The Roberta Buffett Institute supports international research and teaching collaborations across Northwestern’s schools to generate new knowledge about pressing global challenges and promising solutions for addressing them. Learn about recent collaborations led by Northwestern faculty with the support of a Buffett Global Collaboration Grant.
Music Studies, Bienen School of Music
Sarah Bartolome received a grant from the Roberta Buffett Institute to collaborate with Bernadette Gonzalez Orta of the Universidad Iberoamericana, a contributor to the Music for Childhood Wellbeing Initiative (formerly the Buffett Institute's Trauma, Music, and the Breath Global Working Group ) and participated in the Music and Health Research Symposium sponsored by Northwestern's Bienen School of Music.
Communication Studies, School of Communication
Pablo Boczkowski received a grant from the Roberta Buffett Institute to collaborate with Sylvain Parasie of Sciences Po. They organized a one-day international conference to showcase novel research on digital technology, media, and communications. Papers presented at the conference will be compiled in a special issue of the French journal on communication technologies, Réseaux.
Management, Kellogg School of Management
Tessa Charlesworth received a grant from the Roberta Buffett Institute to collaborate with Thomas Crowther and Leland Werden of ETH Zurich to construct a dataset of humans’ cultural attitudes towards nature and the environment, as revealed through written and spoken language. They brought together expertise in computational social science and ecology to understand how nature is represented in 120 different languages.
Civil and Environmental Engineering, McCormick School of Engineering
Giorgia Chinazzo received a grant from the Roberta Buffett Institute to host a two-day meeting of the international working group “Human-Centric Building Design and Operation for a Changing Climate.” This network of experts, working between 2024 and 2029, is exploring methods of addressing climate emergency challenges in the context of the International Energy Agency’s Energy in Buildings and Community Program.
Latin American and Caribbean Studies, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
Jorge Coronado, with support from the Roberta Buffett Institute, collaborated with Jenny Haase of Universität Potsdam. They organized the symposium “Humanities at a Crossroads in Abya Yala/Latin America” to bring together experts in Latin American and Indigenous literary and cultural studies and consider how regional literary and cultural production that invokes and expresses indigenous life and worldviews reflects the crises of the Anthropocene.
Pediatric Emergency Medicine, Feinberg School of Medicine
Colleen Fant, with the Roberta Buffett Institute’s support, collaborated with Julieth Kabirigi of the Bugando Medical Center in Tanzania. Together, they developed a workshop for medical professionals and faculty at the Bugando Medical Center to improve their capacity to diagnose and treat pediatric heart disease using echosonography.
Political Science, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
Jordan Gans-Morse, with support from the Roberta Buffett Institute, hosted a Buffett Visiting Scholar, Maksym Andrushchenko of the Kyiv Aviation Institute, to collaborate with faculty at Northwestern. During his residency, Andrushchenko researched US policy toward Ukraine during an election year and headlined a public event to share his firsthand experience living and teaching in wartime Ukraine.
Journalism, Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications
Jeremy Gilbert received a grant from the Roberta Buffett Institute to collaborate with Mattia Peretti of the International Center for Journalists. Through Peretti’s News Alchemists Initiative, they organized a workshop at Northwestern to outline a vision for solutions to the systemic challenges faced by the journalism industry today and focused on describing the value that financially sustainable news media can create for society. Read the workshop recap.
Medicine, Feinberg School of Medicine
Joshua Hauser, with support from the Roberta Buffett Institute, collaborated with Ann Ogbenna of the University of Lagos. Together, they organized the Northwestern-Lagos Palliative Care Symposium at Lagos University Teaching Hospital as part of a partnership focused on interdisciplinary healthcare training in Northwestern’s End-of-Life Nursing Education Consortium Curriculum.
Anthropology, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
Mark Hauser, with the Roberta Buffett Institute’s support, collaborated with Chike Pilgrim of the University of Cambridge and Keron Niles of the University of West Indies. They sought to understand how migration influences land use, settlement patterns, and community identity by creating a collaborative, community-driven archaeological field school in Trinidad.
History, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
Laura Hein, with the Roberta Buffett Institute’s support, hosted two visiting scholars, Diatyka Widya Permata Yasih and Inaya Rakhmani, both from the University of Indonesia, at Northwestern. Yasih worked with Northwestern researchers to study gig-economy work, gendered labor, and labor in Islamic societies, and Rakhmani studied how the Buffett Institute functions as part of her efforts to bolster academic capacity as the inaugural Director of the Asia Research Centre.
English, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
Daisy Hernandez received a grant from the Roberta Buffett Institute to collaborate with Gloria Susana Esquivel, a Colombian author and journalist. They led a one-day symposium featuring fellow novelists Julian Delgado Lopera and Jamie Manríque on a recent wave of contemporary Colombian literature focused on exploring gender, sexuality, and migration.
Religious Studies, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
Brannon Ingram, with support from the Roberta Buffett Institute, received a grant to host a visiting scholar, Haula Noor of the Indonesian International Islamic University, at Northwestern. Together, they contributed to research for Noor’s book on the role of familial connections in radicalizing Islamic activists.
Political Science, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
Julie Lee Merseth, with the Roberta Buffett Institute’s support, collaborated with Min Hee Go of Ewha Womans University. They sought to further knowledge and build conversations about transnational political activism among Korean and Korean American women working on gender issues in South Korea and the United States.
Theatre, School of Communications
Kelli McHugh received a grant from the Roberta Buffett Institute to invite two visiting scholars, Alice Motion and Narelle Yeo of the University of Sydney, to collaborate at Northwestern. With support from speech science experts, they explored methods of reconfiguring musical theatre and vocal training to improve queer inclusion and produced a podcast about the project documenting their work on moving away from the conventional four-part harmony model.
Slavic Languages and Literatures, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
Susan McReynolds, with the Roberta Buffett Institute’s support, collaborated with Joshua Heath of Trinity College, Dublin, and Jimmy Sudario of the Federal University Juiz de Fora to host the international conference “Evil in Russian Thought and Literature” at the University of Cambridge. The conference gathered perspectives on how Russian literature has engaged with the question of evil.
Middle East and North African Languages Program, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
Ragy Mikhaeel received a grant from the Roberta Buffett Institute to collaborate with Nancy Kamal, an independent filmmaker in Egypt. They developed a dialogue series aimed at introducing Arabic language learnings to natural speech in the Egyptian dialect with videos focusing on the struggle of Arab women to overcome oppression and further their freedom and independence in daily situations.
Theatre, School of Communications
Ryan T. Nelson, with support from the Roberta Buffett Institute, collaborated with Lejla Jusić & Sanjin Arnautović of the University of Sarajevo’s Academy of Performing Arts. They focused on the development of musical theatre performance, design, and management practices for theater artists and cultural institutions in Bosnia and Herzegovina with a goal of modernizing local theatre infrastructure and empowering a new generation of artists.
Political Science, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
Shmuel Nili, with support from the Roberta Buffett Institute, collaborated with Kim Angell of the Norwegian Nobel Institute. Together, they organized a “Co-Existence Initiative” with the Norwegian Nobel Institute and the University of Haifa to bring Palestinian and Jewish students together, in Oslo and at Northwestern’s campus.
Communication Studies, School of Communication
Erik Nisbet, with the Roberta Buffett Institute’s support, hosted a visiting scholar, Salvator Simarmata of Atma Jaya Catholic University, at Northwestern. Together, they practiced computational research methods to study populist political messaging and attitudes in the context of emerging democracies like Indonesia.
The Family Institute, Psychology, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
Nathan Perron, with the Roberta Buffett Institute’s support, collaborated with Dominic Nsona of the Malawi Counseling Association. Together, they coordinated a visit by a team of Northwestern faculty, alumni, and students to Malawi to support local efforts to expand mental health care access through training and professional development.
Spanish and Portuguese, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
Claudia Quevedo-Webb, with support from the Roberta Buffett Institute, collaborated with Alejandro San Juan of Fund Down Síndrome to coordinate a virtual reality exchange program between Northwestern undergraduates and members of the Down Syndrome nonprofit in Cantabria, Spain. Their work focuses on questioning the limits of traditional classroom structures and recognizing the experiences of individuals with disabilities in language learning.
Radio/TV/Film, School of Communications
JP Sniadecki received a grant from the Roberta Buffett Institute to collaborate with Davy Chou and Daniel Mattes of the Cambodian filmmaking collective Anti-Archive. They worked to strengthen nascent relationships between Northwestern and practitioners leading emergent waves of Southeast Asian cinema and collaborated to publish MARG1N, a journal on Southeast Asian cinema research, production, and exhibition.
Communication Sciences and Disorders, School of Communication
Pamela Souza received a grant from the Roberta Buffett Institute to host a visiting scholar, Jeppe Høy Konvalinka Christensen of the Eriksholm Research Center in Denmark, at Northwestern. Together, they studied the role of hearing loss treatment and dementia risk in older adults, and the ways hearing loss treatment depends on social networks, demographic factors, and national contexts.
