2025-2026 Program Events

Global Economics, Development, and Political Economy

“Recent Patterns of Intergenerational Social Mobility in Latin America”
Lecture by Joaquín Serrano, assistant professor of applied economics, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. 

“Why Nothing Works: Who Killed Progress—and How to Bring It Back”
Lecture by Marc Dunkelman, Fellow at Brown University’s Watson School for International and Public Affairs. 

“Competition and Development in Latin America and the Caribbean”
Lecture by Matias Busso, principal economist, Inter-American Development Bank. 

“The Little Things (0-3 Year Olds) that Can Have Big Impacts on China’s Human Capital and Economic Development”
Lecture by Scott Rozelle, faculty co-director of the Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions; Helen F. Farnsworth Endowed Professorship. 

Global Health and Medicine

“The Perilous State of US Public and Global Health Funding and Policy” 
Lecture by Ashish Jha, dean of Brown University School of Public Health. 

“Health, Security, and Diplomacy in 2025”
Lecture by Ambassador Jimmy Kolker. Sponsored by RCGA Program on Global Health and Medicine. 

“Forty Years of Public Health Work in Ethiopia” 
Lecture by Rick Hodes ’75, medical director of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee in Ethiopia. 

“Reporting on Public Health In Uncertain Times”
Lecture by Apoorva Mandavilli, reporter for the New York Times.

“Assembling Networks of Care in Global Maternal Health; Technologies, Tasks, and Traditional Birth Attendants” 
Lecture by Margaret MacDonald, associate professor and graduate program director, Department of Anthropology, York University, Toronto. 

Global and International History

“India in the 1940s: War, Partition, and Decolonization “
Lecture by Sunil Purushotham, associate professor of history, Fairfield University. 

“The Manchu Conquest of China in World History “
Lecture by Nicola Di Cosmo, Luce Professor of East Asian Studies, Institute for Advanced Study.

“Slavery, Abolition, and the Antebellum Origins of Modern Business Ethics”
Lecture by Seth Rockman, the George L. Littlefield Professor of American History and Director of Undergraduate Studies at Brown University. 

Global Trends in Autocracy and Democracy

“Power, Exclusion, and Identity: The Politics of Muslim Marginalization in India”
Lecture by Feyaad Allie, assistant professor of government, Harvard University.

“Defending Democracy in Authoritarian Systems “
Lecture by Nicholas Opiyo, award-winning human rights attorney and democracy and justice advocate from Uganda.

“Past, Present and Future of Democracy in America” 
Lecture by Robert Mickey, associate professor of political science, University of Michigan. 

“Democratic Decline: What Happens to Minority Representation When Section II Protections are Gone” 
Lecture by Loren Collingwood, associate professor of political science, University of New Mexico. 

Security and Global Affairs

“Protest and Policy” 
Lecture by David Cortright, Professor Emeritus of the Practice, Keough School of Global Affairs, University of Notre Dame. 

“Arctic at the Crossroads: Greenland, Geopolitics, and the Importance of Indigenous Sovereignty”
Lecture by Melody Burkins, director, Institute of Arctic Studies and senior associate director, John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding, Dartmouth College. 

“Watching Power Politics in the UN Security Council at Close Quarters
Lecture by Richard Gowan, program director, Global Issues and Institutions, International Crisis Group. 

Science, Technology, Environment and Global Affairs

“Bridging Science and Community for Climate Solutions”
Lecture by Kyla Westphal, vice president of external affairs, Ebb Carbon.

“Application-driven Machine Learning for Climate Action” 
Lecture by David Rolnick, assistant professor and Canada CIFAR AI Chair, School of Computer Science, McGill University and Mila – Quebec AI Institute.