Global Development Discussion Series
For over 20 years, the Discussion Series at the Center for International, Research, Education, and Development has offered an opportunity for scholars and development practitioners, nationally and internationally, to share their research and knowledge surrounding international development with the Virginia Tech community and beyond.
The 2025-26 Global Development Discussion Series is co-sponsored by Continuing and Professional Education
The Center for Refugee, Migrant, and Displacement Studies:
Working at the intersection of gender and education
Panelists:
Brett Shadle
Brett Shadle is Director of CRMDS and Professor of African History. His current research examines the history of Ethiopian refugees during the Italian invasion and occupation (1936-41), along with contemporary aspects of daily life for displaced people and methods of conducting research with refugees. He teaches a spring class that brings together VT students and students in Elimisha Kakuma, producing research reports on education in Kakuma that have circulated widely. Shadle serves as Director of Internal Affairs and as a member of the Board for EK.
Deirdre Hand
Deirdre Hand is the Community Engagement Specialist for the Center for Rural Education and the Center for Refugee, Migrant, and Displacement Studies, is a two-time graduate from Virginia Tech and is an educator with a Master’s in Education, Curriculum, and Instruction, with a concentration in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages). She grew up in Radford, Virginia, and moved to Floyd County as a teenager, and calls Appalachia and the Blue Ridge Mountains home. Deirdre has more than 14 years of experience teaching English to speakers of other languages around the world, with highlights including serving as an English Language Fellow through the U.S. State Department in Indonesia, an ESL teacher in Washington D.C. Public Schools, a teaching and research instructor at Virginia Tech, an EFL teacher in the Czech Republic and Ireland, serving as Lead Teacher of a Scholarship Program in Rwanda, working as the English Department Coordinator of a non-profit school in Guatemala, and most recently co-founding Elimisha Kakuma, a university-access program in Kakuma Refugee Camp, in Kenya. Her passion is promoting educational access to all, especially immigrants, refugees, and other forcibly displaced people.
Awel Agot Paruar
Awel Agot Paruar is a student in Elimisha Kakuma and has been admitted to Virginia Tech with a major in Dietetic and Nutrition. In Kakuma she has worked with Lutheran World Federation and FCA (Finn Church Aid), taught at Kadugli Primary School, and is a youth leader in her community. She is dedicated to advancing women’s and girls’ rights, including ending forced marriage and period poverty.
Elimisha Kakuma provides access to higher education opportunities for high school graduates living in Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya. Students receive intensive academic instruction, exam preparation, mentorship with current college students, and guidance through the college application process. As more refugees gain access to higher education, their long-term life outcomes will be improved and their communities will be strengthened.
The VT Center for Refugee, Migrant, and Displacement Studies was founded in 2021 within the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences by Katrina Powell (as Founding Director), Brett Shadle (as Associate Director for Outreach), and Rebecca Hester (as Associate Director for Education). In 2025, Katie moved to Senior Research Fellow, Brett became Director, and Rebecca became Associate Director Emeritus. In all aspects of our research, teaching, and outreach, we draw on multiple disciplinary approaches and seek partners who bring their own unique perspectives. However, all of our work is deeply informed by our grounding in the liberal arts. We incorporate our students in our outreach and research; we include partners in our classes and in our research; our research informs our teaching and outreach. This approach enriches all of our work and opens our students, our partners, and ourselves to richer understandings of the world, and deepens the impact of our work. Our premier partnership is with Elimisha Kakuma, a refugee-found and refugee-led college-access program based in Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya. Since starting in 2021, EK has helped over 50 students gain admission with funding to schools in the US, Canada, UK, Czech Republic, Kenya, and Costa Rica – including 4 at VT. This presentation will provide an overview of CRMDS and EK, and the efforts of an EK student/incoming Hokie to advance gender equality in Kakuma.
Fall 2025 speakers
Gender empowerment, energy access, climate change: clean cooking, air pollution, and sustainable development in India
Deepti Chatti, Assistant Professor at the University of California San Diego, in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning, and the Critical Gender Studies Program.
Bio: An engineer turned ethnographer, Deepti draws on her interdisciplinary training to analyze clean energy access and exposures to air pollution in historically marginalized communities in India and the United States. Deepti has several ongoing projects in collaboration with communities directly affected by tenuous energy access and climate change impacts. In India, her work has focused on analyzing clean cooking energy access in rural low-income communities; in the US, her work has focused on the entangled issues of wildfires, outdoor air pollution, and the connection to the electrical grid.
Deepti received her PhD and MPhil in Environmental Studies from Yale University with a certificate in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, an MS in Environmental Engineering and Science from Stanford University, and a BE in Civil Engineering from Osmania University. Prior to her current work in academia, Deepti worked for several years in public policy research in India and as an engineer in California, helping cities and counties plan for and design public infrastructure.
