Buffett Undergraduate Research Fellowship Project Descriptions
As a part of the application for the Buffett Undergraduate Research Fellowship Program, students have the option to indicate up to 2 research projects for which they would like to apply and must submit a separate cover letter for each project in order to be considered. Please provide the link(s) to the project(s) for which you would like to apply and note in the title of the cover letter the project you are applying for with that letter. (i.e., "ProjectName, Your LastName Cover Letter")
Learn about the research projects:
Best-Laid Plans: The Rise, Fall & Return of National Development Planning
The number of countries with an active national development plan doubled between the mid-1990s and 2006, and then doubled again between 2006 and 2018 (reaching a total of 134 countries). Despite the resurgence of development planning, there is no systematic study of the evolving content and priorities in national development plans since the practice became widespread in the 1950s. This project fills that gap.
- Faculty Mentor: Stephen Nelson, Associate Professor, Political Science (Evanston campus)
- Project Term: Summer only
- Project Location: The digitization component requires in-person presence on the Evanston campus. Other work can be completed remotely.
- Number of Available Positions: One
Children of the Revolution
The book Children of the Revolution is a follow-up to Zayd Dohrn's Tribeca-winning podcast Mother Country Radicals, which tells the true story of the Weather Underground and the Black Liberation Army—and how a group of young people, practically kids themselves, went to war against their own country to fight racism and try to change the world. This project will broaden the focus of the book beyond the U.S. to explore what domestic radicals saw in the wave of revolutionary struggle then sweeping the globe. It will examine international solidarity and movement building, both then and now—why American radicals have so often looked beyond our own borders to find models of what might be possible.
- Faculty Mentor: Zayd Dohrn, Professor, Radio/Television/Film (Evanston campus)
- Project Term: Summer only
- Project Location: Remote/virtual
- Number of Available Positions: One
The Changing Face of Foreign Correspondence
The proliferation of new media outlets and the rise in citizen journalism have led to questions about the viability and need for foreign correspondence. This is particularly true for Anglophone news coverage of North Korea, as international journalists are rarely able to travel there. This study will explore identity, proximity and longevity in Anglophone journalism coverage of the country.
- Faculty Mentor: Helen Cho, Visiting Assistant Professor, Asian American Studies (Evanston campus)
- Project Term: Summer only
- Project Location: This is a hybrid project. There will be initial in-person meetings on campus, but most work will be completed remotely.
- Number of Available Positions: Two
China-America Reel Exchange: Climate Crisis
The project will connect students from Northwestern University and Tongji University in Shanghai, China in collaborations to produce new works of media art that directly engage our most pressing and universal global challenge: climate change. The two-year project will first support two classes each year during the Spring term. Then, each summer, the two classes will come together in-person as a “Field School” to collaborate on hands-on production of media arts projects.
- Faculty Mentor: JP Sniadecki, Professor, Radio/Telivision/Film (Evanston campus)
- Project Term: Summer + academic year, from 1-6 terms, depending on availability and interest
- Project Location: In-person and remote meetings
- Number of Available Positions: One
Delhi Painters in the Shadow of Empire
This project will shed light on a little known group of painters who changed the course of Mughal painting in the 18th and 19th centuries as Indian society grappled with the rising dominance of British colonial power and waning Mughal sovereignty. Through an analysis of the visual culture of this period as reflected in the paintings, manuscripts and fashion accessories, the project will tackle questions of modernity and indigeneity through a study of the role of Indian painters working for both the Mughal court and British East India Company merchants in the capital city of Delhi.
- Faculty Mentor: Yuthika Sharma, Assistant Professor, Art History (Evanston campus)
- Project Term: Summer + academic year: Summer 2024, Fall 2024 and Winter 2025
- Project Location: Hybrid, in person and remote. There may be some library work involved which may require travel to US and UK museums.
- Number of Available Positions: One
Dry Ocean
In Orhan Pamuk’s novel The Black Book, the Nobel Prize-winning author imagines the seawater receding from the Bosphorus Strait. In Pamuk’s depiction, this Turkish waterway full of sailboats and charming reflections turns into a muddy valley, and people start living there. The valley becomes a sketchy part of Istanbul hosting small and dirty businesses. The opposite of what Pamuk imagined, the rise in sea levels is a consequence of global warming and human overpopulation. In the time scale of geological epochs, our planet may survive and eventually recover, but humans could become rare or extinct. Dry Ocean is a data-driven projection art piece about sea level rise, population increase, consumerism, the fuel-driven plastic economy, and marine pollution.
- Faculty Mentor: Ozge Samanci, Associate Professor, Radio/Television/Film (Evanston campus)
- Project Term: Summer + academic year
- Project Location: On campus, in person
- Number of Available Positions: One
Digital Nomadism: Examining Novel Forms of Organizing
Digital nomads, as they are called, are location-independent individuals who use technology to perform their job. The aim of this project is to understand the nature of digital nomadism work practices, how individuals are using it, the kinds of individuals who are adopting this work practice, and the degree to which digital nomadism enables short versus more permanent changes in work practices.
- Faculty Mentor: Leslie DeChurch, Professor, Communication Studies (Evanston campus)
- Project Term: Summer + academic year, 2 terms
- Project Location: The student(s) can work from anywhere during the summer quarter so long as they are willing to work online during the daytime work hours in the Central European Time (CET) Zone. No travel is required.
- Number of Available Positions: Two
Grassroots Struggles, Global Visions: Black Power in Britain
This project examines how grassroots activists in Britain navigated transnational webs of Black politics during the late twentieth century with particular attention to Black Power activism taking place outside of London. This project also intends to work collaboratively with local organizations and community heritage practitioners in the UK to understand how histories of Black Power are preserved, archived and invoked in the present.
