SIL Welcomes 2024 Cohort of Faculty to Design Fellowship
Eight scholars from across Stanford commit to a 10-month program focused on the pathway from research to impact at scale.
At Stanford Impact Labs, we often say we are “problem agnostic” when it comes to the researchers we support and the teams we fund. Why? Because we recognize that a wide array of stubborn social problems demand and deserve solutions, and that social science, when thoughtfully partnered with practitioner expertise, has something vital to contribute to the design of these solutions.
This "agnosticism", or diversity of social problems, is as apparent as ever in this year’s cohort of the SIL Design Fellowship (SILDF), a 10-month program for faculty across Stanford's seven schools.
SILDF supports faculty to conceptualize a project that leverages their research to tackle a specific social problem in partnership with an organization outside of the university. We are delighted to introduce the 2024 faculty cohort and their projects below, and we look forward to supporting their vital work.
Economic inclusion and the refugee crisis
Chuck Eesley, Associate Professor of Management Science & Engineering, will work with partners in Uganda to develop programs that create entrepreneurial opportunities for refugees.
Protections for children living with domestic violence
Meghan Sumner, Associate Professor of Linguistics, will work with partners in California to develop improved processes to identify and support children living with violence.
Access to affordable pharmaceutical drugs
José Ignacio Cuesta, Assistant Professor of Economics, will work with the Chilean government to inform the design of procurement programs in order to lower the cost of prescription medication.
Reducing antimicrobial resistance and addressing climate change in rural household settings
Jade Benjamin-Chung, Assistant Professor of Epidemiology & Population Health, will explore partnerships with NGOs and the Government of Bangladesh to develop interventions that reduce the burden of antimicrobial resistance and protect maternal and child health in the face of climate change.
Educational equality in low resource settings
Guilherme Lichand, Assistant Professor of Education, will collaborate with partners in Brazil to identify baseline demographic inequalities across schools in order to better inform education policy.
Identifying, preserving, and interpreting family and community archives and cultural heritage:
Elaine Treharne, Professor of English, will work with partners to design a universal archival toolkit for the permanent preservation of people's stories and documentary heritage.
Adapting to climate change:
Marshall Burke, Associate Professor of Environmental Social Sciences, will collaborate with partners to identify and implement what works when it comes to climate adaptation.
Improving relationships between local and state governments:
Michelle Wilde Anderson, Professor of Law, will work with partners in Jackson, Mississippi’s local government, civic sector, and HBCUs to improve the city’s relationship with its state government in order to better address issues the city faces.