Centennial Labs

Centennial Labs are SFS classes built around an issue, idea, problem, or challenge in a real community. They are both cross-curricular and experiential at the core. Students work with one or more professors across disciplines to learn the theory critical to understanding the situation. They develop practical approaches or solutions within the “lab”; and share it with the community beyond the classroom.

The Centennial Labs began as a pilot program in 2017 and has continued to expand its class offerings every year since. Future classes will be announced, with preferential enrollment given to students who have yet to participate in the program.

Cultural Heritage in the Arab World
Professor Rochelle Davis

15 students will engage with issues around cultural heritage (architecture, monuments, art, poetry, dance, natural environment, etc.), the impact of conflict on cultural heritage, and the role of governments, NGOs, and diplomatic missions in promoting and protecting cultural heritage. Students address definitions of cultural heritage, how it fits into state and civil society agendas, the roles of tourism and museums, changing environments and climate change, and the lives and positions of those who produce or live among cultural heritage. In particular, students trace how systemic racism and injustice at the national and international levels threaten cultural heritage, indigenous peoples, artists, and artisans, as well as how conflict and war impact cultural heritage. Students study the role of national and international laws in illegal circuits of arts and cultural heritage and develop an understanding of the issues around cultural heritage in the Middle East and North Africa. They examine, the circulation of objects, cultural products, and ideas, post-coloniality, global power structures, and indigenous and environmental activism, during their fieldwork and explorations in Cairo Egypt over the spring break.

Holocaust Forensics
Fr. Patrick Desbois and Andrej Umansky from the Center for Jewish Civilization

This group of students, accompanied by their professors, will travel to Iasi, Romania over spring break. This class researches the killing sites of the Holocaust and students learn to forensically investigate, research, analyze, and interview first-hand witnesses. Students study mass killings beyond the known extermination camps and confront challenges of remembrance and accounts of the mobile killing units that were used in small villages. They directly engage in the forensic fieldwork pioneered by Father Desbois and critically analyze testimonies of the deportation and shootings of Jews and Roma.

Nobody’s Backyard: Grenada as a Case Study in Small Island Developing States lab
Madam Ambassador Dessima Williams

This class allows students to examine a south-north conceptual views of small island developing states. Students conduct field research in topics of interest and travel to Grenada over spring break, which is at the offset of the upcoming 50th anniversary of independence, the 45th anniversary of the Grenada Revolution and the 40th anniversary of the U.S. invasion. Students engage with the roles, impacts, and challenges of Grenada as a post-emancipation, post-colonial, small island developing state. Student partner with experts from St. George’s University (SGU) and engage with local student leaders who augment their field work on peer-to peer level and help Georgetown students calibrate research insights into community development, environmental issues, local business, civil society, and politics alongside the field work research partners. While in Grenada, students present their research findings to a panel of SGU faculty who critiques and deepens the students’ perspectives.

Problem solving in a Destabilized Arctic
Professor Jeremy Mathis

Traveling to Alaska over the spring break, students work on research and exploration of remote Alaska communities. They meet with local community leaders, organizations such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and visit sites such as the melting permafrost to witness first-hand the effects of climate change on the environment, the people. They examine how issues of climate change coincide with issues of national/international security. The class trains students to better understand and solve some of the unique problems that have emerged in the Arctic over the past decade because of climate change. Students’ research is shared with experts and members of the U.S. Congress through a student-hosted Arctic Forums Conference in late April.

Anti-Semitic Propaganda Research and Literacy CLab
Professors Emily Blout and Bruce Hoffman

This class is a unique opportunity to learn about propaganda through one of its most storied and powerful applications: antisemitism. The Lab is specifically interested in the composition and circulation of antisemitic propaganda and its link to political violence and democratic decline. Beginning in Charlottesville, Virginia, the host of the violent “coming out” of the new white supremacist movement in America in August 2017, it will make its way north to Washington DC and the US Capitol Building, the site of the violent attack on Congress in January 2021, with travel to and conduct fieldwork in Virginia and Washington, D.C. over spring break. Students conduct deep, on-the-ground student research to look more closely at the people, policies, places and socio-cultural happenings relevant to the course.

Startup Studio
Professor Dale Murphy

A class that deals with social entrepreneurship and impact. This year, students will develop a pitch to present at the SFS Global Impact Pitch Competition (GIPC). The GIPC is open to all GU students and is sponsored in part by Citi Ventures, which is providing up to $20,000 in prize money.

WTO Dispute Settlement
Professor Marc Busch

This class works through TRADELAB, based in Geneva, on a specific would-be dispute for the Office of the United States Trade Representative. This class will be in DC.

Spring Semester
WTO Dispute Settlement
Marc Busch

The multilateral trading system is widely argued to be more “rules-based” than ever before. Dispute settlement under the World Trade Organization (WTO), in particular, is increasingly being called upon to adjudicate rights and obligations in international commerce. These decisions bear directly on business opportunities, both nationally and internationally. Indeed, not only do these decisions influence specific industries and trade-related measures, but the breadth and depth of “globalization” more generally. This course is about WTO dispute settlement and TradeLab is conducted under the auspices of TRADELAB, a Geneva-based NGO.

