working with a team from Palliative Care Association of Uganda to scale up a mhealth palliative care surveillance in Uganda. The team is using smartphones to collect data at 10 health facilities in Uganda. Katie will be testing if the application collects quality data and if it is acceptable to health care providers. The data collected will be analyzed to identify areas for further investigation through quantitative means and GIS mapping. Katherine Coldwell Masters Student, Peace Studies • Davao, Philippines Peace and Reconciliation Program: Katie will be working with Catholic Relief Services as they implement a peace building project (BRIDGE Mindanao) targeting key people within Christian, Muslim and Indigenous communities in violence-prone and polarized areas in Mindanao. Katie will be mapping and profiling dialogue and reconciliation efforts among these interreligious communities. Through her work, she will develop a peacebuilding assessment for CRS and local partner organizations.
Kelsie Corriston Masters Student, Education • Port-au-Prince, Haiti Community Literacy Intervention: Together with the Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE) Haiti and the Basil Moreau School in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Kelsie will be implementing a pilot intervention consisting of volunteer-driven after school reading camps. Through her research, she will evaluate the effectiveness of community mobilization as well as monitor the after school reading camps. The goal is to implement this intervention at a larger scale in summer of 2017. John Dillon Post-Doctoral Fellow, English/Learning Analytics • Bangalore, India Smarter Education Initiative: John will be working at IBM Research Lab in Bangalore, India focusing on the importance of affect in online learning platforms, namely Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). Specifically, he is interested in learning more about how we describe, predict, and intervene learning based on student emotion in online learning environments such as those provided by edX, Coursera, and Udacity. For example, if we detect that a student is bored or frustrated, how do we use data-driven interventions and learning personalization to promote positive learning emotions? Janna Hunter-Bowman PhD Student, Peace Studies and Theology •
Bogota, Colombia Theology, Peacebuilding and Reconciliation: Based in Bogota, Colombia at Javeriana University, Janna will be exploring moral factors that have enabled transitions from violence to peace in the height of the war in Colombia. She will be examining moral visions embedded in particular communities as resources to withstand what is to come and avoid renewed war.
Newton
Lederach Hunter-Bowman
McColman
Nida
Angela Lederach PhD Student, Anthropology and Peace Studies • El Carmen de Bolivar (and Cartagena), Colombia The Participation of Youth in Social Movements and Peacebuilding in zones of conflict in Colombia: How do youth explain their engagement in peace activism in contexts of open violence and repression? This is one of the questions that Angela is seeking to answer through her research in Colombia. Specifically, she is examining why and how youth actively build peace in their communities following years of unrest and armed conflict. Angela will be conducting ethnographic fieldwork in the Alta Montaña del Carmen de Bolívar, Colombia. Leslie McColman PhD Student, Peace Studies and Sociology • Tegucigalpa, Honduras Safer Municipalities: Leslie, will be working with the Monitoring and Evaluation Unit of the Honduran Fund for Social Development (FHIS) to research the impacts of a large, multi-site violence prevention project. Her goal is to track change processes in several urban neighborhoods, document project impacts, and systematize lessons learned.
Christopher Newton Recent Graduate, MAJOR? • Juba, South Sudan Technical support in Monitoring and Evaluation: Chris will be analyzing M&E systems of AVSI – South Sudan with a goal of providing technical assistance to AVSI in how they conduct monitoring and evaluation in South Sudan. He will assess one of AVSI’s past projects, as a case study, in order to derive recommendations for AVSI-South Sudan. The USAID Fellowship continues work that Chris did for a year previously as an International Development Fellow with the Kellogg Institute for International Studies. John Nida Masters Student, Global Health • Tapachula, Chiapas, Mexico Use of Genetically Modified Mosquitoes for Dengue Control in Mexico: working in collaboration with the Centro Regional de Investigación en Salud Pública in Tapachula, Chiapas, México, John is investigating how effective it is to use genetically modified male mosquitoes to fight dengue. The genetically modified male mosquitoes will be released to mate with wild female mosquitoes. All offspring as a result of such mating will die due to a lethal gene that is passed on. This research could help introduce a new strategy capable of greatly reducing the burden of dengue and other mosquito-borne diseases.
gdf.nd.edu
Peters
Schousboe
Takawi
Thomann
Sarah Peters PhD student, Political Science • San Salvador, El Salvador State building in post-civil war environments: Sarah will be investigating how recent internal armed conflict affects the subsequent capacity of state institutions to provide public health care and education, and to effectively respond to crime and violence. She will be working with Glasswing International in San Salvador, El Salvador. Glasswing International is a non-profit organization that aims to prevent youth from participating in gangs and violence by empowering communities and investing in existing public infrastructure. Karen Schousboe Masters Student, Peace Studies • Phnom Penh, Cambodia Reflection Circles as a tool for building community: How do you effectively deal with inter-religious conflict? This is one of the questions that Karen will be seeking answers for while working in partnership with the Sarus Bangladesh-Myanmar Exchange Program. The goal of this program is to dispel stereotypes and build mutual understanding between young women leaders from the two neighboring countries that have in recent years seen a dramatic increase in inter-religious conflict.
Mourad Takawi PhD Student, Theology • Craighall, South Africa The state, communal boundaries, and religious violence: Mourad’s research is focusing on the various dynamics between various Christian and Muslim groups in the Middle East. His research will make recommendations on how members of this community can respond to and even prevent conditions that give rise to sectarian violence. His research will also contribute towards understanding deliberate efforts by state and non-state parties to construct religious boundaries between different groups.
Margaret Thomann Hesburgh Yusko Scholar, Computer Science •
Stellenbosch, South Africa Using mobile applications to promote access to health and education resources: Maggie will be working with the Reach Trust in Stellenbosch, South Africa. Her research aims to enhance the gathering of data from reach Trust’s existing mobile applications. These applications focus on supporting low income communities to access health and education resources. She will also be looking into developing new applications that specifically promote stronger STEM education.
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