Professor Mindelyn Buford II, Department of Sociology and Anthropology

I received my Bachelor’s degree in Sociology from UCLA and my Ph.D. in Sociology from The Johns Hopkins University.  I joined the Northeastern University Department of Sociology and Anthropology in 2010.  I teach courses on immigration, inequality, and research methods including an Honors Freshmen Seminar in the Spring semester titled Boston: From Irish Need Not Apply to the New “Desirables” and “Undesirables”.

Professor Rifat Sipahi, Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering

I received my BSc degree from Istanbul Technical University in Turkey, and have completed my MSc and PhD degrees at the University of Connecticut, all in mechanical engineering. After having spent a year in France as a researcher, in 2006 I joined the faculty of the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering. Since the first time I started teaching, I have always enjoyed the interactions with students, whether it is related to teaching, research, or encouraging students for graduate school. To further continue my interactions with students, even outside the classroom, I have decided to be a part of the faculty-in-residence (FiR) program. In 2010, I and my wife moved in International Village (INV), where I currently run academic programs for the residents of INV.

Many students are interested in questions of social justice – how do we make the world a better place? How do we deal with injustice and inequality? – but have not spent much time thinking about these questions philosophically. My course, Human Rights: Ideas, Institutions, and Laws, gives students the opportunity to think about precisely these important questions. Human rights is the language that is used most often in political discourse on questions of justice and this course aims to give students a solid foundation on the theories, laws, and institutions that relate to it.

By any measure, 2012 was a tumultuous year for the American health care system.  In June, the Supreme Court issued its decision on the constitutionality of the health reform law.  The ruling surprised nearly everyone by preserving one core feature of health reform, tax penalties for individuals who do not obtain health insurance, while threatening another feature, the significant expansion of Medicaid coverage.  In August, presidential candidate Mitt Romney selected Paul Ryan as a running mate, thus ensuring that Medicare reform would remain a continuing topic of discussion.  And throughout 2012, hospitals and physicians struggled to keep up with the pace of change in the health care industry.

While driving in the back of a cab from St. Paul International Airport to downtown Minneapolis, I had two thoughts in my head. The first was “How much is this ridiculous cab ride going to cost?” and the second was “I can’t believe this is the farthest West I’ve ever travelled in the United States.” However, after a weekend attending the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) Annual Student Conference, hosted this past October at the Minneapolis Convention Center, I had much more important thoughts in mind.

I am an active sexual health outreach worker in Boston, and will be abroad in Buenos Aires this coming year doing similar outreach and prevention work with HIV and AIDS. One of my biggest passions is working in LGBT health and community-building, so when a conference recently came across my radar, a national Gay Men’s Health Summit, in Washington, DC, I leapt at the thought of attending. Leafing through the list of workshops and discussions, there were endless opportunities to gain new perspectives about the work that I do and have open, frank discussions about identity and the future of the movement.

My last semester of college, I took the unconventional step of adding a fifth class to my schedule by auditing a class at MIT. Health Informatics in Resource Poor Settings lured me to relinquish my Friday mornings with an incredible speaker each week describing their various cutting edge solutions in implementation throughout the developing world.

Near the end of my first year as a college undergraduate I began to wonder about how I could spend my summer in a meaningful way. That was when I heard about the International Student Volunteer Program. ISV is a non-profit organization that sends students all over the world to make a difference in a community. I chose to participate in their Australia program, and the Honors Program graciously supported my endeavors with a $250 travel grant. Therefore, this summer I spent two weeks volunteering on a conservation project and another two weeks on an adventure tour down the east coast of Australia.

Globemed is a national organization that pairs university chapters with grass-roots organizations worldwide for the purpose of fighting poverty and raising awareness for and increasing global health equity. Globemed was nationally founded at Northwestern University in 2006, and has the unique model of partnering grassroots organization around the world directly with 50 university chapters across the United States of America. The Globemed model allows students to work hand in hand with community leaders across the globe by facilitating a mutual exchange of information and support which helps both organizations grow and prosper.

Throughout my week in Olympic National Park in Washington State during the Partners in the Park program, I was constantly bombarded with ethereal scenery and breathtaking panoramas. The Park offered every landscape and terrain a person could desire.  From exploring the coastline of the Pacific Ocean, to hiking through the lush, moss covered Hoh Rainforest, to watching the sun silently set on the Olympic mountain chain, the opportunities and sights were endless. As incredible as the sights were, they were not the most memorable aspect of the trip. The other students from schools all over the United States made the week what it was.

“How do you catch a bat?”  “In a mist net.”  “What’s a mist net?”

Native Americans, Mormons, insects, tourists, animals, and, yes, bats have gathered around Pipe Spring in Utah throughout its existence.  Currently, the preserved Mormon settlement around the spring has been designated as a national monument and serves as a tourist attraction.  Whether it was Benn the Paiute Native American turned Park Ranger’s traditional Memorial Day performance that stopped tourists in their tracks or the continuum of stars that shone around the monument’s small body of water after the visitor center had closed and our student group returned at nightfall to catch bats, this was a poignant place.