Digital Media Design, School of Communication
Spencer Striker and Spencer Parsons (Radio/TV/Film, School of Communication) received a grant from the Roberta Buffett Institute to collaborate with Korean scholars and faculty at Northwestern Qatar. Together, they adapted their innovative learning game, Chaos Corp, to the Korean language.
Computer Science, McCormick School of Engineering
VS Subrahmanian, with support from the Roberta Buffett Institute, hosted a visiting scholar, Barry O’Sullivan of University College Cork, at Northwestern. Together, they used their shared expertise in AI and national security to develop a report assessing Russian efforts to disrupt undersea internet cables. They also organized the winter 2025 Buffett Symposium on AI and Geopolitics.
Asian Languages and Cultures, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
Noriko Taira Yasohama, with support from the Roberta Buffett Institute, collaborated with Noriko Okubo of Knox English Network, Japan. Together, they implemented a year-long online cultural exchange between Japanese language students at Northwestern and English language students at various Japanese universities.
History, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
Helen Tilley, with support from the Roberta Buffett Institute, collaborated with Hannah Louise Clarke of the University of Glasgow. They formed a collaborative group of specialists in the history of technology and material culture to publish the first special issue of a journal in the history of science devoted entirely to African history.
Radio/TV/Film, School of Communication
Marco Williams received a grant from the Roberta Buffett Institute to collaborate with Osain Álvarez of the Festival Internacional de Documentales Santiago Alvarez in Cuba. They conducted archival research in Havana, Cuba in preparation for a screening of The Hijacker, a historical, animated documentary.
Political Science, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
Jeffrey Winters received a grant from the Roberta Buffett Institute to host a visiting scholar, Muhammad Hanri of the University of Indonesia, at Northwestern. Together, they collaborated on research exploring a variety of topics, including labor markets, poverty diagnostics, and the socio-economic impacts of climate change mitigation policies.
Anthropology, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
Sera Young, with the Roberta Buffett Institute’s support, collaborated with Jacqui Webster of the University of Technology Sydney. Together, they established the FoodWISE Asia Pacific Network, a community of influencers, policymakers, practitioners, researchers, and Indigenous people focused on addressing food and water security issues across the region.
Asian Languages and Cultures, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
Paola Zamperini received a grant from the Roberta Buffett Institute to collaborate with Wang Guojun of McGill University. They organized the two-day “Poetics and Politics of the Human Body in Premodern China” conference at McGill focused on fostering interdisciplinary dialogues among scholars of China studies, including discussions of art history, erotic literature, and forensic investigation.
Asian Languages and Cultures, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
Yan Zhou, with the Roberta Buffett Institute’s support, collaborated with Wei Wei of Peking University to coordinate a biweekly one-on-one tutoring session program between Northwestern undergraduate Chinese language learners and graduate students at Peking University’s Teaching Chinese as a Second Language program.
Applied Mathematics, McCormick School of Engineering
Daniel Abrams, with the Roberta Buffett Institute’s support, collaborated with Robin Meier Wiratunga of the IRCAM Center Pompidou in France. Together, they studied mathematical models of pattern emergence in the context of music formation and designed experiments in emergent music using orchestras in Paris and Bern.
Political Science, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
Karen Alter received a grant from the Roberta Buffett Institute to collaborate with Michael Zuern of Wissentschaftzentrum Berlin. Together, they organized a conference and workshop in Berlin on backlash politics with participants from the US, Europe, the former Soviet Union, and Latin America. The workshop was meant to add authors to an existing book project on backlash politics.
Theatre, School of Communication
Melissa Blanco Borelli, with support from the Roberta Buffett Institute, collaborated with Bryce Lease and Tia-Monique Uzor of the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. Together, they developed a cross-institutional summer school program called “Performance Epistemologies of the Global Majority,” a program geared toward master’s and PhD students of the global majority working across theatre, dance, and performance studies.
Political Science, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
Iza Ding, with support from the Roberta Buffett Institute, collaborated with Xunda Yu of Zhejiang University and Yuejin Jing of Qinghua University. As part of a broader effort to foster academic exchange between researchers in the US and China, they hosted two conferences, one at Northwestern and another at Zhejiang University, on topics including democratic backsliding, climate change, and nationalism.
