Unni Krishnan Karunakara

Unni Krishnan Karunakara

Unni Krishnan Karunakara, a Senior Fellow at the Jackson Institute for Global Affairs at Yale University, will visit the College on March 3, 2016, to discuss Syria’s refugee crisis and its broader impact on the Middle East, Europe, and the United States.

The talk begins at 4 p.m. in the Beatty Center’s Wells Fargo Auditorium, located at 5 Liberty St.

Being held as part of the Department of Political Science Spring 2016 Convocation, the event will include a discussion of the concept of a shirking humanitarian space — the ability of actors to deliver humanitarian aid based on a population’s needs, without taking sides in the conflict generating these needs.

Karunakara has been a humanitarian worker and a public health professional for two decades with extensive experience in the delivery of health care to neglected populations affected by conflict, disasters and epidemics in Africa, Asia, and America. He was medical director of the medical humanitarian organization Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)/Doctors Without Borders’ campaign for access to essential medicines and later served as its international president.