Erin Courtney

Radio/Television/Film, School of Communication

J.P. Sniadecki

Radio/Television/Film, School of Communication

J.P. Sniadecki received a Fulbright U.S. Scholar Pre-Application Travel Grant in 2023. With our support, J.P. was able to travel to Taiwan to meet with representatives of the Taiwanese International Documentary Festival and the Taiwan Film Archive as well as with Taiwanese filmmakers. During his pre-application travel in Taiwan, he conducted field research on this sphere of cultural production and fostered a network film scholars, archivists and filmmakers to support his application to the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program. Through the program, J.P. seeks to study how Taiwanese documentary film practitioners, particularly the growing number of Indigenous filmmakers in the country, depict precarity with respect to culture, geopolitics and ecology.

Wen-pin Hsieh

Asian Languages & Cultures, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences

Masi Asare

Theatre, School of Communication

Masi Asare received a Global Connections Seed Grant in 2023. With our support, Masi was able to collaborate with Emilio Méndez from Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México UNAM to launch a new research project on the topic “The Musical-Theatrical Global South.” The project seeks to mobilize the organizing principle of the global south to catalyze productive conversations about musical stages and screens beyond the mythic and hegemonic spaces of Broadway, Hollywood, and the West End. Additionally, it seeks to surface insights into local expressions of musical- theatrical forms and allow for comparative study and cross-pollination of practices, displacing unspoken beliefs in the Anglocentric and exceptionalist nature of “the musical.”

Lydia Barnett

History, Weinberg College of Arts & Sciences

Lydia Barnett received a Global Connections Seed Grant in 2023 to facilitate research on wetlands management, climate change, and local ecological knowledge in the premodern past. With our support, Lydia was able to facilitate collaboration with Paolo Forlin from the University of Bologna toward surveying wetlands communities across the 18th-century Atlantic World, from Mexico City to New England to Ireland to Italy.

Bernard Black

Pritzker School of Law

Bernard Black received a Global Connections Seed Grant in 2023. With our support, Bernard was able to collaborate with Professor Amnon Reichman and Professor Lital Keinan-Boker at University of Haifa in Israel. The study explores an array of health policy issues related to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic using the nationwide dataset available from the Ministry of Health, known as TIMNA.

Tracy Davis

Performance Studies, School of Communication

Tracy Davis received a Global Connections Seed Grant in 2023. With our support, Tracy was able to facilitate the international gathering of faculty and students from Northwestern, University of Cologne, University of Ghana, University of Tel Aviv, Jawaharlal Nehru University, and Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile at Europe’s largest theatre collection, the Theaterwissenschaft Sammlung (TWS) of the University of Cologne for a one-week summer institute. At the summer institute, faculty will lead discussions of common readings and students will explore theatre translation and untranslatability issues when various embodied languages meet on stage, working on translated canonical texts from different cultural backgrounds as well as traditions. Faculty will also support students in preparing presentations through group work and connecting concepts to their own research.

Erin Delaney

Pritzker School of Law

Erin Delaney received a Global Connections Seed Grant in 2023 to advance the Constitutional Heroines Project, a project explores the role of female judicial leadership in comparative constitutional governance. With our support, Erin was able to facilitate the in-person gathering of over sixty scholars from around the world to collaborate on this book and to cement relationships that have been sustained previously through virtual gatherings. The aim of this Project is to document this development and investigate its relationship to ideas about institutional leadership and notions of female and feminist leadership.

Lisa Hirschhorn

Feinberg School of Medicine

Lisa Hirschhorn received a Global Connections Seed Grant in 2023. With our support, Lisa was able to collaborate with Professor Justine Davies from the University of Birmingham to explore the ethics of household surveys studying the incidence and burden and healthcare of non-communicable diseases (NCDs, such as hypertension and diabetes) in settings where access and availability of needed care is limited or non-existent. The goal of our proposed collaboration is to learn from other diseases where the work to measure burden of disease preceded availability of treatment (for example, in HIV) and ethical and study design changes needed regarding NCD-focused work.

Jennifer Lackey

Philosophy, Weinberg College of Arts Weinberg College of Arts & Sciences

Jennifer Lackey received a Global Connections Seed Grant in 2023. With our support, Jennifer was able to collaborate with Professor Veli Mitova from the University of Johannesburg and Professor Cameron Boult from Brandon University to host a conference that will focus on how First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples in Canada have suffered epistemic disempowerment as a direct result of the Canadian Government’s efforts at assimilation. This conference will take place at Quamajuq in Winnipeg, Manitoba, home of the largest collection of contemporary Inuit art in the world, and a site of epistemic reparations.

