Brown received major gifts and pledges from international alumni, parents, and friends for various purposes, including:

• Fernando Henrique Cardoso Professorship (Brazil)
• Brown China Initiative (Hong Kong)
• Brown India Initiative (India/United States)
• Endowed Scholarships (United Kingdom and Hong Kong)
• BrownConnect Internships (Hong Kong)
• Computer Science Undergraduate Teaching Assistant Fund (Canada)
• Brown Annual Fund Scholarship (Turkey)

The Jonathan M. Nelson Center for Entrepreneurship
With a $25 million gift from Jonathan M. Nelson ’77 P’07 P’09, the University will establish the Jonathan M. Nelson Center for Entrepreneurship, an interdisciplinary center for entrepreneurship learning and research that will be unique in higher education.

Brains in Crisis: Stress and Resilience in Syrian Refugee Children
On April 8 and 9, Middle East Studies will host its Fourth Annual Engaged Scholarship Conference. This year’s theme will be “Brains in Crisis: Stress and Resilience in Syrian Refugee Children.” President Paxson will join a panel of distinguished neuroscientists, historians, anthropologists, and NGO practitioners. In preparation for this conference, a Brown-based team recently conducted field visits to Syrian and Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan. The conference is co-sponsored by the Brown Institute for Brain Science and the Department of Cognitive, Linguistic, and Psychological Sciences. Conference details available here.

International Conference in Brazilian Studies
The secretariat of the Brazilian Studies Association (BRASA)—the largest international academic organization for researchers in Brazilian studies outside of Brazil—officially moved to Brown in July 2015 from its former home at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. BRASA’s 13th International Conference in Brazilian Studies will take place on the Brown campus from March 31 through April 2.

The 2015 Brazil Initiative Newsletter is available online.

China Initiative Research Seminar
The China Initiative hosted a seminar on "The Many Visible Hands in the Making of US-China Trade Liberalization" with Associate Professor of Sociology Ho-Fung Hung from Johns Hopkins University. The research seminar provides a forum for the presentation of cutting-edge social science research on contemporary China and encourages the presentation of research work-in-progress.

The 2014-2015 China Initiative Annual Report is available online.

India Initiative Presents Book Adda
The Brown-India Initiative added a new component to its programmatic focus: panel discussions on important new books. As part of the program, Book Adda, the Initiative hosted a discussion on Kanchan Chandra's Democratic Dynasties: State, Party and Family in Contemporary Indian Politics. Speakers included Kanchan Chandra from New York University; Anjali Bohlken from University of British Columbia; Pradeep Chhibber from University of California, Berkeley; Daniel Smith from Harvard University; and Ashutosh Varshney, Sol Goldman Professor of International Studies and the Social Sciences and director of the Brown-India Initiative.

The 2014-2015 India Initiative Annual Report is available online.

Brown International Advanced Research Institutes in Spain
The first regional Brown International Advanced Research Institutes (BIARI) was held in Spain in January. The topic, Global Health Politics, attracted 22 academics and practitioners from 21 institutions in 10 countries in Europe. Made possible by the generous ongoing support of Santander Universities (Spain), BIARI has brought young scholars from around the world to Brown every summer since 2009 for interdisciplinary lectures, seminars, and workshops. Starting this year, in addition to its summer institutes, BIARI will host regional January institutes in different parts of the world to expand its reach.

Photo: Keynote speaker María Teresa Fernández de la Vega (front row, third from right), first deputy prime minister under former Spanish Prime Minister José Zapatero, stands between BIARI director Matthew Gutmann P’14 and Nitsan Chorev, Harmon Family Professor of Sociology and International and Public Affairs.

Gao Elected to Chinese Academy of Sciences
Huajian Gao, Walter H. Annenberg Professor of Engineering, has been elected as a foreign member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (the highest honor from the Chinese scientific community) for his achievements and contributions made to promoting and developing science and technology in China. His previous awards and honors include the Rodney Hill Prize in Solid Mechanics (highest international award in mechanics), the Alexander von Humboldt Research Award (highest German award for international scientists), and a Guggenheim Fellowship.

