Title:Tackling worldwide issues with London School of Economics

Seven Georgetown faculty are among the inaugural recipients of the London School of Economics-Georgetown University Research Seed Fund, launched last spring as part of a collaboration between the two schools designed to foster academic excellence and spark change.

The partnership stemmed from both institutions’ shared commitment to address key global challenges by engaging with policy and international organizations in Washington, DC, and London.

Georgetown faculty members are working on five projects that aim to develop solutions to some of the world’s most pressing issues. Each project team will receive approximately $25,000, with equal contributions from both universities.

Jennifer Tobin, associate professor of public policy at Georgetown’s McCourt School of Public Policy, and Ryan Jablonski, associate professor of political science at the London School of Economics (LSE), are collecting on-the-ground data from at least five of the countries in Sub-Saharan Africa hit hardest by the withdrawal of U.S. aid last year.

Arik Levinson, professor of economics at Georgetown’s College of Arts & Sciences, Sefi Roth, associate professor of environmental economics at LSE, and Lutz Sager, assistant professor in the ESSEC Business School and a visiting fellow in LSE’s Grantham Research Institute, are looking at how air pollution affects city residents across socio-economic groups as they go about their day.

Jishnu Das, Distinguished Professor of Public Policy at Georgetown’s McCourt School of Public Policy and the School of Foreign Service, and Mylène Lagarde, associate professor of health economics at LSE, are analyzing more than 12,000 clinical interactions around the world to examine the variations in how doctors diagnose and treat patients—and what that reveals about gaps in quality that governments face.

Erik Voeten, Peter F. Krogh Professor of Geopolitics and Justice in World Affairs at Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service and the Department of Government, Stephanie Rickard, professor of political economy at LSE, and Sarah Brooks, professor of political science at Ohio State University, are gathering data on community compensation in supporting renewable energy.

Finally, there’s a research team mapping how public services have been digitized across Indian states to understand variations in adoption and implementation: Irfan Nooruddin, the Hamad bin Khalifa Professor of Indian Politics at Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service; Bhumi Purohit, assistant professor of public policy at Georgetown’s McCourt School of Public Policy; Pavithra Suryanarayan, associate professor at LSE; and Aliz Tóth, assistant professor of political science.

“The selection of this year’s award winners reflects the power of the Georgetown-LSE collaboration to harness the complementary strengths of our two globally respected institutions in advancing innovative, interdisciplinary solutions to some of the world’s most urgent challenges,” said Jeffrey Urbach, vice provost for research at Georgetown.