Institute of International Education

The Institute of International Education (IIE) is a nonprofit organization that focuses on international student exchange and aid, foreign affairs, and international peace and security. This grant will help support the establishment of the Julia Stasch Fund Scholarship for Refugee Students, in recognition of the achievements of Julia Stasch, retiring president of the MacArthur Foundation. The purpose of the Fund is to support roughly 30 refugee students located in the Greater Chicago region to pursue two years of community college and obtain their associate’s degree.

The Dissertation Fellowship in Population, Reproductive Health, and Economic Development provides support to outstanding graduate students to study how population dynamics and reproductive health influence economic development. The Foundation has supported four cohorts of fellows since 2008 who have conducted research on policy relevant topics ranging from the economic costs of unsafe abortions in Uganda to the impact of the Global Gag Rule on women’s access to contraceptives in developing countries. The grant would allow the Institute for International Education to select fellows (on the advice of a selection committee comprised of leading experts in the field) for two additional cohorts, manage the travel for all alumni and current fellows to attend professional conferences, and provide seed research funding to selected alumni fellows to continue their research projects.