Faculty Stories

The purpose of this project was to culturally adapt the World Health Organization (WHO)-developed Caregiver Skills Training (CST) program to be used in the Mongolian context in close collaboration with the Autism Association of Mongolia.

As a result of the award, we were able to complete the cultural adaptation of CST in Mongolia, and we hosted a “CST launching event” that included various local stakeholders, such as the WHO Country Director, the Mongolian Ministry of Education, the Mongolian Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare, local NGOs, and local clinics. Our next steps are to pilot test the CST with caregivers of young autistic children in Mongolia.

The pre-program visit enabled me to scout locations and meet potential collaboration partners in Taiwan and Singapore. During these trips, I visited Shih Chien University, National Cheng Kung University, and the Taiwan Design Research Institute in Taiwan, as well as the National University of Singapore. The purpose of these visits was to build relationships with key contacts and prepare for the upcoming study abroad program.

As a result of the award, I established a study abroad program for Early Fall 2024 titled Design in Taiwan. Seventeen UW students participated from September 1 to 21, traveling to Taipei, Taichung, Nantou, and Tainan. They completed two design workshops alongside 21 students from two local universities. Students shared their learning and travel experiences here: https://uwdesignintaiwan24.blogspot.com/. 

This project was a part of a new course I have developed, POL S 463 “Law and Violence Data Laboratory,” which is a small upper-division seminar in Political Science, which was also designed to count toward the university-wide Data Science Minor (DSM) as fulfilling a data studies requirement. Adapting and extending laboratory models from the natural sciences, the course takes a novel approach by teaching students about data collection and measurement in the social sciences through direct and collaborative work on a real research project. The main project theme was to create a comprehensive subnational data set on anti-press actions in Russia using original primary reports from a non-governmental monitoring organization. Students thus learn about general best practices in data collection through reading and intense classroom discussions, which they then apply to this real-world data collection project.

To provide a deeper contextualized understanding of the Russia experience, one of the objectives of using the award funds was to invite and compensate through honoraria Russian media monitors and activists to give students a better sense of the challenges involved in monitoring anti-press behavior as well as how such data are compiled.

The main overall outcomes of the Data Laboratory were met: 15 students developed technical skills around data collection, which they applied in collaboratively contributing to what will become an extensive data set on Russian anti-press actions for the period 2000-2020. One outcome of this project was the drafting of a rough instrument for a public opinion survey on individual attitudes toward the treatment of the media, which allows for gauging societal opinions but in a way that can be more safely anonymized relative to relying on human rights monitors directly.

In collaboration with my colleague, Martina Kartman, I submitted a proposal to offer a new LSJ study abroad program in the Winter of 2025 in New Zealand. The program will explore the impact of colonization on conflict resolution and justice practices as well as contemporary efforts to revive/create new restorative justice alternatives in Aotearoa.

The purpose of the pre-program visit was to familiarize ourselves with the available resources and opportunities available in key locales across the country. We visited museums, met with potential guest speakers, explored housing options, and more.

The primary locales for this course are Auckland and Wellington. We will spend our first week near the Waitangi Treaty Grounds to ground our students in the history of colonization. Field trips will include visits to Maori villages to observe Iwi community panels utilizing kaupapa Māori practices, observation of courtroom processes, and meetings with legal authorities in various settings. These opportunities for observation and dialogue in diverse settings across New Zealand will enable students to appreciate the many ways justice can be envisioned and enacted and the implications of these diverse practices.

The project involved conducting a workshop that involves training in implementation science and discussion with stakeholders on needs assessment, identification of opportunities, and co-developing and implementing strategies addressing maternal and child health in Ethiopia.

The workshop has been completed and the qualitative study is ongoing.