The Center for World Affairs and the Global Economy is proud to support the education of the following students:

Academic Year 2009-10

Victoria Steffes is currently enrolled in the La Follette School of Public Affairs.  She is a first-year student in the International Public Affairs program and plans to focus on national security issues.  Victoria hopes to continue on to a Ph.D. program, studying the rationality of suicide terrorism in international politics.

Academic Year 2008-9

Danielle Berman is a doctoral student in Sociology. Her research explores how the forces of economic globalization affect the development of market institutions in contemporary Russia'’s agri-food sector. Her project considers how the demands of fast food corporations, and the methods used to ensure they are met, reshape business networks, quality standards and production practices throughout their supply chains. Using comparative case studies, her dissertation will address: (1) how fast food companies make use of and alter the market institutions they encounter in Russia’s post-Soviet transformation; (2) the degree to which the imposition of corporate standards represents a shift in the locus of governance from the state to the market; and (3) whether relationships between U.S. and Russian businesses result in convergence on an American model of capitalism.

Katie Zaman is a doctoral student in Sociology. She is studying the effects of globalization on women workers in Bangladesh, and how changes in women's work affect their personal lives.

Academic Year 2007-8

Erick Danzer is a doctoral student in Political Science. His research examines the political basis of agricultural trade and production networks—agricultural value chains—in the global economy. While with WAGE, Erick will explore other aspects of chain politics, especially the linkages between global value chains and democratization, economic
liberalization, and global governance.

Swati Dhingra is a doctoral student in Agriculture and Applied Economics. Her research examines why some firms are unable to undertake innovations and compete successfully in the global market. Her research with WAGE will examine how institutional factors (e.g. labor regulations and contracting arrangements) affect firms' ability to innovate in response to greater economic integration and what implications this has for wages and trade patterns.

Trudy Fredericks is a third-year graduate student of United States History. Her work focuses on twentieth-century social movements, especially the New Left.

Rachel Jacques is a graduate student in Urban and Regional Planning, specializing in Community and Economic Development.  Her research focuses on urban redevelopment and processes of gentrification in post-industrial cities.

Deborah Meiners is a graduate student in History at UW-Madison, where she is broadly interested in U.S. foreign policy with Africa during the Cold War. Her current research focuses on the operations of the Peace Corps in Africa during the 1960s and 1970s. In addition to her historical studies, Deborah studies civil rights jurisprudence and comparative legal systems as a J.D. candidate at the University of Wisconsin Law School.

Deokwoo Nam is a graduate student in Economics. His recent research area is on the monetary policy in the open economy, particularly the exchange rate policy.

Carrie Traud is a graduate student in International Public Affairs at the La Follette School at UW-Madison. Her focus is on environmental policy, particularly environmental justice and sustainable international development.

 

Timo Weishaupt is a doctoral student in Political Science. His research aims at exploring the dual challenges associated with European integration and economic globalization on the one hand, and larger-scale, often persistent un- and underemployment, changing family structures and demographic aging on the other.