Alina Lungeanu, Leslie DeChurch, and Noshir Contractor

Communication Studies, School of Communication

Alina Lungeanu, Leslie DeChurch, and Noshir Contractor (jointly awarded) received a Global Connections Seed Grant in 2023 to establish a new collaboration to research digital nomadism and its promising implications toward advancing UN Sustainable Development Goal 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth. With our support, Alina, Leslie, and Noshir were able to colloaborate with Fabiola Bertolotti and Francesca Bellesia, both organizational scholars at Universita’ degli Studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia. The project explores digital nomadism in three popular Italian hubs for digital nomads: Milan, Rome, and Florence, and three relatively rural locations, the small villages of Pienza, Orvieto, and Cortona.

J.P. Sniadecki

Radio/Television/Film, School of Communication

J.P. Sniadecki received a Global Connections Seed Grant in 2023 to develop a collaboration between Northwestern University's interdisciplinary creative community and the independent Chinese filmmaking community supported by Fanhall Films, the leading independent film organization in China today. With our support, JP was able to collaborate with Rikun Zhu, founder and director of Fanhall Films, to support three goals: the translation of new works of independent cinema from China for distribution across universities and cultural spaces globally; inviting Chinese filmmakers to visit Northwestern and share their works; the hosting of a 16mm film workshop at Fanhall in Beijing, China as a response to the historical and continued state monopoly on the use and distribution of 16mm film in China.

Busra Soylemez-Karakoc

Political Science, Weinberg College of Arts & Sciences

Busra Soylemez-Karakoc received a Global Connections Seed Grant in 2023. With our support, Busra was able to establish an international research collaboration amongst The Center for Research on Globalization, Peace, and Democratic Governance (GLODEM Center) based at Koç University, Turkey, The Argentine Council for International Relations (CARI) based at Argentina, and the Northwestern University. The motivational impetus for this project is to conduct a comparative study that unpacks changing blame patterns for the contemporary inflation crises in Argentina and Turkey. The project is very timely because both countries had over 80% inflation rates as of August 2022 for the first time in three decades and have a scheduled presidential election in 2023.

Daniel Abrams

Engineering Sciences and Applied Mathematics, McCormick School of Engineering

Daniel Abrams received a Global Connections Seed Grant in 2022. With our support, Daniel was able to collaborate with Professor Anchana Thancharoen at Kasetsart University in Thailand. Daniel’s collaborative research aims to spark new insights at the intersection of wildlife conservation, art, and mathematics.

Danielle Beverly

Radio/Television/Film, School of Communication

Danielle Beverly received a Global Connections Seed Grant in 2022. With our support, Danielle began a formal collaboration with Dr. Nazanin Shahrokni at The London School of Economics and Political Science. Together, their work seeks to engage with the UN Sustainable Development Goal 5: Gender Equality, through a film project that follows a Doha rhythmic gymnastics team for girls aged 9-15. The engagement and analysis of the film by scholars focused on gender and the Middle East is the foundation of this collaborative effort.

Jordan Gans-Morse

Political Science, Weinberg College of Arts & Sciences

Jordan Gans-Morse received a Global Connections Seed Grant in 2022 in support of his project on “Collecting Real-Time Data During Wartime” in collaboration with Tymofii Brik from the Kyiv School of Economics in Ukraine. With our support, Jordan conducted five different surveys on local Ukranian perspectives on issues relating to the Russian-Ukraine war.  The surveys serve to bring in resources to Ukrainians, allow the research team to gather information for those seeking to provide aid to Ukrainians, and facilitate the collecting of data for policy-relevant academic projects on topics such as the influence of Russian state propaganda and more.

Leah Neubauer

Feinberg School of Medicine

Leah Neubauer received a Global Connections Seed Grant in 2022 and collaborated with Dr. Biyaya Nwankwo at the University of Abuja (UoA). With our support, Leah was able to initiate a new education-focused partnership that will support faculty and student training, research, and engagement opportunities with the Master of Public Health (MPH) program at UoA. The project is aligned with UN Sustainable Development Goal 3: Good Health and Well Being and Goal 4: Quality Education, focusing on advancing health/well-being by increasing access to high-quality public health education and training.

Ana Arjona

Political Science, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences

Ana Arjona received the Global Connections Seed Grant in 2021. With our support, Ana conducted fieldwork on the legacies of civil war. The data collected through this project also supported the dissertation work of two graduate students who were part of this research team. Addressing UN Sustainable Development Goal no. 16: Peace, Justice and Strong institutions, Ana's research focusses on democratization in post war societies and everyday life of communities. 

