Birthday Cake

Birthday Cake

These recordings were created by Breakaway for the Ursinus College Fringe Festival 2020. "Birthday Cake" Playwright: Kate Foley (2023) Director: Claire Hughes (2020) Cast: Jaz: Donovan Erskine (2021) Mary: Ruby Serafin (2020)

Haunted House

These recordings were created by Breakaway for the Ursinus College Fringe Festival 2020. "Haunted House" Playwright: Kate Foley (2023 Directors: Ruby Serafin (2020) Cast: Real Estate Agent: Claire Hughes (2020) Ghost: Austin Brzezicki (2023) Potential Buyers: Gabby DeMelfi (2021) and Myla Haan (2021)

Stonehenge

These recordings were created by Breakaway for the Ursinus College Fringe Festival 2020. "Stonehenge" Playwright: Claire Hughes (2020) Directors: Kate Foley (2023) Casts: Sarah: Gabby DeMelfi (2021) Ron: Ben Johnson (2020)

Researching the political economy of civil war prevention and reconstruction (Johannes Karreth)

Mary Atta-Dakwa '18 and Johannes Karreth reflect on each other's research on the role of the international community in preventing civil wars and helping rebuild countries after civil war. Hosted by the Department of Politics and International Relations. o Mary Atta-Dakwa's interdisciplinary honors thesis in Applied Economics and International Relations investigated the role of economic growth/development of Rwanda during its post-war reconstruction, following the genocide in 1994. o Using a statistical analysis of economic growth patterns over time, Atta-Dakwa finds that foreign aid alone did not have a strong effect on economic growth, but in the presence of an effective government aid is robustly associated with a growing Rwandan economy. o Johannes Karreth's new book Incentivizing Peace shows how the international community can help prevent civil wars in the first place. o He emphasizes the role of highly structured IGOs such as the World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, or the Economic Community of West African States. These institutions can provide incentives to governments and dissidents to settle political disputes peacefully, without resorting to massive violence. Evidence from all political conflicts between 1946-2000 and select cases shows that conflicts in countries with more connections to highly structured IGOs faced a considerably lower risk of escalation to civil wars. o Both projects suggests that the international community can play a positive role in violence prevention and post-conflict reconstruction, but their impact depends on national governments and institutionalized incentives. Mary Atta-Dakwa '18 graduated as a double major in Applied Economics and International Relations, and a minor in Spanish. Her honors thesis "Aiding to Repair: An Analysis on the Impact of Foreign Aid in Rwanda After the 1994 Genocide" was supervised by Dr. Annie Karreth (Politics) and Dr. Olga Nicoara (Business & Economics). She also served as head delegate to the Ursinus College delegation to the National Model United Nations conference in 2018. Johannes Karreth (Ph.D., University of Colorado Boulder) is an assistant professor of Politics and International Relations. He specializes in the study of international institutions and examines their role in resolving conflicts in different issue areas. His classes at Ursinus include Markets, Money & Migration, War and Peace, and Terrorism & Political Violence. He also advises the Model United Nations program, facilitating student's participation in the annual National Model United Nations conference in New York City.

Talking About Science in a Changing Society

Dr. Jayatri Das, Chief Bioscientist at The Franklin Institute, explains her passion for communicating science to the public, a task more essential than ever in today’s changing society. Currently, Dr. Das is working on new exhibits at The Franklin Institute about the human brain and sports. She is also involved in national programs to help communicate advances in nanotechnology and materials science to audiences in science centers across the country. Her career in science began as a double-major at Penn State University where she earned a B.S. in biology and a B.S. in biochemistry and molecular biology. Awarded a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Predoctoral Fellowship in Biological Sciences, she went on to earn her Ph.D. in ecology and evolutionary biology from Princeton University. Afterwards, she took a position as a postdoctoral researcher in biology at the University of Pennsylvania. Before joining The Franklin Institute, Jayatri was awarded a Christine Mirzayan Science and Technology Policy Fellowship from The National Academies, during which she conducted evaluation and developed programs for the Marian Koshland Science Museum in Washington, DC. Currently, she serves on the advisory board of Cogito.org, an online community of gifted precollege students run by the Johns Hopkins University Center for Talented Youth. She is also an invited Fellow of the Center for Neuroscience & Society at the University of Pennsylvania.