Abstract: Gender empowerment is often one of the stated goals of sustainable development projects, but what “empowerment” actually is on the ground, how it is experienced subjectively, and the nature of its relationship to “development” is less understood. In sustainability research, an analysis of empowerment is often reduced to measurable indicators like purchasing power, wage work, and time savings. Based on long term ethnographic research in India, I analyze women’s subjective experiences of empowerment and the ways in which they are related to development projects to expand clean cooking energy access in rural India. My analysis includes juxtaposing household energy decisions with agrarian decisions and their concomitant labor needs. I argue that the empowerment potential in energy programs lies not necessarily in the grand imaginaries articulated by external development actors, but in the myriad ways in which they are heterogeneously embraced by the targets of sustainable development to meet specific local needs.
Enhancing resilience of Lake Victoria’s fisheries: Strengthening women’s fisheries organizations for sustainable food systems.
Elizabeth (Beth) Nyboer, Assistant Professor, Department of Fish and Wildlife Conservation, Virginia Tech.
Bio: As a freshwater ecologist and conservation scientist, Beth studies how anthropogenic stressors affect freshwater ecosystems and the fish, fisheries, and fishing communities they support. Beth uses transdisciplinary approaches to integrate community perspectives alongside social, ecological, and environmental data to understand the vulnerability of these systems to environmental change and to find equitable solutions to social-ecological challenges. In her research, Beth explores themes of equity, food and nutrition security, and climate change adaptation, with a specific focus on challenges faced by women and other marginalized groups in inland fishery systems.
Abstract: The inland fisheries of Lake Victoria in East Africa are dynamic with multiple interacting forces shaping access to sustainable aquatic foods. Women in the fisheries sector face diverse adaptation challenges; yet, lack of sex-disaggregated research has hindered the development of equitable adaptive strategies. In Lake Victoria, over half a million women rely on fisheries for their livelihoods and play an integral role in the post-harvest handling, processing, and trade of fish and fish products. Women also contribute critically to household- and community-level food and nutrition security through their responsibilities in procuring and preparing household meals. Nevertheless, women are marginalized in decision making processes at community and household levels and lack access to key determinants of adaptive capacity. This talk will explore barriers and solutions to climate change adaptation for women in fisheries in Lake Victoria and explore promising avenues toward full autonomy and agency.
From Margins to Markets: Women, Technology, and Entrepreneurial Development in Emerging Markets
Fridah Mubichi-Kut, Professor of Practice, Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management at Cornell University
Bio: Trained first as an international business administrator and later as a social scientist, Fridah has worked with various organizations, including former USAID-supported Feed the Future Innovation Labs. Her work is focused on understanding the role social networks and development policies play in the uptake of new agricultural technologies, gender equity and economic progress. Before joining Cornell University, she served as Director of Measurement and Evaluation within a USDA agricultural commodity research program. Earlier, she worked with several NGOs and community-based organizations in Kenya that championed women’s development through literacy, health, and entrepreneurship. Fridah holds a PhD. from the University of Missouri and other degrees from Northeastern University (MA), Oklahoma City University (MBA), and United States International University -Africa (MSc).
Currently, Fridah is a Professor of Practice in Applied Economics and Policy at the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management and the SC Johnson College of Business at Cornell University. She is also the Executive Director of the Student Multidisciplinary Applied Research Teams (SMART) Program and a graduate field advisor in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Outside Cornell, she holds various leadership positions, including executive board member of the Research Committee of Sociology of Agriculture and Food (RC40) within the International Sociological Association.
Abstract: Women’s entrepreneurship promotes inclusive economic growth and social transformation in emerging markets. Women entrepreneurs not only contribute to household income and job creation—particularly for other women—but also mobilize underutilized resources and serve underserved markets with contextually grounded innovations. Importantly, women entrepreneurs amplify social impact by reinvesting their earnings into health, education, and community welfare.
Despite their contributions, most of the women-led enterprises in emerging markets operate within informal and small-scale sectors. This is largely due to macroeconomic challenges that are deeply intertwined with cultural and institutional constraints. For example, cultural and social norms that prioritize domestic responsibilities and restrict property rights and women’s participation in decision-making limit access to capital and financial services. Additionally, inadequate digital infrastructure, access to transportation, energy, and varying regulatory reforms limit participation in formal markets.
Recognizing the critical role women entrepreneurs play in sustainable development, this talk draws on several empirical studies and engaged learning projects from Sub-Saharan Africa to illustrate how existing social, economic, and technological environments influence women’s entrepreneurship.
Contact us
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Past events
Please visit our Past Events Archive for information on the previous Discussion Series and speakers.