Erin Delaney

Pritzker School of Law

Erin Delaney received the Global Connections Seed Grant in 2021. With our support, Erin organized a conference on institutional and jurisprudential contributions of female judicial leaders in the constitutional sphere. Addressing UN Sustainable Development Goal no. 5: Gender Equality, this project explored ideas about judicial and female leadership within institutional contexts using comparative case-studies.

Nancy Loeb

Pritzker School of Law

Nancy Loeb and her colleague, Juliet Sorensen received the Global Connections Seed Grant in 2021. With our support, they attended COP26 UN Climate Change Conference and participate in the “blue zone” events where climate experts, campaigners, policy makers and world leaders debate how to make global progress on climate change. They represented Northwestern Access to Health Project, the Center for International Human Rights, and the Environmental Advocacy Center. Addressing UN Sustainable Development Goal no. 13: Climate Action and Goal no. 17: Partnerships for the goals, Nancy and Juliet used this conference as an opportunity for advocacy, coalition building, and organized an event for Northwestern’s community partners at this conference.

Reynaldo Morales

Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications

Reynaldo Morales received the Global Connections Seed Grant in 2021. With our support, Reynaldo attended COP26 UN Climate Change Conference as a part of International Indigenous Peoples Forum on Climate Change (IIPFCC). Reynaldo attended this conference both as observer of the Buffett Institute of Global Affairs and representing the Peruvian Amazonian Tribal Council Shipibo-Konibo-Xetebo at the negotiations for Article 6 of the Paris Agreement at COP26. Addressing UN Sustainable Development Goal no. 13: Climate Action and Goal no. 17: Partnerships for the goals, Morales developed partnerships for case studies at this conference which inspired his ongoing documentary projects and research on global indigenous media networks.

Kalyan Nadiminti

English, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences

Emrah Yildiz

Anthropology, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences

Melissa Blanco Borelli

Theatre, School of Communication

Melissa Blanco Borelli received a Virtual International Visitors Grant in 2023 to host Tia-Monique Uzor from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in the United Kingdom. Uzor is a dance scholar and practitioner who writes and publishes around issues of identity, cultural traffic, popular culture and women within African and African Diasporic Dance. During her virtual visits, which spanned across four days, Uzor met with senior faculty in the Department of Performance Studies at the Northwestern School of Communication and gave guest lectures on dance and digital archives for the department’s dance program and Professor Blanco Borelli’s graduate seminar, “Bodies, Theories, Performance.”

Thomas Bradshaw

Radio/Television/Film, School of Communication

Thomas Bradshaw received a Virtual International Visitors Grant in 2023 to host Manuel Muńoz Rivas from the CHAVÓN School of Art and Design in the Dominican Republic. During his virtual visits, Muńoz Rivas shared his expertise in screenwriting, editing and directing with graduate students in the Department of Radio/Television/Film at the Northwestern School of Communication, holding a masterclass as well as one-on-one studio visits.

Thomas DeFrantz

Performance Studies, School of Communication

Thomas DeFrantz received a Virtual International Visitors Grant in 2023 to host Elizabeth Jochum, a faculty member of the Erasmus Mundus European Masters of Excellence Program in Media Arts Cultures as well as co-founder of the Robots, Art, People and Performance (RAPP) Lab in Denmark. During her virtual visits, which spanned across a week, Jochum met with Northwestern faculty members and gave a lecture for students in the Northwestern Segal Design Institute on robotics and dance performance elaborations that come from the RAPP Lab as well as a public, hybrid lecture on her own robotics and design research.

Michael Metzger

Michael Metzger received a Virtual International Visitors Grant in 2023 to host the Otolith Group, which includes Anjalika Sagar and Kodwo Eshun, from the United Kingdom. The Otolith Group integrates film and video production with curating, programming and writing. Their films, installations and performances are driven by extensive research into the histories of science fiction and the legacies of tri-continentalism focusing on Asia, Africa and South America. During their visit to Northwestern, Sagar and Eshun attended studio visits with members of Northwestern's Art, Theory and Practice MFA program and appeared for a public screening and discussion of their film INFINITY MINUS INFINITY. They also met with students and faculty in the Department of Art History at the Northwestern Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences and interfaced with the broader arts community in the Chicagoland area, including the Smart Museum of Art and the Art Institute of Chicago.

J.P. Sniadecki

Radio/Television/Film

J.P. Sniadecki received a Virtual International Visitors Grant in 2023 to host Apichatpong Weerasethakul of Kick the Machine Films in Thailand. Weerasethakul is one of the leading figures in cinema today. His work is synonymous with the most innovative and celebrated approaches to filmmaking in Thailand, and he has supported countless emerging artists from Thailand and beyond. During his visit to Northwestern, which spanned across five days, he was primarily hosted by the Documentary Media MFA program in the Department of Radio/Television/Film at the Northwestern School of Communication as a Hoffman Visiting Artist. He presented two public programs of his work at Block Museum and conducted a masterclass for graduate students in addition to one-on-one studio visits.

