Harvard IRC & LEAP

We have initiated a meaningful sustained relationship between LISD and Harvard’s undergraduate International Relations Council. The Trebuchet has successfully collaborated with the IRC in the past - we secured the IRC as a permanent host for the Oslo Scholars Program of the Human Rights Foundation, and helped them convene a College Freedom Forum in the Spring of 2019.

For LISD we have mediated a very exciting and promising initial exchange with Peter Droege and Davis Tyler-Dudley, the IRC’s President for the 2020-21 academic term.

Mindful the virtual learning necessitated by COVID in addition to the ongoing LEAP offerings of embedded internships, reverse internship coaching, and opportunities with the LISD network, Peter has proposed to provide thesis guidance and support for students conducting capstone research on sustainability issues.

Particularly exciting, both as a conceptual direction, and as a framework for internship and research opportunities, are LISD’s new T2 Programs: Terra 2 - Transformations for a Changing Planet, and the Global Engagement for Active Interns Project. T2 is a call to universities, agencies, institutions and concerned individuals to squarely focus on the habitability of a future Earth with a far different and more extreme climate than our current one, and to envision a permissive economic, political, social, and cultural environment globally that will nurture the breakthroughs we need.

LEAP at Tufts

Chris Swan, Sarah Freeman, and Doug Matson

We met on February 21st, 2020 with Professor Chris Swan, Dean of Undergraduate Education at the Tufts School of Engineering, Professor Douglas Matson, and a wonderful Institute alumna, Sarah Freeman. One objective of this meeting was to secure the naming of Tufts’ Engineers Without Borders in honor of our deceased wonderful common friend, Fred Berger. He was a long time member of the Institute’s External Advisory Board. The occasion also allowed us to introduce LEAP to Tufts Engineering, EWB, and Sarah.

In 2004, Institute Board member David Cuttino had introduced me to Fred, then the Chair of the Board of Louis Berger, Inc. An engineer by profession, Fred was an alumnus of the Tufts Department of Economics, and became a member of the Tufts Board of Trustees. He expressed to me his interest in the creation of what he termed an “engineering Peace Corps,” and his frustration at the lack of traction this idea received at Tufts. With his support, the Institute suggested creating an Engineers Without Borders chapter, and honored Bernard Amadei, the Founding President of EWB-USA, with a Dr. Jean Mayer Award.

Our vision, and the EWB mandate, was to encourage students to work closely with faculty mentors and field experts to provide engineering support to serve the needs of communities in developing countries. To ensure the sustainability of their projects, the students built relationships with the communities that they work in before beginning their projects, and developed a plan in collaboration with, and fully sensitive to the interests and concerns of, those community.

EWB’s very first trip to Tibet was led by Sarah, then an undergraduate engineering student under the advising of Doug Matson. The project created latrines and solar-powered cookers to destroy medical waste. Mindful that they were traveling to a Chinese-controlled zone, we sensitized the students to what it means to work in such a sensitive environment, providing orientation sessions on language, culture, and China-Tibet governance and politics.

I have reconnected with Tufts Shafiqul Islam, a Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Professor of Water Diplomacy at Tufts University, a good friend, and the father of one of my wonderful former students, Maia Majumder. Shafiqul and I affectionately call each other “Bunky,” commemorating the time we spent as bunkmates during an EPIIC Outward Bound retreat.

For the 2005 EPIIC Oil and Water year, together we convened a professional workshop on “Water as a Source of Conflict and Cooperation: Exploring the Potential,” which then became the Water Diplomacy Project at Fletcher and the Water Systems, Science, and Society initiatives. These are part of the wonderful legacies that the Institute left for Tufts. Shafiqul will serve as a Convisero and LEAP mentor.

Gregg Nakano joins LEAP

Gregg who I affectionately call the “Ramrod” of ALLIES has become part of the LEAP network. Peter Droege will help Gregg create an overture to UNESCO and its Small Island Developing States (SIDS) program, framed by “slow onset disaster” and the existential risk posed to the territory and cultures of Pacific island nations, and help secure a potential UNESCO delegation to the Festival of the Pacific (FESTPAC).

Marcy Murninghan joins LEAP

I introduced Peter Droege to Marcy Murninghan, who was an Institute INSPIRE Fellow during the 2007-08 EPIIC year on “Global Poverty and Inequality.” In her time at the Institute, she wrote a report on Fighting the Fury: Climate Change, Natural Disasters, and the Stewardship Ethic - building on her decades of experience in corporate social responsibility and ethics - which links the military services and civil and business sectors in a integrative framework to respond to climate disaster.

Fighting the Fury examines existing practice and opportunities for cultivating private sector and civil–military partnerships and leadership, opportunities that traverse the humanitarian community, and the overlapping arenas of corporate and investor social responsibility, as well as academe. It suggests how these partnerships might be strengthened and new ones created, while engaging, too, other actors such as social entrepreneurs, foundations, and the media.”

