Inaugural Post

Hello! Welcome to the inaugural post of my blog for the 2008 ALLIES Joint Research Project (JRP) in Jordan. The Alliance Linking Leaders in Education and the Services (ALLIES) is an undergraduate-led initiative dedicated to building a bridge for shared understanding between future civilian and military leaders through joint education, training, and relationship building. ALLIES is a program of the Institute for Global Leadership at Tufts University. The ALLIES Joint Research Project is an annual summer program in which ALLIES students come together from our respective institutions to conduct a substantive, challenging, and relevant research project abroad.

This June, my fellow JRP participants and I will spend 4 weeks in Jordan studying the impact of the Iraq War on Jordanian Society. My particular area of focus is the effect of the Iraq war on Jordan's political reform process. Other students will be studying refugees in Jordanian society, bilateral relations between Jordan and Iraq, and Jordanian-US security cooperation. Please visit our group blog if you wish to learn more about ALLIES, our progress as a group, or any of these other subtopics.

I will be updating this blog often throughout the month of June to record my impressions and reflections of everything I see, hear, and learn in Jordan. I hope to keep you interested by including highlights of the research process along with anecdotes about traveling in Jordan. I am grateful to the support of the Institute for Global Leadership at Tufts University, Hostelling International USA, Tufts University Undergraduate Research Fund, and my family for their support in pursuing this project.