Institute for Regional and International Studies
Biography Adam Auerbach is a PhD student in Political Science and a masters student in Agricultural and Applied Economics. His research interests converge at the intersection of identity politics, federalism, and the political economy of development. Adam’s anticipated dissertation will examine the impact of migration on inter-ethnic cooperation, political organization, and community development in India’s …
Biography Brian Ekdale is a doctoral student in Mass Communication specializing in global media studies. His research focuses on the use of visual media to advocate for social justice in East Africa. Brian has produced videos in three different countries and has won awards at several film festivals. Informed by this background in media production, …
Biography Jason Hopper, a second year PhD student in Cultural Anthropology, received a BA from Stanford in Science, Technology, and Society with a focus in Development. While there, he pursued a side interest in religious studies, contributing to an art exhibit on Tibetan Buddhist Mandalas and serving as president of the Buddhist Community. A trip …
Lisa Jackson, a doctoral candidate in Anthropology, employs commodity chain analysis to trace lobsters from the Caribbean to corporations such as Red Lobster and Sysco Foods as a way of studying broader issues such as globalization, economic inequality, and social injustice. Her study examines economic disparities as well as the ecological and material limits of …
Biography Micah Morton is a third year graduate student in cultural anthropology. He spent 2 years working in Northern Thailand as an instructor and administrator for a study abroad program. Initially interested in working with environmentalist monks, his interests later shifted towards highland minority groups and their ongoing troubles in obtaining full Thai citizenship status …
Biography Miriam Thangaraj is a 2nd-year student in the Educational Policy Studies department, with a concentration in International and Comparative Education. She is broadly interested in how global norms are translated into local idiom in national education policy, and understood and embodied within classrooms and school-based communities in India. Her research this summer, supported by …
Melissa Tully, a PhD candidate in Mass Communication, studies media in Africa, with a focus on Internet and mobile technology and human rights reporting. Melissa completed a master’s degree in Journalism and Mass Communication at the UW in 2005 and wrote her thesis on newspaper coverage of the Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya. This research …
Biography Trevor Young-Hyman is a doctoral candidate in Political Science with a Masters in International Politics from the University of Denver’s Josef Korbel School of International Studies. He received his undergraduate degree in International Business and French from Washington University in St. Louis. Before moving to Madison, Trevor worked as a Research Associate at Mount …
Biography Cai Zuo, a graduate student in Political Science, spent 3 years working as a research assistant at the Research Center for Contemporary China at Peking University. After obtaining her masters in political science, her research focus changed to the state-society relations in the everyday lives of people. While doing field research at Shenzhen in …