Committee on African Studies awards grants

The Harvard Committee on African Studies has awarded nine research grants to Harvard students for travel to sub-Saharan Africa during the summer of 2008. The undergraduates are juniors who will be doing research for their senior honors theses; the graduate students will be conducting research for their doctoral dissertations. The grants are funded by the Office of the Provost and by an endowment established through the generosity and commitment to Harvard African Studies of Jennifer Oppenheimer ’89, J.D. ’93.

The Committee on African Studies has awarded summer research grants since 1984. More information on the grants and recipients for past years is available on the committee’s Web site at http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~cafrica/grants.shtml/.

The 2008 undergraduate grant recipients are as follows:

Gloria Cheche, environmental science and public policy, will look at using transdisciplinarity to assess the effectiveness of environmental policies/projects in Tanzania.

Heidi Kim, social studies, will investigate the role of faith-based organizations in delivering health care in Rwanda.

Robert Ross, social studies, is working on a project titled “Post-Conflict Reconciliation Process in Northern Uganda: The Origins and Evolution of Mato Oput.”

Lauren Yapp, history and anthropology concentrator, will research “District Six and Sophiatown: The History and Memory of Lost Communities and Cultures in South Africa.”

The 2008 graduate grant recipients are as follows:

Ivelina Borisova, Graduate School of Education: “Sierra Leone’s Child Soldiers: The Role of the Family in the Pathways of Reintegration and Adjustment.”

Brooke Jack, Kennedy School of Government: “Allocation of Direct Incentives for Water Quality Improvement in Malawi.”

Philipp Lehmann, history, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS): “The Nature of Colonialism: The German Imperial Encounter with the East African Landscape.”

Janet Lewis, government, GSAS: “Protecting the Periphery: Violence and Center-Periphery Economics Integration in African States.” Lewis is the recipient of the Jennifer Oppenheimer Grant.

Chérie Rivers, African and African American Studies, GSAS: “Music in Senegalese Film After Sembene.”