Smith Receives the Elliott P. Skinner Book Award
Daniel Smith, Royce Family Professor of Teaching Excellence and professor of anthropology, received the prestigious Elliott P. Skinner Book Award of the Association for Africanist Anthropology for his latest book, AIDS Doesn't Show Its Face: Inequality, Morality, and Social Change in Nigeria. His book uses AIDS as a lens through which to view Africa by describing dramatic social changes manifest through inequalities of gender, generation, and social class.

Gandhi Addresses Italian Parliament on Nonviolence
Leela Gandhi, John Hawkes Professor of the Humanities and English, delivered a keynote address on “Non-Violence” to the Italian Parliament during a ceremony on the eve of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.

Ortega, One of Most Influential Spanish American Intellectuals of 2015
Julio Ortega, professor of Hispanic studies, is among esglobal’s top 50 influential “iberoamericanos.” Candidates are selected based on their contributions to a field and their influence in the Latin American or international environment.

Anderson Delivers Oxford’s Clarendon Lectures
Amanda Anderson, the Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Humanities and English and the director of the Cogut Center for the Humanities, was chosen to deliver Oxford University’s distinguished Clarendon Lectures in English 2015.

Cook’s Research in Russia Funded by Fulbright
This spring, Linda Cook, professor of political science and professor of Slavic studies, is in Moscow and the Republic of Karelia. She is studying disparities in health care for poor and upper-income Muscovites as well as Karelia’s rural population. Cook received a Fulbright Scholarship in 2015 to work on her book, Political Economies of Health Care in Russia’s Fragmented Welfare State.

Brown at U.N. Climate Change Summit in Paris
A group of students led by the Ittleson Professor of Environmental Studies J. Timmons Roberts attended the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change 21st Conference of the Parties in Paris. With delegates from 190 countries in attendance, the goal of the summit was to achieve a legally binding universal agreement on climate. While observing how international negotiations and treaties were made, students had the opportunity to research and assist various global organizations.

Photo: Students attending the U.N. climate talks in Paris with Professor Roberts and U.S. Senators Sheldon Whitehouse (Rhode Island) and Cory Booker (New Jersey).

Students Create Digital Museum Experience for Nobel Exhibit
Under the direction of computer graphics pioneer Andy van Dam, the Thomas J. Watson Jr. University Professor of Technology and Education, a group of computer science undergraduates created two new digital museum experiences included in a traveling exhibition dedicated to the history of the Nobel Prize. Team leader Trent Green ’18 flew to Singapore to install the exhibit, which was later on show at the ArtScience Museum in Singapore.

Photo: Nobel interactive digital exhibit
Credit: Trent Green

Student Fights Islamophobia
Amara Majeed ’19, founder of the Hijab Project, was featured as part of Good Morning America’s #GirlPower series, which profiles inspiring and strong women. She started the Hijab Project to break down the stigma attached to the headscarf that is worn in public by some Muslim women. Majeed also authored The Foreigners, which she hopes will eradicate stereotypes about Muslims.

Brown, University College London, and Universidade Estadual de Campinas Collaborate
Suzanne Stewart-Steinberg, professor of Italian studies and comparative literature, is collaborating with researchers from University College London and Universidade Estadual de Campinas (Brazil) on the project Re-imagining Italianitá: Opera and Musical Culture in Transnational Perspective. The project investigates the 19th-century Italian opera industry on a global scale in order to assess existing ideas on the relationship between music and national identity.

Global MBA Ranking 2015
IE Business School in Spain, which shares programming with Brown University for a joint executive MBA degree, ranked #12 in the Financial Times global MBA rankings.

Summer Undergraduate Research Program in Hong Kong
Brown's partner institution Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) is offering the Summer Undergraduate Research Program 2016, which enables students in all academic disciplines to develop research skills and knowledge in a specific area of interest. Participating students will conduct a research project under the supervision of a CUHK faculty member.