Blum Center for Developing Economies

Global Poverty & Practice Minor

Student Stories

Several students in the GPP Minor have documented their Practice Experiences by keeping blogs. Follow the links below to visit their blogs and learn more about their experiences and insights.

A woman is crouching in a field filled with lush green kale. She is smiling and appears to be engaged in farming or gardening.
Alana Siegner

Another Year of Outstanding Development Engineering and InFEWS Doctoral Graduates

The Development Engineering PhD program at UC Berkeley empowers doctoral students to address global challenges in low-resource regions. Graduates like Julia Kramer, Alana Siegner, and Christopher Hyun have tackled issues ranging from health accessibility and climate education to sanitation equity, advancing interdisciplinary solutions for sustainable impact on food, water, and energy systems worldwide.

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A woman is standing on a stage, holding a microphone and giving a presentation. She is wearing a light-colored blazer and black pants. Behind her, there is a large screen displaying a slide with the words "Thank You!" and images of a baby and a person. The stage is decorated with colorful balloon arches in blue, yellow, and white.
Big Ideas Contest

LiquidGoldConcept Wins Big Ideas 2020 Scaling Up Contest

When UC Berkeley alumna Anna Sadovnikova launched her successful social enterprise devoted to helping pregnant mothers overcome the challenges of breastfeeding, she never expected that she would need to reinvent the entire program — transforming an in-person breastfeeding simulator into a virtual training program. But that’s what she and her team did this spring.

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Bertram Lubin
Bertram Lubin

Dr. Bertram Lubin (1939-2020), An Appreciation

It is with a heavy heart and beloved appreciation that we memorialize the passing of Dr. Bertram Lubin, a groundbreaking pediatrician and children’s hospital leader. Bert, as he was widely known, was the kind of person the Blum Center dreams of having around—to mentor students, advise faculty, inspire ideas, and lend decades of knowledge about the fight for disease mitigation and healthcare equity.

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Three firefighters are gathered around a large drone on a red landing pad in a forested area. They are wearing yellow fire-resistant shirts, hard hats, and protective gear. One firefighter is making adjustments to the drone while another is observing, and a third firefighter is kneeling and contemplating the setup.
Blum Center for Developing Economies

A Class for the Pandemic

When Rachel Dzombak and Vivek Rao began planning for the spring 2020 Development Engineering course “Innovation in Disaster Response,” part of their motivation was to get students to think about the use of technology during past disasters. But by early March, it was clear to Dzombak and Rao that the COVID-19 pandemic was increasing the relevancy of their class in ways no one could have predicted.

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Woojin Jung
Development Engineering

Development Engineering Scholar Woojin Jung Finds Significant Discrepancies in Global Poverty Measures

Woojin Jung’s research merges social welfare, public policy, and development engineering to analyze poverty metrics, revealing key discrepancies in global poverty measures. Using satellite imagery and spatial analysis, Jung advocates for clearer poverty definitions and targeted aid strategies to better support under-resourced communities, shaping her innovative academic career.

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Erica Stone
American Himalayan Foundation

Blum Center Board Member Erica Stone’s Commitment to the Himalayas

Erica Stone, president of the American Himalayan Foundation (AHF) for nearly 30 years, transformed the nonprofit from a small startup to an impactful organization distributing $4 million annually. From empowering women through STOP Girl Trafficking to supporting healthcare for children, Stone’s dedication to Nepal and its people has driven AHF’s success and resilience.

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Sastry
Big Ideas Contest

Global Gains in Reducing Extreme Poverty

Global poverty has dramatically declined, with the share of people living on $2 a day or less dropping by over 75% since 1981. Yet many Americans remain unaware of these gains. At UC Berkeley’s Blum Center, students are tackling global poverty and inequality through innovation, education, and impactful fieldwork, fostering hope for progress.

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arts entrepreneurship

Arts Entrepreneurship Comes to Big Ideas Contest

With all of the excitement and funding directed at artificial intelligence, machine learning, blockchain, and gene editing, it is hard to remember that one of the most consistently innovative and financially robust sectors in the United States is the “creative industry.”

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Matthew Potts
Development Engineering

Matthew D. Potts and the Scholarship of Resource Economics

How can we meet increasing human demands from the land while protecting natural systems? This is the question that Matthew Potts, UC Berkeley’s S. J. Hall Chair in Forestry Economics and the Vice Chair of the Graduate Group in Development Engineering, asks in his scholarship.

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Amy Liu
Amy Liu

Inspired to Become an Innovation Ambassador

Amy Liu, founder of Junior Hearts and Hands, was inspired to support pregnant women after assisting a Haitian refugee during a challenging 35-hour delivery. With mentorship from UC Berkeley’s Big Ideas Contest, Liu advanced her mission, becoming an Innovation Ambassador and continuing to empower mothers through her organization, Partners in Life.

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Shankar Sastry
Blum Center for Developing Economies

Why We Are Expanding the Field of Development Engineering

The Blum Center celebrates the Nobel Prize in Economics winners for pioneering randomized control trials in poverty interventions. Building on these insights, development engineering integrates economics, technology, and social sciences to address global challenges. The center aims to advance this interdisciplinary field by hiring professors in health, energy, and entrepreneurship.

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Leitmann Josef Lloyd
disaster resilience

Joe Leitmann on the New Era of Disaster Risk Management

Joe Leitmann, a World Bank expert in disaster resilience, highlights the shift from response to prevention in managing natural disasters. Advances in digital forecasting, catastrophe financing, and risk planning have significantly reduced fatalities and economic losses. Leitmann emphasizes cross-sector collaboration and innovative solutions to protect development gains and foster global resilience.

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Blum Center for Developing Economies
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Host and Fellow Responsibilities

Host Organizations

  • Identify staff supervisor to manage I&E Climate Action Fellow
  • Submit fellowship description and tasks
  • Engage in the matching process
  • Mentor and advise students
  • Communicate with Berkeley program director and give feedback on the program.

Berkeley Program Director​

  • Communicate with host organizations, students, and other university departments to ensure smooth program operations

Student Fellows

  • Complete application and cohort activities
  • Communicate with staff and host organizations
  • Successfully complete assignments from host organization during summer practicum
  • Summarize and report summer experience activities post-fellowship