This grad is headed to Indonesia to empower communities in need
Lauren Conrow will travel to Indonesia as part of the Luce Scholars Program, a 13 month-long fellowship based in Asia.
After serving in the Peace Corps in Fiji and with the United Nations in Kenya, Northeastern University graduate Lauren Conrow developed a deep appreciation for communal living and collective action.
During her time in Fiji, for example, she worked with women in rural villages and helped support their ventures, including assisting them in establishing a restaurant focused on healthy eating.
Experiences like that one have played a pivotal role in Conrow’s humanitarian efforts and career, which has centered on empowering people to work together to make positive changes in their communities.
Now, Conrow’s work will take her to Indonesia as part of the Luce Scholars Program, a highly prestigious and competitive 13-month-long fellowship in Asia for emerging global leaders.
Every year, 15 to 18 individuals are selected from hundreds of U.S. applicants to partake in the highly experiential and immersive fellowship. The program, which was established in 1974 by the Henry Luce Foundation, aims to strengthen U.S. ties with Asia.
Northeastern Global News, in your inbox.
Sign up for NGN’s daily newsletter for news, discovery and analysis from around the world.
As part of the program, the chosen fellows are provided temporary job placements in an Asian organization of their choosing, one that aligns with their personal interests and research focus. Notably, one of the requirements of the program is that the scholars have limited exposure to the Asian country they will be placed in, according to the foundation.
Conrow is still determining which organization she wants to be placed with, but she knows she will be based in the Indonesian city of Yogyakarta. From there, she will work with communities throughout the country to improve their resilience to natural disasters and climate change, she said.
Conrow’s work follows what’s known as “participatory urbanism,” which prioritizes providing local residents with the tools to self-organize so that they rely less on top-down and individualistic governance structures. One example of this approach can be seen in the collective housing movement, which involves individuals sharing living spaces and managing resources with their neighbors, she explained.
“It’s really about seeing human settlements as a collective,” she said, “and not as ‘This is my house’ [for which] we are all individually responsible.”
Luce Scholars are selected based on several rounds of evaluation, including application reviews and virtual interviews, according to the foundation. The top semi-finalists are flown out to San Diego to participate in an interactive leadership workshop, where a final round of interviews is also held.
From there, the organization selects its cohort for the year.
Editor’s Picks
“We look for evidence that a candidate will be a leader both within his or her profession and as a member of the broader community,” the organization writes on its website. “Creativity, maturity, humility, sensitivity, and strength of character are characteristics that typify successful candidates.”
The Luce Scholars Program is one of several efforts in which Conrow is investing her time. This spring, she’ll be graduating from the University of Oxford with a master’s degree in sustainable urban development.
And last month, Conrow joined Northeastern University’s Global Resilience Institute as a graduate research assistant and is studying local libraries and their importance for democratic resilience. The institute, which works with communities to develop tools to withstand disasters, is co-directed by her mentor and Northeastern political science and public policy professor Daniel Aldrich.
While Conrow didn’t interact with Aldrich directly while pursuing her bachelor’s in business administration at Northeastern University, she connected with Aldrish three years ago while she was serving in the Peace Corps. She was interested in his research on urban development and social capital. Since then, he has served as a strong advocate and wrote her a letter of recommendation for her master’s program.
Aldrich said Conrow’s selection as a Luce Scholar is “very, very exciting,” and that he is looking forward to hearing about what she learned during the experience and about the connections she’ll make along the way.
As excited as he is about her entering the Luce Program, he’s just as excited about what she’ll do after she completes it.
“Luce is really about trajectory,” he said. “What she’ll do next, whether it’s through a non-governmental organization or the private sphere, her depth of knowledge and love of learning will translate into success wherever she goes.”
