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Northwestern Buffett Institute for Global Affairs

Media Resources

Learn more about our faculty experts, work and impact below. Please contact Dayna Dion, the Buffett Institute’s Chief of Staff and Senior Director of Operations & Communications, with media inquiries.
Two researchers conducting environmental surveys in the field

One-Pager

To learn more about the Buffett Institute's work and impact, read our one-pager >>
Digital publication

Buffett Briefs

To learn how each of our Global Working Groups are tackling the most pressing issues of our time through collaborative research across disciplines and geographies, read our Buffett Briefs >>

Faculty Leaders and Experts

Our faculty leaders, fellows and Global Working Group leads make the Buffett Institute a nexus for collaborative approaches to research, global learning and community engagement.

Our Leaders

deborah_cohen_170px_v2.pngDeborah Cohen
Executive Director; Richard W. Leopold Professor of History
  • Global history
  • Modern European history
  • War and empire in history (emphasis on Britain)
  • Religious history
  • Gender and sexuality history

baron-reed.jpegBaron Reed 
Deputy Director; Professor of Philosophy 
  • Epistemology (emphases on epistemic agency, normativity and psychology) 
  • Ancient and early modern philosophy 
  • Metaphysics 
  • Skepticism 
  • The relevance of practical interests to knowledge 

 

Our Faculty Fellows

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Diego Arispe-Bazán
Northwestern Buffett Faculty Fellow; Assistant Professor of Anthropology
  • Racialization
  • Migration
  • Indigenous diasporas
  • South America, Latin America, the Andean region and Spain
  • Queer indigeneity and queer Latin America
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Vilna Bashi 
Northwestern Buffett Faculty Fellow; Osborn Professor of Sociology
  • Race and ethnicity 
  • International migration 
  • Inequality 
  • Hierarchical socioeconomic structures 
 
neha_jain_170px.pngNeha Jain
Northwestern Buffett Faculty Fellow; Professor of Law
  • Comparative Law
  • Criminal Law
  • Human Rights Law
  • International Law

reynaldo-morales.pngReynaldo Morales 
Northwestern Buffett Faculty Fellow; Northwestern Medill School of Journalism Assistant Professor
  • Indigenous issues and knowledge systems (emphasis on sustainability) 
  • Environmental journalism 
  • Global biodiversity governance 
  • Traditional knowledge integration in environmental education 
vs-subrahmanian.pngV.S. Subrahmanian 
Northwestern Buffett Faculty Fellow; Walter P. Murphy Professor of Computer Science
  • Artificial intelligence 
  • Cybersecurity 
  • Predictive modeling 
  • Probabilistic inference and machine Learning 
  • Social media 
  • Counterterrorism 

 

Our Global Working Group Leaders

Northwestern Buffett Global Working Groups undertake collaborative, interdisciplinary research that addresses complex global challenges related to one or more of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Each Global Working Group has one or more Northwestern University faculty leaders.

antibiotic-resistance-icon.pngAntibiotic Resistance >>

Mehreen Arshad

mehreen arshad headshotAssistant Professor of Pediatrics, Feinberg School of Medicine
  • Infectious diseases
  • Antimicrobial resistance 
  • Child health 

View bio

Erica Hartmann

erica-hartmann.pngAssociate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, McCormick School of Engineering
  • Environmental microbiology
  • Microbiology of the indoor environment 
  • Microbial responses to anthropogenic chemicals 
  • Bioremediation 
  • Public health 

View bio

 

ai-and-social-movements-icon.pngAI and Social Movements >>

V.S. Subrahmanian

vs-subrahmanian.pngNorthwestern Buffett Faculty Fellow; Walter P. Murphy Professor of Computer Science
  • Artificial intelligence 
  • Cybersecurity 
  • Predictive modeling 
  • Probabilistic inference and machine learning 
  • Social media 
  • Counterterrorism 

View bio

Brayden King

brayden-king.pngMax McGraw Chair in Management and Environment Professor of Management & Organizations, Kellogg School of Management
  • Organizational change 
  • Social movements and corporate policymaking 
  • Economic sociology 
  • The emergence and transformation of organizational identities 

View bio

 

climate-crisis-media-arts-icon.pngClimate Crisis + Media Arts >>

J.P. Sniadecki

jp-sniadecki.pngProfessor and Director of the MFA in Documentary Media, Medill School of Communication
  • Media anthropology (emphasis on anthropological film) 
  • Sensory ethnography (emphasis on U.S. and Chinese urban spaces) 
  • Documentary filmmaking 

View bio

Michael Metzger

michael-metzger.pngPick-Laudati Curator of Media Arts, Block Museum of Art
  • Media arts and cinema 
  • Cinematic pedagogy 
  • History of images and information 

View bio

 

dd_170px.pngDefusing Disasters >>

Daniel Horton

daniel-horton.pngAssistant Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Northwestern Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
  • Link between climate change and extreme weather events such as heatwaves and droughts  
  • Climate change impacts and how humans can adapt 
  • Earth’s climate system over time 

View bio

George Chiampas

george-chiampas.pngExecutive Director of the Disaster Management and Community Emergency Preparedness Initiative, Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine and Orthopaedic Surgery, Feinberg School of Medicine
  • Emergency medicine 
  • Disaster management and community emergency preparedness 
  • Mass event management 
  • Sports injuries 
  • Sports medicine 
  • Sudden cardiac death 

View bio

 

disproportionate-impacts-icon.pngDisproportionate Impacts of Environmental Challenges >>

