News: International

Daniel Speckhard (MA ’82), a member of the La Follette School’s Board of Visitors, is leading the unified Lutheran World Relief-IMA World Health, after the two faith-based humanitarian organizations merged January 1. Speckhard, a former US ambassador, has led Lutheran World Relief since 2014.

The world’s largest financial newspaper, The Nihon Keizai Shimbun, published an op-ed by La Follette School Professor Menzie Chinn about the causes and possible global impact of the US dollar’s growing strength.

La Follette School student Jennifer Johnson spoke with Guatemalan students about educational opportunities in Madison on July 19 during the EducationUSA Alumni Fair.

Emilia Tjernström, an assistant professor at the La Follette School, and colleagues used a 2012 cyclone in Fiji as a natural experiment to identify the impact of direct exposure to natural hazards on Fijian households’ risk attitudes and subjective expectations about future natural disasters.

Rourke O’Brien’s course on Inequality, Race and Public Policy helped me develop an understanding of the policy-making process and how it is impacted by social factors. Mark Copelovitch’s course on International Governance also helped me learn about policy-making in intergovernmental institutions.

Teach for Nepal, co-founded by Shisir Khanal (MIPA ’05), celebrated its five-year anniversary in April 2018. Adapted from Teach for America’s model, Teach for Nepal is a movement of young leaders who seek to end education inequity in Nepal through direct service in classrooms and by working in areas that drive structural change.

The La Follette School has helped me explore options. I learned about nonprofit work during my summer internship with Health Access Connect and during the La Follette in D.C. career development trip, I saw what private sector and consulting work might be like.

Assistant Professor Emilia Tjernström received a grant to measure the effects of introducing performance-pay contracts for citizen journalists in an online English-language news company in Kenya. The study will improve understanding of whether performance contracts increase profits and how they affect journalists’ output quality.

The La Follette School of Public Affairs’ Seminar Series kicks off Wednesday, September 6, at 12:30 p.m. with a presentation by Oğuzhan Göktolga, an assistant professor at Inonu University in Turkey.

David Rank, the former acting U.S. ambassador to China, will discuss and answer questions about his experiences in government, his decision to resign, and the current state of the U.S. State Department on Friday, July 14 at the La Follette School of Public Affairs.