Marcy has developed a new Equity Culture / Civic Fiduciary initiative that encompasses the concept of a civilian disaster corps that she developed at the Institute. In addition to being an integral contributor to ALLIES - my Institute’s civil-military program - with her emphasis on civil-military collaboration on climate response, she is now a LEAP fellow, and with Peter and LISD’s insight will continue to develop and advocate for this framework.

Jess Ostfeld joins LEAP

Jess is one of the wonderful students I had the pleasure to mentor in my role for the Albright Institute at Wellesley College. Given her interest and undergraduate research in environmental policy and sustainability, I introduced her to Peter and to LEAP, which sponsored her internship in water research in France’s Alsace region. Jess kept a journal to which she recollected the following in 2019:

This week was an introduction to the subject matter, study site, and my colleagues. This summer, I will be helping Agnes Lambardche collect data for her thesis on hydrology of groundwater-fed streams in the Alsace region. Last summer, Serge Dumont noticed that these streams reached such low levels that fish and plants perished. In the nearby areas farms use groundwater during the summer to water their fields, particularly maise. Maize, or corn, does not normally grow in France, but its production has been encouraged by EU policies, such as the CAP program. These dynamics show just how complex the issue is, how it is has been shaped by local geography and commerce, regional and national agricultural goals, and international policy. 

University of Strasbourg PhD student Agnes Labarchede, and her advisor, Geography and Development Professor Carmen De Jong, have done a wonderful job in working with governmental agencies so that there is minimum overlap and maximum collaboration. One of the main reasons why I wanted to work with Carmen and Agnes this summer was to learn how to work with policymakers and governmental agencies to shape policy through research. Given Carmen’s previous work on artificial snow, the resulting media stories, and her success in shaping policy at her focal sites, I have hope that their research will help improve Grand Est (the French Region within which the study is taking place) water management. Over the summer, I look forward to learning from them both about successful stakeholder involvement, media relations, and how to translate complicated scientific jargon into something everybody can understand. 

Solar for Gaza Published

The Solar for Gaza research project that we began in 2009 as a collaboration between the Institute for Global Leadership, the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies, and the Institute of Architecture and Planning of the University Liechtenstein, has been published in Urban Energy Transitions 2nd ed, edited by Peter Droege and distributed by Elsevier.

“Solar for Gaza: An Energetic Framework For Renewable Peace and Prosperity for Gaza and Its Greater Region,” is now featured as a chapter 2nd edition of Urban Energy Transition, edited by Peter. We revived and published it as an example of Israeli-Palestinian cooperation, penetrating the current self-defeating climate of anti-normalization, with hope in its message of "an alternative to war through alternative energy." My co-author with Peter is Cody Valdes, an Institute alumnus who was instrumental in developing Solar for Gaza at the Institute (Cody was also invaluable in helping me develop The Trebuchet in its infancy).

Also acknowledged is Hannah Flamm, one of my previous wonderful assistants who, as an Institute student in 2010, conducted a Solar for Gaza training workshop, “Assessing Renewable Energy Potential in Palestine,” together with Dr. Tareq Abu Hamed. They convened Palestinian, Israeli, and other international scientists, engineers, professors, and entrepreneurs.

We relied on the insights of Sara Roy, a senior research scholar at Harvard's Center for Middle Eastern Studies and renowned Gaza expert, for the chapter introduction framing the current Gazan situation (her daughter Annie Schnitzer was the first LEAP Fellow while a Wellesley undergraduate student).

For more information and to order the book: 

https://www.elsevier.com/books/urban-energy-transition/droege/978-0-08-102074-6

Sookrit Malik joins LEAP

My alumnus Sookrit Malik, from the 2013-14 EPIIC year on "The Future of the Middle East and North Africa," and recent Fletcher School graduate, joined LEAP as a young India-based practitioner. 

Here is Sookrit's description of his current venture, Energeia:

"We are working on building smart industrial microgrids which are cleaner, more reliable and cost-effective. I think these microgrids will have a fundamental role to play in India's energy and transportation future, especially, considering the limitations of our transmission infrastructure. We have an opportunity to leapfrog here and bypass the structural and financial limitations posed by aging and inefficient infrastructure. I am also working on collecting and modeling demand level data which could provide important insights for designing these systems in an Indian context. Recently, there has also been a spike in diesel cars, buses, and trucks being converted from Diesel to CNG. I can also delve deeper into these transitions and what challenges the future of the microgrid ecosystem (integrated with e-mobility) may have in store for us."

Annie Schnitzer Joins LEAP

Annie Schnitzer, a wonderful Wellesley junior, was the first member of LEAP. Annie studied German language and culture at Wellesley and investigated the German coal industry as Germany undergoes the transition to fully renewable energy resources.

The internship this summer taught me to think critically and analytically, offering me an experience that cannot be found in the classroom. With Dr. Droege’s support and guidance, I even had the chance to learn about various masters programs in the field of sustainable development and urban design. It was truly a wonderful summer and I am deeply grateful for each and every moment, they are ones I will never forget.”