Ashti Tiwari, COL ’27, Corning, NY
This summer in Philadelphia, I had the opportunity to work with Professor Julia Gray on her research on International Organizations (IOs) from the Ground Up: Understanding Global Cooperation through Data. With resources compiled from archival documents, IO websites, online news, and biographies, we built an original dataset of various aspects of the functioning and staffing of IOs, such as the African Union and the Organization of American States. My day-to-day work consisted of constructing qualitative timelines of IO activities and background characteristics of key IO staff. In addition to the qualitative research, the project required transforming texts into nominal and ordered variables and cleaning the data for subsequent analysis. I spent this summer learning new techniques in data analysis through programming languages like R and Python and applied those skills in the quantitative aspect of the research later on.
Under the purview of Professor Gray, I gained a unique insight into how the internal structure of IOs reflected the necessary adaptations to the changing conditions of the world. We researched these organizations from their inception to their dissolution and used these life cycles to analyze their vitality. Countries in every world region have either formed or joined IOs to promote cooperation in a range of areas, from economic growth to security and conflict and public health. However, this project has shown how these organizations vary considerably in terms of their level of activity: how frequently IOs cooperated internally, with groups in member states, and with other external actors. From active IOs like the United Nations to dissolved IOs like the Organization of African Unity, now replaced by the African Union, I’ve closely observed how these organizations implement solutions to international problems like global trade, environmental protections, migration, and security.
I am grateful to have had the opportunity to gain a greater understanding of international cooperation. I plan to continue this discipline with a greater focus on international law by working with IOs dedicated to providing humanitarian aid. My summer 2024 research will allow me to apply my skills in analyzing IO lifecycles to determine the efficiency and effectiveness of IO practices in a humanitarian context.
This is part of a series of posts by recipients of the 2024 Career Services Summer Funding Grant. We’ve asked funding recipients to reflect on their summer experiences and talk about the industries in which they spent their summer. You can read the entire series here
