Past Nelson Institute Conferences

April 5-8 activities included:

• Keynote Address by Ambassador Stephen Rapp: Bringing War Crimes Perpetrators to Justice 
• Global Data Hub Launch Party, including a Global Data Hub Presentation and talk by Ambassador Darci Vetter: From Iowa to the World - Economic Nationalism and Global Trade

• Closing Remarks by Kosovo Consul General Xhavit Gashi

• Best Presentation Prize awarded to Megan Lindmark and Lauren Blum

Student research panels:

Click on the student's name to see a video of the presentation. Click on the paper title to see a pdf of the paper.

The Status of Refugees

• Mollie Clark, Human Rights Priority: Human Rights in Palestine: Reproductive Rights for Women
• Heather Livingood, The Struggles of a Refugee in a Camp
• Zoe Zuidema, Perceptions of and Obstacles to Success and Integration at the Moroccan-Algerian border

Historical Perspectives on Global Issues

• Blake Center, The Marshall Plan as Analyzed with National Values Theory and Defensive Realism
• John Wingert, "The Cheapest Atom Bomb" The East German Uprising of 1953...
• Paul Strey, Rule of Law in Law’s Absence: Examining the Legal Politics of Sudan

Global Pressing Issue Grant Project: Assessing, Collaborating, and Empowering to Improve Water Quality in Rural Uganda

• Professor Cassity Gutierrez, Karli Kisch, Hayley LeBlanc, Megan Lindmark and Augusta Weide

Science, Health and Environment

• Megan Lindmark, Seasonal Variation of Fish Assemblage and Catch Per Unit Effort in the Prek Toal Core Area
• Ryan Wealther, Abigail Cowan, Sara Donovan, Carl Johannson, Study of Incidence and Socio-Biological Factors Associated with Low Birth Weight Babies Born at Pravara Rural Hospital, Ahmednagar District of Maharashtra, India
• Jennifer Vickers, Dry Season Demography of African Elephants in the Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania
• Lauren Blum, Kacie Deavers, Joe Herba, A Socio-Epidemiological Study of HIV Patients at a Tertiary Care Hospital in the Ahmednagar District of Rural India

Perspectives on Human Rights

• Elena Hildebrandt, Human Rights Crisis of Persons with Disabilities
• Russell White, Helping the Damned, Displaced and Forgotten: An Analysis of the Evolution of Refugee Rights
• Whitney Hanson, How Does Immigration Relate to Different Measures of Crime in the United States?

Drake Simulation League

• Mollie Clark, Rachel Gray, Isabelle Barrett, Ryan Wiskerchen

April 8-9 activities included:

• Crisis simulation supervised by former U.S. Ambassador Ken Yalowitz and former White House Director of Global Engagement Brett Bruen
• Dinner social featuring international appetizers
• Keynote "National Security and Women's Insecurity" by Valerie Hudson, University of Texas A&M
• Closing luncheon address by visiting Global Practitioner Peiqin Zhou, Nanjing University

Student research panels:

The 2016 Best Presentation Award was given to Haley Barbour, Drake University.

Problems and Cases in Political and Economic Development

• Haley Barbour, “Societal Implications of Bare Branches: China and India”
• Greg Gonzalez, “Mexican Economic Policies and the Underlying Forces of Corruption”
• Cecilia Panella, “When the Statesman Surpasses the State: Gamal Abdel Nasser, Realism, Liberalism, and the Evolution of the Significance of Pan-Arab Sentiment, 1952-1970”

Issues in the Contemporary Middle East and North Africa

• Kara Anderson, “’Cubs of the Caliphate’: The Systematic Recruitment, Training, and Use of Children”
• Mollie Clark, “The Case for a Unified Jerusalem”
• Taylor Donaldson, “Religion, Law, and Society: Liberationist Theologies within Islamic Feminism”
• Hannah Grafelman, “A Two-Fronted Approach to Combatting Daesh”

