NEWS RELEASE

Geography Student Awarded Internship at Harvard Through California Pre-Doctoral Program

(NORTHRIDGE, Calif., May 15th, 2008) — Geography graduate student Lisa Baughn has been awarded a fully funded 2008 summer research internship at Harvard University’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies. As a component of her 2007-08 California Pre-Doctoral Fellowship, Lisa will spend ten weeks assisting Director for Harvard’s Islam and the West program, Professor Jocelyne Cesari, on the Muslims in Boston project.

The research aims to open new discussions about cultural and political identity change for Muslims in the West, post-9/11. Cesari’s project will be guided by similar work already in progress in Europe, and Lisa will travel to Paris to meet with Cesari’s European coordinators to learn from their successes.

Lisa became interested in these issues during her 2006-07 Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship in West Java, Indonesia—the world’s largest Muslim country.

Lisa’s internship is supported by her 2007-08 California Pre-Doctoral Scholarship, which allows her to visit potential Ph.D. programs and participate in doctoral-level research with a professor at the university of her choice. The project at Harvard will give her firsthand experience with doctoral-level work, and allow her to connect with researchers, community leaders, and professionals in the field worldwide.    

For more information on Harvard’s Muslims in Boston project, click here:

http://cmes.hmdc.harvard.edu/research/iw/boston_survey