GOE

Phil Duncan (he/him) has backgrounds in Linguistics and Indigenous Studies, and received his Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of Kansas in 2017. He is an Associate Teaching Professor in KU's Department of Linguistics and affiliate faculty in the Indigenous Studies Program.

Phil specializes in aspects of language that relate to word and sentence structure (aka morphology and syntax), working with Indigenous languages of the Americas and West Africa. He began studying Kaqchikel after receiving a Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship for Kaqchikel. Phil teaches classes on the structure of Kaqchikel, and in January 2024 published the co-authored paper "Indeterminate pronouns in Kaqchikel."

Phil recently published the co-authored book Ikpana Interrogatives (Oxford University Press, 2023), and has published articles in the International Journal of American Linguistics, the Journal of African Languages and Linguistics, Critical Discourse Studies, and the Journal of Language and Politics. 

John James Kennedy received his Ph.D. at the University of California, Davis in 2002. He is a professor in the department of Political Science at the University of Kansas (KU). He was the Director of the Center for Global and International Studies at KU from 2012-2015. John also served as the president of the Association of Chinese Political Studies (2012-2014). 

He has consistently returned to China to conduct research on rural politics since 1995, and he is also co-founder of the Northwest Socioeconomic Development Research Center (NSDRC) at Northwest University, Xian, China. In addition, John is an associate researcher with the Center for Experimental Economics in Education (CEEE) at Shaanxi Normal University in Xian, China. His research is on local governance and topics include local elections, tax and fee reform, rural education, health care and the cadre management system.

He published a book with his colleague Professor Shi Yaojiang Lost and Found: the "Missing Girls" in Rural China (Oxford University Press, 2019). He has also published research articles in The China Quarterly, Journal of Contemporary China, Asian Survey, the Journal of Chinese Political Science, the Journal of Peasant Studies, Asian Politics and Policy, and Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations and Political Studies.

Alexandra Koran, or Alex, graduated the University of Kansas in 2023 with a Master of Arts in African and African-American Studies. Alex was a Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellow for two years and studied the fourth and fifth years of the Kiswahili. Her thesis focused on the impacts of Kiswahili varieties on translation services.

Alex first began learning Kiswahili when she traveled to Tanzania in 2017 with the support of the Gilman International Scholarship to study the work of a local water engineering office. Alex continued to study Kiswahili throughout her undergraduate career at Ohio University; she has participated in programs like Swahili STARTALK and the Critical Language Scholarship for Kiswahili in Arusha, Tanzania. She also served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Rwanda from 2019-2020.

Alex currently works as an International Program Specialist for the United States Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service in Washington D.C. Specifically, she works on fellowship and exchange programs that enable international researchers, policymakers, and agricultural specialists to work alongside their U.S. counterparts, acquiring knowledge and skills to help build their countries' agricultural sectors. Alex has worked to welcome over 80 fellows from over 30 countries around the world, including 9 African focused exchange programs. Alex works directly with fellows and professionals from all over the African continent, and frequently interfaces with U.S. Embassies in Africa, the African Union, and Regional Economic Communities.

Aric Toler is an Open Source Reporter with the Visual Investigations Team at the New York Times. He uses emerging techniques of discovery to analyze open source information found on social media, satellite imagery and databases. Before joining The Times in 2023, he was the director of research and training at Bellingcat, a Netherlands-based open source reporting organization. Through nine years at Bellingcat, he was involved with investigations that revealed Russian espionage activities in Europe and the United States, including pieces on the poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury, England. He has a bachelor's (2011) and master’s degree (2013) in Slavic languages and literature from KU, and lives in Kansas City.

Jennifer Duhamel is the Assistant Director of KU’s Center for Global & International Studies. Her various duties include planning conferences with international content, organizing events on globally-related careers, and encouraging students to learn about global issues.

Her love of travel didn’t come from her family—they don’t travel internationally much—but from a deep curiosity about the world. In college, she studied abroad in Switzerland thanks to scholarships and working numerous summer jobs. In Switzerland, she studied French, German, and a smattering of Italian during the week. On the weekends, she traveled to other European countries as much as possible. And this is when her love of travel really took root.

After graduating, she went in many different directions. She continued to learn about different cultures when she taught English to new arrivals to the US, did graduate research in Belize, trained teachers in the Republic of Benin (West Africa), joined scientific expeditions in Malaysia and the Philippines, and took various other trips when she could