Chemical and Biological Engineering, McCormick School of Engineering
Jennifer Dunn received a grant from the Roberta Buffett Institute to collaborate with Douglas Aitken of the University of Queensland, Alvaro Videla of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, and Pablo Gaitán-Rossi of the Universidad Iberoamericana. They organized a workshop on sustainability and the global minerals supply chain, focusing on mineral extraction in Mexico and Chile.
Institute for Policy Research
Teresa Eckrich Sommer, with the Roberta Buffett Institute’s support, collaborated with Padraig Mallon of the Crann Centre and Siobhan Cusack of University College Cork. They worked to co-design a shared research agenda for the Crann Centre’s goals of promoting shifts in programs, policies, and public attitudes around neuro-physical disabilities in Ireland.
Human Development and Social Policy, School of Education and Social Policy
Claudia Haase, with support from the Buffett Institute, collaborated with Tabea Meier of the University of Zurich. They co-authored two manuscripts on social connection and other-oriented positive emotions using data from North America, Europe, and Asia and submitted them for publication.
Computer Science, McCormick School of Engineering
Kris Hammond, with the Roberta Buffett Institute’s support, hosted a visiting scholar, Yuko Itatsu of the University of Tokyo, at Northwestern. Together, they researched how cultural understanding can be integrated into AI language models, and how to address geographic and cultural bias in those models.History, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
Laura Hein, with support from the Roberta Buffett Institute, hosted a Buffett Visiting Scholar, Asmin Fransiska of Atma Jaya Catholic University, at Northwestern. Together, they fostered cooperation between law faculty at both universities and examined discussions at Northwestern about human rights and marginalization to apply lessons to Atma Jaya’s fledgling Master’s Program in Public Policy.
Economics, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
Sara Hernandez Saborit received a grant from the Buffett Institute to collaborate with Orlando Sotomayor of the University of Puerto Rico and Gustavo Bobonis of the University of Toronto. Together, they attended the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative summer training program as a first step toward developing a proposal for Puerto Rico’s Department of Economic Development and Commerce on elevating the quality of job search services.
Program in Global Health Studies, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
Elham Hoominfar received a grant from the Roberta Buffett Institute to collaborate with Parvin Ardalan, an Iranian activist, and Somayeh Rostampur of Paris University. Together, they brought a group of feminist scholars and activists to the United States to discuss hetero-patriarchy, ethnic supremacy, and political repression in response to feminist uprisings in Iran in 2022.
Religious Studies and Political Science, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
Elizabeth Hurd received a grant from the Roberta Buffett Institute to collaborate with Carlos Manrique of the University of the Andes and Brannon Ingram of Northwestern. Together, they collaborated on a collective book project on the intersection of religion and politics in the contexts of social protest movements and political organizing.
Pediatrics, Feinberg School of Medicine
Sara Huston, with the Roberta Buffett Institute’s support, collaborated with Andreas Kleiser, the Director for Policy and Cooperation for the International Commission on Missing Persons. Together, they studied the barriers to implementing a comprehensive global DNA database for identifying missing children to remedy family separations occurring at border crossings and in conflict zones. Huston co-leads the Buffett Institute’s Global FamDNA Working Group.
Pediatrics, Feinberg School of Medicine
Amy Johnson, with the Roberta Buffett Institute’s support, collaborated with Geoffroy Liegeon and Victoria Manda, both of Paris Cité University. They studied the effectiveness of PrEP uptake for HIV prevention, specifically in cisgender women in sub-Sarahan Africa and migrant communities in France.
Asian Languages and Cultures, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
Ihnhee Kim, with the Roberta Buffett Institute’s support, collaborated with Jaewon Nielbock Yoon of Ruhr University Bochum. Together, they established a virtual classroom that serves as a cross-cultural language learning and exchange program between Korean language students at both universities.
Law, Pritzker School of Law
Jonathan Koehler, with support from the Roberta Buffett Institute, collaborated with Shiquan Liu of the China University of Political Science and Law. Together, they examined procedural and evidentiary standards in the legal use of forensic science and studied the reliability of fingerprint testing and its role in producing wrongful convictions.
Communication Sciences and Disorders, School of Communication
Jennifer Krizman, with the Roberta Buffett Institute’s support, collaborated with Carles Escera of the University of Barcelona. Together, they organized an international workshop on the Frequency-Following Response (FFR), an electrophysiological measure they have studied for over 25 years, and worked to establish Northwestern as a global hub for FFR data and research.