- Faculty Mentor: Kennetta Hammond Perry, Associate Professor, Black Studies (Evanston campus)
- Project Term: Summer + academic year, 2 terms
- Project Location: Summer research travel for archival research in the UK, it is expected that research assistance on this project will be based on campus with regular meetings to be arranged both in person or virtually.
- Number of Available Positions: One
GODDS: Global Online Deepfake Detection System
2024 will see more elections than any other year in human history. We expect to see an increasing wave of deepfakes (images, audio, video, multimodal) to be used to influence these elections. To mitigate risks to democracy, the Northwestern Security & AI Lab (NSAIL) has been developing a human-AI collaborative framework where a trained set of analysts will work with advanced technology to ascertain whether a given artifact is real or fake. This project aims to understand the best ways in which humans and technology can combine together to find deepfakes quickly and correctly.
- Faculty Mentor: V.S. Subrahmanian
- Project Term: Summer + academic year: Summer 2024 and Fall 2024
- Project Location: No travel is required. The student can work from anywhere.
- Number of Available Positions: Two
Trauma, Music & the Breath: Music for Childhood Wellbeing Initiative
This project will exploree the impact of an eight-week group singing and intentional breathwork intervention on elementary school children ages 9-11. The project's interdisciplinary team has adopted an innovative research approach, blending biometric, psychological and behavioral methodologies to provide a holistic, biopsychosocial understanding of the impact of group singing and breathwork with children.
- Faculty Mentor: Sarah Bartolome, Associate Professor, Music Studies (Evanston campus)
- Project Term: Summer + academic year, Summer 2024, Fall 2024, Winter 2025, Spring 2025
- Project Location: On campus at the Ryan Center for the Musical Arts once per week for approximately two hours. All other work can be accomplished virtually and flexibly.
- Number of Available Positions: One
The Kalunga Line: A Study of Revivalism
This project centers the stories of members of Revivalism, an indigenous Afro-Christian religion practiced in urban communities in Jamaica. The project will entail interviews, site visits and documenting the material archives of a prominent Revivalist in Kingston, Jamaica. The goal is to publish an article that accompanies a digital exhibition and short film.
- Faculty Mentor: KB Dennis Meade, Assistant Professor, Religious Studies (Evanston campus)
- Project Term: Summer + academic year
- Project Location: Two weeks in Kingston Jamaica; 30 weeks Evanston, IL; remote
- Number of Available Positions: One
Newborn Essential Solutions & Technologies
Newborn Essential Solutions and Technologies (NEST360) is an international alliance united to end preventable newborn deaths in African hospitals. The project will support African governments in implementing a package of care that includes affordable technologies, training for clinicians and biomedical technicians and locally-owned data to deliver high-quality small and sick newborn care.
- Faculty Mentor: Kylie Dougherty, Postdoctoral Fellow, Medical Social Science (Chicago campus)
- Project Term: Summer + academic year (Summer and Fall)
- Project Location: In-person at the Chicago medical campus
- Number of Available Positions: One
The Temporality & Geography of Climate Change in U.S. News (2000-2021)
Questions of temporality are at the heart of global climate change discourse. If it hasn’t yet, when should we anticipate climate change to affect us? By when must we take action to prevent its worst consequences? This project aims to formally measure the temporal horizons used to discuss specific ecological phenomena and their consequences in public discourse and investigate how these temporalities depend on the geographic context.
- Faculty Mentor: Oscar Stuhler, Assistant Professor, Sociology (Evanston campus)
- Project Term: Summer + academic year, 2 terms
- Project Location: This project will be hybrid or fully remote. There are no strict constraints around where students are. Students do not need to travel.
- Number of Available Positions: Two
Wanted: The Hunt for Fugitive Criminals
From the Nazi war criminals who fled Europe at the end of World War II to modern cases such as Edward Snowden and the Boston Marathon bombers, manhunts capture the popular imagination. While journalists have written a great deal on manhunts and fugitives, scholars have generally paid less attention to this important issue. This research project addresses the sources of success and failure in manhunts.
- Faculty Mentor: Daniel Krcmaric, Associate Professor, Political Science (Evanston campus)
- Project Term: Summer only
- Project Location: The student can be anywhere. There is no required travel. If on campus, the student will meet regularly with Prof. Krcmaric in person. If away from Evanston, Zoom meetings will suffice.
- Number of Available Positions: One
Using Implementation Science to Address the Global Mental & Behavioral Health Treatment Gap
This project sets out to explore how implementation science processes and approaches can be applied to improve the adoption, reach and sustainment of evidence-based mental and behavioral health interventions among vulnerable populations of youth residing in South Africa.
- Faculty Mentor: Faith Summersett Williams, Research Assistant Professor, Pediatrics (Chicago Campus)
- Project Term: Summer + academic year, 2 quarters for 12.5 hours weekly
- Project Location: Hybrid, one day remote and the other day in-person in the office (on Thursdays at the Chicago campus) for full-team lab meetings
- Number of Available Positions: Two
United Nations Policy & Indigenous Peoples
This project is focused on researching and following data about Indigenous Peoples international law and policy related to climate change and biodiversity at United Nations (UN) forums and resolutions, as part of Professor Reynaldo Morales' participation at two global Indigenous Peoples committees at UNFCCC (Article 6 negotiation) and UN-CBD (Digital Sequence Information of Genetic Resources-DSI).
- Faculty Mentor: Reynaldo A. Morales, Assistant Professor, Medill School of Journalism (Evanston campus); Faculty Fellow, Buffett Institute
- Project Term: Hours are flexible, preferably for 10-15 hours per week. Project will take place over the academic year (fall, winter and spring quarters).
- Project Location: Remote. There may be an opportunity for travel to Mexico for one week as part of a research team.
- Number of Available Positions: One
