Northwestern Buffett continues to support Global Working Groups undertaking collaborative, interdisciplinary research that addresses complex global challenges related to one or more of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. In recent months, many of our Global Working Groups have forged ahead with developing and disseminating their work through an exciting range of initiatives.

This Fall, we hosted a range of events to foster dialogue on pressing global issues, from artificial intelligence and national security to demonstrations for freedom in Iran to the recent US-Pacific Islands Summit.

Read one Northwestern student’s mad-lib style take on his recent study abroad experience in Italy.

On December 1, 2022, Northwestern Buffett hosted a panel discussion on “Women Paving the Way in Diplomacy.” This event was part of the Women’s Majlis Series, an initiative organized by Executive Women @ State, a U.S. Department of State employee organization advocating for gender equality and fostering professional development among senior diplomatic women. The event featured a panel of current and former female U.S. ambassadors who discussed their diplomatic and scholarly pursuits, as well as the challenges and opportunities they encountered as trailblazers in diplomacy.

On October 28, 2022, the Northwestern Roberta Buffett Institute for Global Affairs hosted a global and interdisciplinary Fireside Chat on Gender and Artificial Intelligence: Striving for social justice and protection of rights in the age of AI. The event featured faculty from The University of Tokyo and Northwestern University who discussed how societal structures have shaped AI and how AI, in turn, is transforming our societies and lives.

Chinese incursions across the western and central zones of India’s disputed boundary are not independent, random incidents that happen by mistake, but are part of a strategically planned, coordinated effort to gain permanent control of disputed border areas, a new study led by Northwestern Buffett Faculty Fellow V.S. Subrahmanian has claimed.

The Chinese border incursions into India are part of a strategically planned and coordinated effort to gain permanent control over disputed border areas, scientists specialising in security affairs said in a study released on Thursday.

Chinese incursions across India’s west and central borders are not independent, random incidents that happen by mistake. Instead, these incursions are part of a strategically planned, coordinated effort in order to gain permanent control of disputed border areas, a new study led by Northwestern Buffett Faculty Fellow V.S. Subrahmanian has found.

For the second consecutive year, Northwestern is sending a delegation of faculty and graduate students to COP27, which this year takes place Nov. 6-18 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. Northwestern participants will be among the approximately 40,000 delegates at the event, including government leaders from nearly 200 nations.

In September, demonstrations erupted across Iran in response to the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, after she was arrested and beaten by the Iranian “Morality Police” for improper veiling. Since Amini’s death, Iranian security forces have imprisoned, beaten and killed demonstrators across the country for speaking out in support of women’s rights and self-determination, and against state oppression and violence. On November 2, 2022, Northwestern Roberta Buffett institute for Global Affairs hosted a virtual dialogue with Elham Hoominfar, Assistant Professor in the Global Health Studies Program at Northwestern University, to discuss the unfolding protests in Iran and the regime's brutal response.

On October 12, 2022, Northwestern Buffett hosted former U.S. ambassador Steven McGann for a fireside chat with our Executive Director Annelise Riles. Steven McGann, a retired Senior Foreign Service Officer with the rank of Minister-Counselor, was the U.S. ambassador to the Republics of Fiji, Nauru, Kiribati, and the Kingdom of Tonga and Tuvalu from 2008 to 2011. Ambassador McGann was also assigned as Chief of Mission (ad interim) of the United States Embassy in Dili, Timor-Leste. He is the founder of The Stevenson Group, a consulting firm based in Washington, D.C. that identifies opportunities in the security sector and implements specialized advisory services focused on strengthening public-private partnerships.

Northwestern Buffett provided Virtual Visitorship grants to 29 displaced Ukrainian scholars during the Spring 2022 quarter. These grants offered the Northwestern community opportunities to interact with and learn from Ukrainian scholars, while supporting scholars from Ukraine in continuing their work from the conflict zone.

In the earliest days of the COVID-19 pandemic, a group of activists that included alumni from the Northwestern Buffett-supported student organization GlobeMed laid the foundation for Right2Health Action, a new grassroots movement dedicated to addressing the structural drivers of pandemics that have a disproportionate impact on the most vulnerable communities in the United States and around the world. We recently sat down with former GlobeMed Executive Director and Right2Health Action co-founder Jon Shaffer to discuss the movement.