Anthropology, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
Amanda Logan received a grant from the Roberta Buffett Institute to collaborate with Alemseged Beldados of Addis Ababa University and Natalie Mueller of Washington University St. Louis. Together, they extended their international network of archaeological collaborators to help develop a proof-of-concept for their large-scale open access database of African seeds.
Communication Sciences and Disorders, School of Communication
Molly Losh received a grant from the Roberta Buffett Institute to collaborate with Lee Wallace of the University of Sydney. Together, they fostered connections between the Sydney Social Sciences and Humanities Advanced Research Center and Northwestern’s School of Communication and organized guest lectures, seminars, and grant co-development across both universities in media and communication-related fields.
Liberal Arts, Northwestern University in Qatar
Sam Meekings, with support from the Roberta Buffett Institute, organized a symposium on the intersections between storytelling and medicine. The symposium explored connections between narrative theory and neuropsychological responses to trauma. Read about the workshop here.
Preventative Medicine, Feinberg School of Medicine
Leah Neubauer, with the Roberta Buffett Institute’s support, collaborated with Elizabeth Nyothach of the Kenya Medical Research Institute. Together, they worked to develop a new partnership to advance global health education and training for personnel focused on menstruation hygiene management in Kenya.
Center for International Human Rights Bluhm Legal Clinic, Pritzker School of Law
Megan Osadzinski, with support from the Roberta Buffett Institute, collaborated with the Law School at National University Kyiv-Mohyla Academy to organize an interdisciplinary conference sponsored by the Center for International Human Rights. The event focused on historical and colonial analysis of the invasion of Ukraine and the role of intersectional theory in international criminal law practice.
Black Studies, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
Kennetta Perry, with support from the Roberta Buffett Institute, collaborated with Kola Oseni of the Lagos State Records and Archives Bureau and Oludamola Adebowale of the Nigerian Brazilian Project. Together, they collaborated to support Professor Perry’s book project on racialized state violence in Britain during the mid-twentieth century.
Theatre, School of Communication
Dassia Posner, with the Roberta Buffett Institute’s support, collaborated with Swetlana Lukanitschewa of Freie Universitat Berlin and Alisa Ballard Lin of the Ohio State University. Together, they traveled to Berlin to establish a provisional table of contents for materials on German translations of Ukrainian and Russian revolutionary theatre.Radio/TV/Film, School of Communication
JP Sniadecki received a grant from the Roberta Buffett Institute to collaborate with Du Haibin of the China Academy of Fine Arts and Wu Wenguang of the Caochangdi Workstation. They organized a workshop promoting sustainability and introducing methods of creating images on 16mm film that utilize non-toxic materials and avoid the heavy chemicals common in conventional analog filmmaking.Political Science, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
Jeffrey Winters, with the Roberta Buffett Institute’s support, hosted a Buffett Visiting Scholar, Sarah E. Gultom of Monash University, at Northwestern. Gultom used economic experiments and surveys to study the role of peer networks and market information asymmetry in the Indonesian agricultural sector.
He received a second grant to host another Buffett Visiting Scholar, Sirojuddin Arif of the International Islamic University of Indonesia, at Northwestern. Arif studied deficits in Indonesia’s education system and the politics of technology learning and industrial upgrading in late-industrializing countries.
Gender and Sexuality Studies, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
Paola Zamperini received a grant from the Roberta Buffett Institute to collaborate with Barbara Mittler of Heidelberg University and Nicole Huang of Hong Kong University. They fostered connections between the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures and Program of Gender and Sexuality Studies at Northwestern and Heidelberg University’s Center for Transcultural Studies through guest lectures and coursework on Sinophone feminism.
Plant Biology and Conservation, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
Nyree Zerega, with support from the Roberta Buffett Institute, collaborated with Francisco Borbon of the Centro Cultural Yolem Tekia in Mexico and Alicia Foxx of the Chicago Botanical Garden. Together, they designed the first entries to an international multimedia archive on ancestral plant knowledge, ethnobotanical practices, and community-centered cultural practices.
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.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
English, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
Kalyan Nadaminti received the Global Connections Seed Grant in 2021, in partnership with Progressive India Alliance. With our support, Kalyanattended the Dismantling Global Hindutva Conference.
Anthropology, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
Emrah Yildiz received the Global Connections Seed Grant in 2021, in partnership with Mekanda Adalet Dernegi, The Center for Spatial Justice, for “kaçak: Fugitive Forms of Bureaucracy and Economy in Southwest Asia.”