Facets of Globalization

• Morgan Daves-Gehrls, “The International Court of Justice, Globalization and the Evolution of International Law”
• Jeff Konrad, “Global Currency Hedging in Global Investment Portfolios”
• John Wingert, “Selling Death: Marketing and Counter-Marketing in Global Tobacco Cessation”
• Cody Frost, “Zainichi Koreans within Japan”

April 10-11 activities included:

• Group simulation in U.S. foreign policy facilitated by Ambassador Joseph Mussomeli
• Keynote address "Political Islam: What the West Can Learn from Its Own History" by noted scholar John Owen
• Closing luncheon with Iowa Representative Zachary Nunn, formerly Director of Cybersecurity Policy at the National Security Council, White House. Nunn's topic was "Inside the National Security Council." 

Student research panels:

Click on the student's name to see a video of the presentation. Click on the paper title to see a pdf of the paper. The 2015 Best Presentation Awards were given to Allison Smith, Beloit University, and William Heaston, Drake University.

External Intervention and Political Change

• Michelle Avrutin (George Washington University), “The EU and Ukraine: Possibilities for Accession”
• Allison Smith (Beloit University), “International Actors in Ukraine’s Revolution to Democracy from 2004 to 2014”
• Adam Smith (Drake University), “Children of the Caliphate: The Threat Posed by the Islamic State School System”

Corruption, Political Institutions and Civic Identity

• John Wingert (Drake University), “Corrupting Emerging Democracies: A Review of the Literature”
• William Heaston (Drake University), “Agency and Inertia: Organizational Theoretic Perspectives on Procurement Corruption in the United Nations”
• Nathan Leys (George Mason University), “Profitability Through Superior Firepower: Defense Industry Election Spending After Citizens United”
• Cecelia Panella (Drake University), “How Much Will This Arm Go for on the Black Market? An Expansion on Snowden and the Mass Production of the Modern Citizen” 

Transnational Flows of People and Ideas

• Michael Hoyt (Drake University), “The Humanitarian Crisis of 2014: Realist and Constructivist Views of International Migration”
• Taylor Donaldson (Drake University), “Sex Trafficking in the Balkans”
• Madeline Geobel (Drake University), “From the Eyes of the Little Guys; Exploring Family Farming in Cameroon”

The first annual Nelson Institute Undergraduate Conference on Global Affairs was held April 11-12, 2014. Activities included:

• Friday keynote speaker Todd Sechser, University of Virginia, on "Crisis Bargaining and Nuclear Blackmail: Should We Be Afraid of an Iranian Bomb?"
• Saturday keynote speaker Jerry Gallucci, Diplomat-in-Residence, Former Foreign Service Officer and UN Peacekeeper, on "U.S. Policy on Russia and Ukraine"

Student research panels:

Globalism, Nationalism and Identity‌

• Amanda Lawnicki, Beloit College, “Papa, should I tell you what I think of this exhibition, I would cry.” An Analysis of Visitor Impression Books at the Bosnian Historical Museum in Sarajevo.
• Danny Hodorowski, Beloit College, The Faces Behind the Flags: Football-Hooliganism's connections to Civil-Society in Moscow
• Joshua Duden, Drake University, The Changing Citizen in a Globalized World
• Emily Grant, Central College, Finding a Balance Between the Old and the New: The 2nd Generation’s Struggle to Understand and Preserve the Tai Dam Culture

International Political Economy                                                    

• Hannah Shell, Drake University, Institutional Quality as a Determinant of Capital Flows
• Erin Hassanzadeh, Drake University, Surviving the Sueneng
• William R. Heaston, Drake University, Towards an Institutional Model of Organizational Corruption Controls: The Case of FIFA

Nation, Gender and Human Rights

• Jeffrey Ding, University of Iowa, An Altruistic Approach to Human Rights Policy
• Alex Shaner, Drake University, The Unnoticed Right: The Aspiration of Self-Determination and National Identity
• Jordan Payne, Drake University, Gender and Peru’s Shining Path