Evidence and Learning Coordinator (Pulte Institute) Jaclyn Biedronski recently received a 2022-2023 Keough School Recognition Award for “significant achievement” beyond her regular job responsibilities. Biedronski served as the project manager and oversaw a team of undergraduate and graduate students who worked on updating the LASER PULSE “Private Sector Engagement Evidence Gap Map,” a visual...
Congratulations to Melissa Paulsen, the Pulte Institute’s director of Entrepreneurship and Education Programs, for her well-deserved University of Notre Dame Presidential Achievement Award. Melissa Paulsen is the program director for Entrepreneurship and Education Programs in the Pulte Institute for Global Development. Melissa advances Notre Dame’s mission to place scholarship and professional practice in service to the...
As it is critical to capture key learning from the pandemic response, the USAID Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA), with Bureau for Development, Democracy, and Innovation (DDI), has commissioned an additional evaluation series to understand the performance of the BHA-funded response to SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19). It includes a Performance Evaluation for the follow-on fiscal year (FY)...
The LASER PULSE consortium members (Purdue University, Indiana University, University of Notre Dame, Catholic Relief Services and Makerere University-ResilientAfrica Network) convened in Washington DC, for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) LASER PULSE Research for Development Learning Summit, Tuesday May, 2nd, 2023. The consortium members were joined by USAID officials, other partners and...
On April 12-13, LASER PULSE convened university leaders and researchers from around sub-Saharan Africa in Kampala, Uganda, to continue their efforts towards strengthening capacity in research leadership and project management at Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). The workshop was attended by 11 sub-Saharan African countries, including DRC, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, South Africa, South Sudan,...
Uganda language policy requires rural schools to choose a dominant local language to use as the language of learning and teaching for the first three years of primary school, while English is taught as a subject. The Tepeth and Ik people face the worst case scenario with only a few elders still able to speak...
On 15th December 2022, teams from the USAID Uganda Economic Growth and Partnership Office visited Mbarara University of Science and Technology (MUST). The presence of the USAID Uganda Economic Growth and Partnership Offices at the meeting provided an opportunity to track the progress of project implementation and provide feedback on areas of emphasis and improvement....
In November 2022, representatives from three US-based universities visited Vientiane, Laos in support of the Applied Nutrition Research Capacity Building (ANRCB) project in Lao PDR, funded by USAID via the LASER PULSE program. It was the first team visit since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Led by Purdue University’s College of Agriculture and College of Health...
On December 9, 2022, the Duke University Center for International Development (DCID) and Institute for Sustainable Development at Vietnam’s National Economics University (ISD-NEU) celebrated the successful graduation of eleven entrepreneurs from their intensive, six-week courses on restaurant management, internal controls, and marketing. The graduates represent the first of 812 students who enrolled in the three...
As 2022 comes to an end, I am proud and humbled by the incredible strides LASER PULSE has made this year in conducting contextual research to provide evidence for decision-making on some of the most complex global development challenges. 2022 came with its own set of challenges, and yet again tested the resilience and spirit of...
