RCGA Focus Areas

The program on Global Economics, Development and Political Economy explores how economic and political forces—along with foreign policies or development strategies—help shape economic and development outcomes, promote geopolitical goals, and affect the world’s regions, countries and societies.

RCGA Faculty Fellow Conveners:
Will Pyle, Frederick C. Dirks Professor of International Economics
Germán Reyes, assistant professor of economics
Gary Winslett, Johnson Fellow in Modern Political Thought; associate professor of political science

The program on Global Health and Medicine engages practitioners and scholars whose work bears on complex issues that affect the well-being of people worldwide. Topics include pandemics, health care infrastructure and health systems, cultural and sociopolitical aspects of contagion and public health, linkages between health and development, health consequences of conflict, prevention and treatment of sickness across cultures, and innovative solutions to enhance global health.

RCGA Faculty Fellow Conveners:
Kristin Bright, associate professor of anthropology (Spring ‘26)
David Torres, professor of the practice of social entrepreneurship and global health

The program on Global and International History presents lectures, panels, and workshops on important aspects of global and international history. Its presentations focus on relationships, connections, transfers, and movements between nations or regions of the world; they link historical events and developments to contemporary ones, and thereby employ the past to illuminate the present and future. 

RCGA Faculty Fellow Conveners:
Ian Barrow, A. Barton Hepburn Professor of History (Fall ‘25)
Don Wyatt, John M. McCardell, Jr. Distinguished Professor of History

The program on Global Trends in Autocracy and Democracy features lectures, panels, and workshops on the consolidation or erosion of democracy broadly understood. Key topics include democratic backsliding, democracy and autocracy promotion, elections and their integrity, and the social media/information landscape.

RCGA Faculty Fellow Conveners:
Sebnem Gumuscu, associate professor of political science 
Ajay Verghese, associate professor of political science

The program on Security and Global Affairs features lectures, panels, and presentations on global security matters—from traditional issues of war and peace, to nontraditional security challenges in the realms of cyberspace, the environment, food security and beyond. The program examines the causal factors behind these threats over time and explores their possible solutions.

RCGA Faculty Fellow Conveners:
Guntram Herb, professor of geography & international and global studies (Spring ‘26)
Shinkyu (James) Lee, visiting assistant professor of international & global studies
Amy Yuen, professor of political science

The Science, Technology, Environment and Global Affairs program sponsors co-curricular events whose foci—environment and natural resource issues, and scientific or technological advances and their applications—are impacting communities and civil societies, re-shaping the global economy and trade, and affecting the planet’s (and its peoples’) overall health.  This program examines the challenges, effects, and opportunities these factors give rise to at local, regional, or global levels.

Phil Chodrow, assistant professor of computer science
Allison Jacobel, assistant professor of earth and climate sciences