The Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies has awarded four seed grants selected from a pool of 11 proposals as part of the Winter 2009 Seed Grant Competition. Funded projects will complement the center's foreign policy and international development initiatives.

The grants were awarded based on the project's potential to advance research by junior faculty, generate external funding, bring long-term benefits to international studies at Cornell and conform to the highest academic standards.

The recipients are:

• Kim Bowes, classics, $6,500, to excavate up to 25 examples of Roman rural housing, built from 1 B.C. to 6 A.D., that represents how most people lived. By analyzing materials and spatial articulation of the houses, the organic remains (seeds, animal bones) of meals and local resources, the project hopes to reveal the lived experience of the largest group of ancient Romans.
• Iftikhar Dadi, history of art, $5,000, to study the relationship between popular culture, emergent publics and contemporary art in Pakistan.
• Tamara Loos, history, $4,700 to write a comprehensive English language biography about Dr. Krisana Kraisintu, a Thai national who has saved tens of thousands of lives in developing countries by formulating and manufacturing affordable generic drugs to treat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other maladies that strike the poor.
• N'Dri Assie-Lumumba, Africana studies, $6,000, to document, examine and analyze the trajectory of four generations of African intellectuals and universities since the 1960s, when the first post-colonial universities were created.