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Dear friends of GRI,

I love this time of year. New students are embracing classic Â鶹Æƽâ°æ traditions and welcome events. Though the Institute will also host our usual gatherings — mark your calendars for an Open House on September 20 and a Homecoming BBQ on October 8! — it’s a real season of firsts.

Last week, we welcomed many new faces to the GRI community, including five , who will advance multidisciplinary research on development economics, political psychology, diplomatic history, U.S. foreign policy, peacebuilding, and more. Over the next two years, they’ll also teach W&M undergrads in the classroom and mentor them in GRI research labs. When we piloted this program three years ago with Dr. Kelebogile Zvobgo, I could never have imagined we would scale it to this extent so soon, with five Post-Docs in-residence from diverse academic and international backgrounds. Dr. Zvobgo now directs GRI’s International Justice Lab, and in one of the tiles below, you’ll see that she recently wrote a  about the best practices for launching and managing research labs. Full circle moment. 

In programs like the Post-Doctoral Fellowship, GRI prioritizes mentorship — not only for our five new colleagues, but for the students they’ll train and collaborate with. I hope this approach will inspire more inquiries, partnerships, and cutting-edge research for years to come. In our #HumansofGRI series, AidData student researcher Jiaya Echevarria said it best: “The younger you are, the more you want to see the world change, and knowing that you can use a research lab to help change the world is really important.”

Thanks for helping us make that goal possible. Hope to see you this fall!
Best,
Mike