Each semester we will highlight some of the fantastic projects being carried out by Harvard faculty members with the support of the DRCLAS faculty grants. Below is a sample of the range of projects that DRCLAS supports, among dozens of other projects each year.

  Donald Pfister, Asa Gray Professor of Systematic Botany, has a deep commitment to teaching and learning. He has taught courses in plant and fungal biology in settings ranging from freshman seminars to graduate seminars. He was master of Kirkland House (1982-2000), and was director of Harvard University Herbaria and Libraries and is currently serving as Interim Director. Despite these myriad impressive commitments, Professor Pfister has found the time to travel several times to southern and central Chile to focus on his true passion: the study of fungi, with support from the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies.

  Mercedes Becerra, Associate Professor in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School, is pursuing answers to the myriad research and health equity questions laid bare in conversations with tuberculosis patients and their families. This pursuit has contributed to what is now a flourishing research collaboration between Harvard and Partners In Health (Socios En Salud) in Peru.

  Jonathan Losos ‘84, Monique and Philip Lehner Professor for the Study of Latin America and Curator in Herpetology, studies the behavior and ecology of Anolis Lizards in Costa Rica, Panama, and Ecuador. For the past several years and with financial support from DRCLAS, Professor Losos has led course-based field trips and research trips to these and other countries.

  Filiz Garip, Associate Professor of Sociology, works in the fields of migration, economic sociology and inequality. In the past, Professor Garip has investigated how social capital, defined as resources available through social ties, leads to divergent rural-urban migration patterns in Thailand.

  Thomas B.F. Cummins, Dumbarton Oaks Professor of Pre-Columbian and Colonial Art in the History of Art and Architecture Department, was decorated by Ambassador of Peru Harold W. Forsyth on December 12, 2011. Ambassador Forsyth bestowed a Decoration of the Order “To Merit for Distinguished Services” in the Degree of “Great Cross”, upon Professor Cummins, in recognition of his life’s work. Professor Cummins is Chairman of the Department of the History of Art and Architecture and a member of the DRCLAS Executive Committee. His research and teaching focuses on Pre-Columbian and Latin American Colonial Art.