Northwestern Buffett’s Race, Caste and Colorism Global Working Group recently partnered with the SpaceShift Collective to launch Starlight, a new community arts space and artist workshop open until October 29, 2022. Starlight is an immersive exhibition exploring the history and future of Black and South Asian solidarity on Chicago's Devon Avenue, one of the most diverse streets in America and a cultural hub for Chicago's large South Asian community.

Wednesday, August 24, 2022 marked six months since Russia invaded Ukraine and Ukraine's Independence Day. The Northwestern Roberta Buffett Institute for Global Affairs and Northwestern Weinberg College of Arts & Sciences' Russian, Eurasian, and East European Studies Research Program (REEES) held a virtual panel discussion on the unfolding situation in Ukraine and the direction the war may be headed.

Learn how to search for and enroll in Northwestern University undergraduate courses related to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

A Northwestern University team won the first annual U7+ Alliance of World Universities Student Challenge, a competition held in France last June where students from around the world pitched projects that would address the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals using technology and innovation.

We recently sat down with our new Deputy Director Baron Reed to discuss his professional journey at Northwestern, how he initially got involved with Northwestern Buffett and the importance of collaborative, interdisciplinary academic work.

Northwestern Buffett recently sat down with Northwestern senior Sherry Xue (School of Communication, ’22) to discuss her experiences and lessons learned traveling to Antarctica as part of the 2041 Climate Force Arctic Expedition in March. In this conversation, Sherry told us about the steps she took to prepare for the trip, the inspiring conversations she had with other program participants, how the experience impacted the way she thinks about climate change, and how it influenced her personal and professional plans.

The U7+ Alliance of World Universities issued a statement urging leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) to defend academic freedom, warning that a resurgence of autocracy is thwarting the institutional autonomy of higher education and its ability to fulfill its mission.

As undergraduate students continue to register for fall classes, they now have an option to see which classes meet the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, Northwestern announced in April. Launched by the Buffett Institute for Global Affairs, the initiative aims to identify courses related to social, economic and environmental sustainability.

On May 16, Northwestern Buffett held a Fireside Chat with Fiona Hill, senior fellow in the Center on the United States and Europe in the Foreign Policy program at The Brookings Institution. As an expert in geopolitical and foreign policy issues, Fiona offered insight into Russia's ongoing war on Ukraine and its implications.

On April 28, Northwestern Buffett hosted "New Frontiers in Global Research Series: Education, Science, and Technology for a More Sustainable World." This event, and this series, implores us to consider how we define, assess, and analyze the “global” in global research and urges us to reflect upon the real-world implications of academic scholarship.

This May, Northwestern will launch a pilot initiative that will allow students to search for and enroll in courses related to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs). The initiative is aimed at promoting greater interdisciplinarity and furthering students’ knowledge of increasingly interconnected and complex global challenges.

The development of modern antibiotics has played a profound role in our ability to treat a range of bacterial infections once considered life threatening. Yet as global access to antibiotics has steadily increased, so too has their overuse, resulting in a worrying rise in antibiotic-resistant bacteria. In response, an interdisciplinary research group funded by the Northwestern Buffett Institute for Global Affairs is developing a roadmap to coordinate responses to antimicrobial resistance across academic, political, pharmaceutical and medical institutions.

In Fall 2021, Northwestern senior Sydney Smith (Weinberg & McCormick, ‘22) put five years of Korean language classes to the test when she spent a semester studying at Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea. Smith, a double major in computer science and Asian languages & cultures, recently sat down with us to talk about her passion for language learning, navigating South Korea’s COVID-19 restrictions, making friends with other international students and other lessons learned abroad.

The Antibiotic Resistance Global Working Group aims to develop basic infrastructure to evaluate antimicrobial resistance (AMR) across two disparate healthcare systems in different parts of the world and understand how healthcare providers make decisions around antibiotic prescribing.

On April 12, 2022, Northwestern Buffett hosted a Fireside Chat on new and emerging security challenges for social media companies with Roland Cloutier, Global Chief Security Officer at TikTok, and V.S. Subrahmanian, Walter P. Murphy Professor of Computer Science at the Northwestern McCormick School of Engineering and Northwestern Buffett Faculty Fellow. The discussion was moderated by Northwestern Buffett Executive Director Annelise Riles and was followed by a Q&A session.