In his policy proposal for the scholarship, Liscow advocated that President Bush’s Millenium Challenge Account—a foreign aid program—should include environmental policy criteria for recipient nations, in addition to the education and health policy requirements already in place.
Liscow spent the summer following his freshman year in Nicaragua.
“[The experience] entrenched in me the need to balance environment and development, the need to help people who are impoverished, in addition to preserving the environment,” Liscow said.
Mylavarapu is a special concentrator in international development and human rights, and plans to pursue master’s and J.D. degrees in a joint program.
In her policy proposal, Mylavarapu outlined a plan to encourage U.S. pharmaceutical companies to loosen their patent restrictions in areas of the world undergoing health crises.
“I want to eventually end up working in international development policy,” Mylavarapu said. “I want to focus on how the public sector can rope the private sector into taking corporate responsibility.”
Mylavarapu said a trip to Nicaragua—part of a freshman seminar on contemporary Latin America, in which Liscow also participated—was one of the formative experiences in her life’s goals.
“It was really eye-opening to see that all the politics and economics you learn about affect real people in the real world,” she said.
Dell, who is studying abroad in Chile this semester, plans to study the effects of microfinance and legal reforms on traditionally marginalized groups like women and indigenous peoples.
A track and cross country runner, Dell wrote in an e-mail that an experience in Peru taught her that determination and hard work did not always pay off for everyone.
“Seeing people work so hard with so little, at least economically, to show for it, played a big role in giving me confidence in my chosen career path,” she wrote.
All three Harvard Truman scholars are expected to travel to William Jewell College in Liberty, Mo. on May 16 to accept their awards in a special ceremony.