Fwd: UEP Students: Colloquium 3/2 - Community Development in a Comparative Framework between Colombia and Afghanistan

[Rayn Riel]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Wells, Mason A. <Mason...@tufts.edu>
Date: Thu, Feb 25, 2016 at 1:05 PM
Subject: UEP Students: Colloquium 3/2 - Community Development in a Comparative Framework between Colombia and Afghanistan
To:
Cc: "Wells, Mason A." <Mason...@tufts.edu>

Community Development in a Comparative Framework Between Colombia and Afghanistan

Wednesday, March 2 from noon to 1 p.m. @ Sophia Gordon Hall, Multi-purpose Room, 15 Talbot Ave, Medford, MA 02155

 

Join next week's colloquium discussion with Alyssa Bryson and Huma Gupta on international community development.

 

Speaker Biographies:

 

Alyssa Bryson

 

Alyssa is the Deputy Director of MIT CoLab. In this capacity, she oversees program development, working to ensure strategic alignment and execution across CoLab’s diverse projects throughout the Americas. Previously, Alyssa led CoLab's Inclusive Regional Development work and collaborated with community, university, business, government, and NGO partners throughout Latin America and the Caribbean - primarily in Colombia, Chile, and Puerto Rico - to strengthen the involvement of marginalized communities in the formulation of development priorities and articulate efforts on the local, regional, and transnational scales. 

Before coming to MIT, she worked with the United Nations Development Fund for Women in Ecuador and Colombia on projects dedicated to promoting economic and civic participation in the Andean Region. Ms. Bryson holds a BA in Political Science from Northwestern University and a Masters in City Planning from MIT. Her Masters thesis used participatory mapping to examine how residents use their physical, sociopolitical, and economic mobility to adapt to situations of severe violence in peripheral neighborhoods of Bogotá, Colombia.

Huma Gupta

Huma is a second year Ph.D. student in the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture. She previously graduated from MIT’s Department of Urban Studies with a Master’s in City Planning in 2011 and has a B.A. in Middle Eastern History from the University of Cincinnati. Her research interests lie in twentieth century urban planning practices and development discourses in the Middle East and Central Asia, specifically Baghdad, Damascus and Kabul. From 2011 to 2013, Huma worked in Afghanistan for Integrity Watch Afghanistan on training communities in seven provinces to monitor small infrastructure projects. Huma worked in Damascus for the Syrian Ministry of Local Administration & Environment in 2008. Her publications include, “Home Sweet Home: Housing Practices and Tools that Support Durable Solutions for Urban IDPs,” www.internal-displacement.org (2015), “Community-Based Monitoring Toolkit,” www.communitymonitoring.org (2013), and “Sex and Age Matter: Improving Humanitarian Response in Emergencies” (2011).

 

Free lunch catered by Tufts

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And don't forget to mark your calendars for UEP's other upcoming colloquium events in Sophia Gordon Hall from noon to 1 p.m.:

• March 16 - Social Network Analysis as an Evaluation Tool: The Case of Indiana Humanities - Felicia Sullivan, CIRCLE Researcher, Tisch College of Civic Life
• April 6 - Why Climate Change is a Gender Issue - Susan Buckingham, Independent Researcher, United Kingdom
• Friday, April 29 from 2 to 3:30 p.m. - UEP Alumni Panel: Working in Global Operations, Research, and Consulting - Denis Chin, International Food Policy Research Institute; Jon Crowe, Meister Consultants Group; Armando Milou, IFC-World Bank Group; Nicholas Petschek, LRN; Katie Walsh, North America, CDP