Meet ITPIR'S Summer 2015 Research Teams

Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders brings 25 African fellows to Virginia

25 fellows from 20 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa to convene at UVA and W&M for the second annual Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders educational institute this summer.

On June 22, 25 fellows were welcomed at the University of Virginia to the second annual Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders. The fellows will spend four weeks in Charlottesville to learn about innovative leadership, good governance, and social entrepreneurism before coming to W&M for the final two weeks of the program. In Williamsburg, the program will focus on approaches to development with a concentration on community participation and transparency. This year's cohort represents 20 countries from Sub-Saharan Africa, with expertise from diverse sectors such as education, youth mobilization, rights for persons with disabilities, and health.  

Scott Ickes to publish on links between child nutrition, maternal education and health care access in Uganda

Professor Scott Ickes has a forthcoming paper in the Journal of Nutrition. The study, conducted with William & Mary graduate Taylor Hurst (W&M '12, Harvard School of Public Health MPH '15), examines how maternal factors influence child feeding and nutritional status using national surveys from 2006 and 2011 in Uganda. The study highlights a reduction in healthful child feeding practices, despite improvement in the rate of under nutrition between 2006 and 2011, and points to "capabilities" like literacy, education, and health care access as important modifiable factors in mother's lives that may improve child feeding. As of 2011, over 25% of Uganda children are nutritionally stunted - a form of chronic under nutrition that causes long-term cognitive deficits and is associated with great chronic disease risk and lower learning in adulthood. 

New TRIP Global Pathways Program builds understanding of IR beyond the West

W&M undergraduates and graduate students from the Free University of Berlin present research at the TRIP Global Pathways' Berlin-Williamsburg Conference in February 2015.

New in 2014, the TRIP Global Pathways Project was developed by TRIP Research Associate Wiebke Wemheuer-Vogelaar to explore knowledge production and diffusion in IR beyond the West -- in particular from rising powers in the global South and East. Six W&M undergraduates produced full-length conference papers and a February 2015 workshop brought graduate students from the Free University of Berlin together with W&M undergraduates to share their research and to discuss ways to integrate non-Western IR into the American classroom.

2015 TRIP Global Pathways Student Papers:

"If Methods Mean Money: A Comparison of Leading Methodological Approaches and Funding in U.S., Latin American and Chinese International Relations Scholarship" by Arianna Talaie '16

"The Discourse of a Discipline: Constructing Human Rights Narratives in the U.S. and Latin America" by Hannah Berk '16

"Disciplinary and Global Diversity in Environmental International Relations Scholarship" by Hayley Tymeson '15

"Criticize or endorse? How Education Background Changes 

Chinese International Relations Scholars' Ideology" by Isabella Y. Liu '15

"Gender differences in Chinese IR Scholarship" by Junrong Zhu '16

"Periphery-Periphery Relations: China Through the Eyes of Latin American IR Scholars" by Michael Campbell '16

PIPS brought another successful year to a close at their 2015 student policy symposium on Wednesday, April 22 at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. The event was moderated by Brent Colburn, Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs and attended by more than 100 policymakers, scholars and friends of PIPS. All student white papers are now available online at www.wm.edu/pips and at the links below.

PIPS releases new report on Mediterranean migration crisis

William and Mary's PIPS program recently released a report titled "Irregular Migration in the Mediterranean: Recommendations for U.S. Action" for the Bureau of European & Eurasian Affairs as part of the Department of State's Diplomacy Lab program. Read report here.

How I spent my summer vacation (ITPIR edition)

Former PIPS interns Caper Gooden '16 and Darice Xue '15 show their PIPS pride at the Taj Mahal while on a two-week research trip to India this May. Under the guidance of W&M Government Department Professor Rani Mullen, the pair worked on an edited volume on Indian economic diplomacy in New Delhi. For the rest of the summer, Gooden will intern on a data privacy project for Harvard University, while Xue will work as a senior research assistant for AidData in Williamsburg.