Hamidou "Hammi" Sylla, who earned his MPA from the Watson Institute at Brown University in 2023, found Watson faculty and staff enormously supportive of his YouTube talk show, "Let's Just Talk with Hammi." Many of Sylla's interviewees became valuable professional and personal mentors.
Tomás Gold and Benjamin Bradlow co-authored a paper titled “A Processual Framework for Understanding the Rise of the Populist Right: The Case of Brazil (2013–2018)” that was published in the sociology journal Social Forces.
A recent paper from the Costs of War project examines the challenges and human costs of reintegration for Afghan migrants returning home during the U.S.-led intervention, highlighting the disconnect between their expectations and the harsh realities they faced.
The 48-hour project requires Master of Public Affairs (MPA) students to evaluate a policy problem and issue policy recommendations to a real or theoretical client on a complex policy problem within 48 hours.
Peter Andreas has received the 2024 Distinguished Scholar Award from the International Association for the Study of Organized Crime, recognizing his outstanding contributions to organized crime research.
Robert Blair co-authored a paper for the American Journal of Political Science titled "Elites, the aid curse, and Chinese development finance: A conjoint survey experiment on elites’ aid preferences in 141 low- and middle-income countries."
Grant Cohen, who earned his Master of Public Affairs degree from Brown in 2024 while working a full-time consulting job, used the experience to sharpen the skills he needed to advance his career in the public service sector.
Déja Todman's journey from Brown undergraduate to entrepreneur was a long and winding road. After a six-year leave of absence, she returned to complete her studies in International and Public Affairs (IAPA) and is currently serving as a liaison for Vera Krichevskaya's virtual workshops on political propaganda.
Latoya M. Teague co-authored a paper titled "Re(cover)ing Revelations: Formulating Black Ancestral Text Analysis in Education Research," published in International Journal of Qualitative Methods.
Ashley Delgado, who earned her MPA from the Watson Institute at Brown University in 2024, practices many of the skills she learned at Watson — tact, patience, program management skills and effective use of limited resources — in her current position with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
Applications are now open for the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs Master of Public Affairs Program's Equity in Policy Scholars program, a scholarship and leadership development program designed to increase the diversity of backgrounds and perspectives in public policy making.
As the Watson Institute's Policy Mentor Program enters its second year, the program has expanded with a new focus on undergraduate International and Public Affairs (IAPA) concentrators in addition to Master of Public Affairs (MPA) students.
Senior International and Public Affairs concentrator Marcos Montoya Andrade's summer internship project at The League of United Latin American Citizens has earned national media attention.
Out of 35 applicants, the Watson Institute has selected nine students for the 2024-2025 Director’s Fellowship cohort, offering them the chance to collaborate on research with faculty across the Institute's centers and initiatives.
A Costs of War report found that the U.S. spent at least $22.76 billion on military aid to Israel and related regional operations in the year following October 7, 2023.
Latoya M. Teague co-authored a paper titled "Epistolary Labor: Letter Writing Activism," published in the Black History Bulletin as part of a special issue on Black labor.
Laura Cianciolo, who earned her Master of Public Affairs at the Watson Institute in 2024, credits her Watson-acquired expertise in statistics, econometrics, data visualization, problem-solving skills and interdisciplinary problem-solving with empowering her to conduct more sophisticated and meaningful research.
Deborah Gordon recently co-authored the article "Two Carbon Co-Conspirators Need to Be Stopped to Tackle Climate Change," emphasizing the need to cut CO2 and methane emissions simultaneously to meet global climate targets faster.
New International and Public Affairs (IAPA) Departmental Undergraduate Group (DUG) leaders Oluwanifemi Adetunji and Jordan Lac plan to increase the sense of cohesiveness and community within IAPA.
Tyler Jost's new book, "Bureaucracies at War: The Institutional Origins of Miscalculation," examines how national security institutions influence leaders' conflict decisions and why some provide better counsel than others.