Independent Research

As part of EPIIC’s requirements, students have the option to conduct semester long, or year long, research projects of their own choice and design – or to join research projects being conducted by the IGL’s INSPIRE Fellows or other EPIIC friends. Last year, students conducted research in such countries as Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Costa Rica, France, Guatemala, India, Kenya, Nepal, Nigeria, and Venezuela.

Possible topics could include: the links between rapid urbanization and dislocation and poverty; testing Hernando de Soto’s concept of capitalism and property ownership; post conflict development and political accountability; the enforced poverty of Zimbabwe; “de-development in Gaza”; the global structure of work; the persistence of slavery and “wage slavery”; the links between poverty and environmental justice; hunger and homelessness in Boston; the impact of micro credit on economic development; the applicability of a Marshall Plan to address large scale poverty; public health implications of poverty; agriculture and climate change.

Of note…

• Professor Astier Almedom, a Fellow of the Institute for Global Leadership, has organized a Resilience Network and research group. Students will have the opportunity to explore poverty and resilience.

• Sarah Freeman, a graduate student at the School of Engineering and a co-founder of Tufts Engineers Without Borders, will mentor EPIIC students in partnership with Peruvian students to research the water sanitation needs for the impoverished of the shantytowns of Lima, Peru.

• The Tufts Medford Chapter of Physicians for Human Rights has approached EPIIC to help organize a student research group to Bangladesh to probe the intersection of health and poverty.