Paola Zamperini

Gender and Sexuality Studies, Weinberg College of Arts & Sciences

Paola Zamperini received a Virtual International Visitors Grant in 2023 to host Grace Shu-chin Kuo, a faculty member of the Department of Law at National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan. During her virtual visit, Kuo held a class with students, faculty and staff affiliated with the Northwestern Women's Center and the Gender and Sexuality Studies Program at the Northwestern Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences. Participants read Kuo’s socio-legal analysis of family law reform in Taiwan in advance of her lecture and engaged her in discussion at the end of her session.

Masi Asare

Theatre, School of Communication

Masi Asare received a Virtual International Visitors Grant in 2021 to host Vishal Bhardwaj, a major figure in Bollywood and the arts and culture sector in India more broadly. A film director, screenwriter and producer, his creative expertise also extends to work as a music composer and vocalist creating evocative scores for his own films as well as those of other leading artists, and for the theatre. Bhardwaj has directed 10 feature films, produced five, and composed music for more than 40. Bhardwaj’s visit was organized in consultation with faculty across multiple academic disciplines at Northwestern. This virtual visit enabled Bhardwaj to connect with students and faculty in the departments of theatre, radio/television/film, and Asian languages and cultures in the spring of 2021. The visit included three major components: A musical theatre master class, where students performed songs from “Monsoon Wedding” composed by Bhardwaj and received direct feedback and coaching; individual virtual classroom visits with courses that engaged with topics related to South Asian arts and culture; and finally, a film screening and public Q&A, which included a panel of Northwestern faculty who responded to the film and engaged in dialogue with the filmmaker.

Drew Davies

Musicology, Bienen School of Music

Drew Davies received a Virtual International Visitors Grant in 2021 to host Anne Danielsen, professor of musicology and director of the RITMO Center for Interdisciplinary Studies in Rhythm, Time and Motion at the University of Oslo, Norway. During her visit, Danielsen gave a formal presentation titled “Rhythm and Groove in Contemporary African American Popular Music” in April 2021 as part of the Music Studies Department’s Distinguished Speaker Series. Danielsen also met with musicology and music theory graduate students to discuss research methods and career paths. She also joined an undergraduate music theory class for a day as a guest speaker.

Thomas Geraghty

Pritzker School of Law

Wen-pin Hsieh

Asian Languages and Cultures, Weinberg College of Arts & Sciences

So Hye Kim

Asian Languages and Cultures, Weinberg College of Arts & Sciences

David Tolchinsky

Radio/Television/Film, School of Communication

David Tolchinsky received a Virtual International Visitors Grant in 2020 to host Oladipo Agboluaje, a prominent British-Nigerian playwright whose work interrogates the notions of home, identity, diaspora, nationalism and culture. In partnership with Northwestern University’s MFA in Writing for Screen and Stage program, Agboluaje was virtually welcomed to campus in Spring 2021 for a series of public and private events.  This included a virtual public event featuring excerpts read from Agboluaje’s plays followed by a moderated Q&A session with faculty from Northwestern’s MFA in Writing for the Screen and Stage Program.  Agboluaje also participated in a moderated conversation with MFA Writing for the Screen and Stage program co-director David Tolchinksy.

William West

English, Weinberg College of Arts & Sciences

William West received a Virtual International Visitors Grant in 2020 to host Elizabeth Rodini and Sophie Lemercier-Goddard. Rodini is Andrew Heiskell Director of Arts at the American Academy in Rome. In December 2020, Elizabeth Rodini presented “There and Back Again: Tracking Gentile Bellin’s Portrait of Sultan Mehmed II.” This presentation explored the complex, multiply entangled journey of this renowned Renaissance picture, raising a number of historiographical challenges and opportunities. Rodini also gave a second presentation titled “Itinerant Objects: Early Modern Mobility and the Spaces In Between.” Centering on objects that moved into and through Venice in the early modern period, this workshop examined the ways we think and talk about mobility, historically and in the present.

Sophie Lemercier-Goddard is Maîtresse des Conférences (associate professor) at the École Normale Supérieure de Lyon, specializing in early modern European literature and the literatures of Britain. Dr. Lemercier-Goddard presented some of her work in a virtual public lecture on early modern climate and travel, discussing the challenges Europeans faced in translating a novel environment from local sources and to each other. She also focused on the layers of contacts that went into developing descriptions of weather, food and environment both for readers who might experience them vicariously at home, and those who might expect to meet them themselves.