Kimberly Marion Suiseeya

kimberly-marion.pngAssistant Professor in the Department of Political Science and the Environmental Policy and Culture program, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
  • Global environmental politics 
  • Environmental justice 
  • Environmental policy 
  • Indigenous rights 
  • International development 

View bio

Jennifer Dunn

jennifer-dunn.pngResearch Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering, McCormick School of Engineering; Director of Research and Senior Fellow, Northwestern Argonne Institute of Science and Engineering (NAISE)
  • Emerging technologies’ potential to contribute to air/water pollution and greenhouse gas emissions 
  • The use of remote sensing, computer vision and economic models to characterize land use and land use change 

View bio

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Empowering the Next Generation of Women Leaders >>

Jennifer Tackett

Professor of Psychology, Director of the Personality Across Development Lab (PADLab), Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences

  • Clinical and personality psychology
  • Leadership emergence and development in youth and early adulthood
  • Psychopathology in childhood and adolescence

View bio

Haoqi Zhang

Associate Professor of Computer Science, Director of the Design, Technology and Research (DTR) Program, McCormick School of Engineering

  • Social computing systems that promote desired behaviors and outcomes
  • Human-computer interaction
  • Decision science
  • Self-direction

View bio

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Epistemic Reparations >>

Benjamin Frommer

Associate Professor of History, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences

  • Modern central European history
  • Legal and criminal history
  • Collaboration and complicity in the Holocaust
  • History of and justice for the Holocaust

View bio

Jennifer Lackey

Wayne and Elizabeth Jones Professor of Philosophy, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences

  • False confessions and the criminal justice system
  • The duty to object
  • Norms of credibility
  • The epistemic status of punishment
  • The epistemology of groups

View bio

 

language_gender_170px.pngLanguage Curricula and Gender Equality >>

Rana Raddawi

rana-raddawi.pngAssistant Professor of Instruction, Midde Eastern and North African Languages, Arabic and Translation, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
  • Theory and practice of translation 
  • Gender equality in the language curriculum 
  • Critical pedagogy and cross-cultural studies 

View bio

Marcelo Worsley

marcelo-worsley.pngAssistant Professor of Computer Science, McCormick School of Engineering; Assistant Professor of Education and Social Policy, School of Education and Social Policy
  • Technological innovations for supporting inclusive learning and teaching 
  • The use of multimodal technology in educational environments (e.g., how student learning is demonstrated across different modalities and time scales, how multimodal data can support student and teacher reflection) 

View bio

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Making Water Insecurity Visible 
>>

Julius Lucks

Associate Chair and Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering, McCormick School of Engineering

  • Low-cost, on-demand diagnostic technologies that can detect water contaminants and pathogens
  • Molecular principles that enable biological systems to sense and adapt to changing environments
  • Synthetic biological systems that benefit humankind
  • Design of new synthetic RNAs to control genetic processes

View bio

Sera Young

Associate Professor of Anthropology, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences

  • Water insecurity
  • Food insecurity
  • Pica (non-food cravings)
  • International nutrition

View bio

 

race-caste-colorism-icon.pngRace, Caste and Colorism >>

Laura Brueck

laura-brueck.pngChair and Associate Professor of South Asian Literature and Culture, Weinberg Colleges of Arts and Sciences
  • Caste and race 
  • Dalit literature and literary publics 
  • Modern and contemporary Hindi literature (emphasis on Indian detective fiction) 
  • Postcolonial literature and literary theory 
  • South Asian cinema and media studies 

View bio

Ivy Wilson

ivy-wilson.pngAssociate Professor of English, Weinberg Colleges of Arts and Sciences
  • The Black diaspora 
  • U.S. literary studies (emphasis on African American culture) 
  • Tropes of Blackness and cultural meanings of U.S. citizenship 
  • The manipulation of aesthetics as a means to enter political discourse 

View bio

 

trauma-music-and-the-breath-icon.pngTrauma, Music and the Breath >>

Sarah Bartolome

sarah-bartolome.pngAssociate Professor of Music Education, Bienen School of Music
  • Participatory music making as social capital 
  • World music pedagogy 
  • Gender expansive music education 
  • Trauma-informed approaches in music education 

View bio

 

global-opioid-crisis_170px.pngGlobal Catalyst Grant Group: Global Drug Crisis >>

Maryann Mason

maryann-mason_170px.pngAssociate Professor of Emergency Medicine, Feinberg School of Medicine

  • Health and well-being as fostered by community conditions
  • Environmental, cultural, institutional and social influences on health and well being across the life course, especially in low-resourced communities and communities of color
  • Community engaged scholarship

View bio

Lori Ann Post

lori-ann-post_170px.pngBuehler Professor of Geriatric Medicine, Feinberg School of Medicine

  • Opioid crisis, including patterns, hotspots and spatial heterogeneity of opioid overdose deaths
  • Economic drivers of the opioid crisis in terms of supply and demand
  • Policies that curb mass shootings and intervention opportunities to prevent mass shootings

View bio

 

media-aesthetics_170px.pngGlobal Catalyst Grant Group: Media Aesthetics >>

Dilip Gaonkar

dilip-gaonkar_170px.pngProfessor of Culture and Communication, Director of the Center for Global Culture and Communication, School of Communication

  • Rhetoric as an intellectual tradition, both its ancient roots and its contemporary mutations
  • Global modernities and their impact on the political
  • Global cultural politics

View bio

Patrick Noonan

pat_noonan_170px.jpgAssistant Professor of Japanese Literature and Culture, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences

  • Social and cultural movements of the 1960s
  • 20th-century modernisms
  • Japanese literary and intellectual history
  • Transnational film theory
  • Global genre cinema

View bio