Start-up Studio
Dale Murphy

This SFS course helps train and enable top students to create ambitious, entrepreneurial solutions to global challenges. Students will work individually or in self-selected teams to identify societal needs and innovative, financially-sustainable solutions that fit their long-term passions and life/career goals. Working in collaboration with Citi Ventures and its network, students will liaise with individuals in and outside the university, including other entrepreneurs, engineers, designers, mentors, alumni, policy think-tanks, potential funders, incubators/studios, regulators, and existing institutions (corporate, government, academic, and/or NGO) to move their proposals toward feasible proposals worthy of implementation and investment. Students are pushed to quickly field-test their ideas and pivot as needed, to embrace fast, productive failures that accelerate learning and optimize resource allocation.

Holocaust By Bullets
Fr. Patrick Desbois and Andrej Umansky

While many students are familiar with the Nazi extermination of Jews in Western Europe during World War II, few know that a parallel effort was waged in the East. There, Nazis killed Jews methodically, but mostly not in mass camps built for extermination. Learn about the forensics of the Holocaust by bullets and other mass killings with Fr. Patrick Desbois, a forensic anthropologist and author of “Holocaust by Bullets,” “In Broad Daylight,” and “The Terrorist Factory.” This course and the associated lab will train students to analyze forensic investigations of the Holocaust by bullets and other genocides, and prepare them to conduct similar investigations on the ground. 

Refugee and Migrant Children: Mexico, the United States, and the World
Elizabeth Ferris and Katharine Donato

This C-Lab course will examine the ways in which governments and civil society actors facilitate the admission and social integration of refugee and migrant children and families in host countries. The centerpiece for the class will be a trip to the Mexico-U.S. border and to Mexico City during spring break. The emphasis on Mexico is both timely and important given it has now become both a transit and destination country for many asylum seekers from Central America. This experiential learning class will engage students to think about humanitarian practices that support children traveling with or without their families, children with special needs, and those traumatized en route. Students will take an in-depth look at the ways in which refugee and migrant children are assisted in Mexico and the United States, with a particular focus on children and families from Central America, Cuba, and Venezuela arriving in both countries.

Problem Solving in a Destabilized Arctic
Jeremy Mathis and Joanna Lewis

The Arctic region is undergoing a rapid transformation due to climate change. Temperatures are warming at a rate never encountered in the geological record. There are few places on Earth where the convergence of science, technology, policymaking, and diplomacy are more critical than in the Arctic. This semester course will train students to better understand and solve some of the unique problems that have emerged in the Arctic over the last decade. Students will do intensive research and set-up meetings, expanding their network in Alaska with local community leaders. Later in the semester, students will organize and lead a half-day “Arctic Solutions Forum” to present their research and have discussions with policymakers and thought leaders on ways to tackle Arctic challenges.

Fall Semester

WTO Dispute Settlement
Marc Busch

India Innovation Studio
Irfan Nooruddin and Mark Giordano

India Innovation Lab
Irfan Nooruddin and Mark Giordano

Civic Tech Lab
Vivek Srinivasan

Nature in Development
Jane Carter Ingram

Spring Semester

Civic Tech Lab
Vivek Srinivasan

India Innovation Studio 1 & 2 
Irfan Nooruddin and Mark Giordano

National Security and Social Media
Daniel Byman and Chris Meserole

Nature in Development
Jane Carter Ingram

Politics and Performance: Confronting the Past, Shaping the Future
Derek Goldman and Cynthia Schneider

Problem Solving in a Destabilized Arctic
Jeremy Mathis and Mark Giordano

Refugee and Migrant Children: Mexico, the United States, and the World
Elizabeth Ferris and Katharine Donato

Start-Up Studio
Dale Murphy

WTO Dispute Settlement
Marc Busch

Fall Semester

India Innovation Studio
 Irfan Nooruddin and Mark Giordano

India Innovation Lab
Irfan Nooruddin and Mark Giordano

WTO Dispute Settlement
Marc Busch

Spring Semester

India Innovation Studio
Irfan Nooruddin and Mark Giordano

India Innovation Lab
Irfan Nooruddin and Mark Giordano

Refugees and Migrant Children
Elizabeth Ferris and Katharine Donato

National Security and Social Media
Daniel Byman and Chris Meserole

Development and Displacement in the Arab World
Rochelle Davis and Fida Adely

Politics and Performance: Confronting the Past, Shaping the Future
Derek Goldman and Cynthia Schneider

Start-Up Studio
Dale Murphy

The Syndemics Seminar
Emily Mendenhall

Fall Semester

TradeLab
Marc Busch

Global Governance Lab
Abraham Newman and Erik Voeten

India Innovation Lab: Designing for Public Health
Irfan Nooruddin and Mark Giordano

Diplomacy Lab

Spring Semester

India Innovation Lab: Designing for Public Health
Irfan Nooruddin and Mark Giordano

Development and Displacement in the Arab World
Rochelle Davis and Fida Adely

Politics and Performance: Confronting the Past, Shaping the Future
Derek Goldman and Cynthia Schneider

Applied Biotechnology
Libbie Prescott

Python for Policy
Vivek Srinivasan

Civic Technology Lab
Vivek Srinivasan

International Air Quality Lab
Colin McCormick

Fall Semester

The India Innovation Lab: Drought
Irfan Nooruddin and Mark Giordano

TradeLab
Marc Busch

Spring Semester

The India Innovation Lab: Drought
Irfan Nooruddin and Mark Giordano

Global Governance Lab
Abraham Newman and Erik Voeten