Next week our guest will be Dr. Riall Nolan from the Department of Anthropology. Dr. Nolan worked overseas for nearly twenty years in the field of international development, and has experience as a development project designer, manager, and evaluator. He has lived and worked in Senegal, Tunisia, Papua New Guinea, and Sri Lanka. His experience with development includes grass-roots community projects with the Peace Corps, project design and management with USAID, and policy analysis with the World Bank. He has also participated in numerous consulting assignments for both bilateral agencies and NGOs.
Prior to coming to Purdue, Dr. Nolan directed international programs at the University of Cincinnati. He has also held administrative and teaching positions at Golden Gate University, the University of Pittsburgh, the School for International Training, Georgia State University, and the University of Papua New Guinea.
Your reading assignment (available on Blackboard under Week 11 Course Content) is an excerpt from Dr. Nolan's book "Development Anthropology." You need only read the Mini-Cases 1, 2, and 3, not the text in between. These mini case studies are intended to provide examples of how situations can be interpreted differently depending on your frame of reference.
Dr. Nolan has experience working with multi-disciplinary teams of professionals (including engineers) in international development projects. After reading the case studies, think about the intercultural competencies one might need to effectively work not only in international projects, but in multi-disciplinary teams. Also, think of a few questions you would like to ask Dr. Nolan about his diverse and many life experiences, and how training in anthropology is relevant to engineering.
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