Just a few months after graduating from UMBC, Justine Wagner, Spanish and economics ’04, traveled to Costa Rica on a Fulbright Research Award.
Wagner conducted research for a study on the effects of government social spending on poverty at the Institute of Economic Science Research of the University of Costa Rica with Professor Juan Diego Trejos, who has worked with UMBC Professor of Economics and Wagner’s mentor, Tim Gindling.
As part of her award, Wagner also had the opportunity to attend a Fulbright Enhancement Seminar in Honduras, where Fulbright Scholars studying in Central America presented their research. “The seminar was really the capstone of the whole experience; it was great to meet with other young scholars and discuss our work,” said Wagner.
At UMBC, Wagner took advantage of the many opportunities available to support research by undergraduates. As a sophomore, she spent a semester at the University of Granada. In her junior year, she began working with Gindling on his research on minimum wages in Costa Rica and received a Provost’s Undergraduate Research Award, which she used to travel to Costa Rica in order to collect data, talk with government policy makers and meet Costa Rican researchers. It was on this visit that she first met Trejos. Wagner then presented her work at Undergraduate Research and Creative Achievement Day in her senior year, and published in an article in the 2005 UMBC Review.
Wagner said that her experiences at UMBC were invaluable and that she received a great deal of support. “The community of faculty and staff at UMBC want to see the best for every student,” she added.
“Justine was an excellent research partner,” said Gindling, who has received two Fulbright Fellowships to conduct research and teach in Costa Rica. “She has the ability to both work well with others and also the initiative to take a research problem and solve it on her own. The combination of fluent Spanish and knowledge of economics was especially valuable for our research project and for her ability to obtain the Fulbright Fellowship.”
Wagner is now using her skills and experience in economics at the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division, where she is a research analyst, but she is also interested in applying her interest in language and international affairs in a graduate program.
Originally published November 2005

The Human Rights Campaign is proud to present artist Jeff Sheng’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” series as part of DC FotoWeek.  This solo exhibition is the first to feature the photographs and stories of more than sixty servicemen and woman currently affected by the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law; the law that requires gay, lesbian and bisexual service members to remain silent about who they are.

This exhibition is the culmination of Sheng’s travels across the United States to over 25 states during a two-year span from 2009-2010 to photograph the series.  Utilizing the Internet and social networking, he connected with all of his subjects through his artist website and online word of mouth.  The mutual trust formed in this process became crucial to the work: the service members counted on the artist not to reveal their actual identities.

HRC is excited to take part in this year’s FotoWeek DC, a weeklong event in Washington D.C. that celebrates the transformative power of photography through the exhibition of inspiring and provocative images, diverse programming and collaboration with the local and international community.

The exhibition at the HRC headquarters features twenty framed images, along with two artist books highlighting the portraits and individual stories of over sixty currently serving military personnel. The exhibit will be open to the public from Nov. 8 – 10 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at HRC headquarters; 1640 Rhode Island Ave NW. Additionally, HRC will host coffee with the artist Monday, Nov. 8 at noon, and take part in Night Gallery, during which Sheng’s images will be projected onto the exterior of the building, on Wednesday, Nov. 10 at 5:30 p.m. Both events are open to the public.

Although voters were resoundingly focused on the economy this midterm election – and ranked social issues, to include same-sex marriage dead last– the so-called National Organization for Marriage (NOM), a Washington D.C.-based anti-gay, fringe organization, put an estimated $5 million into the 2009-10 election cycle to influence the outcome in dozens of federal and state races, according to campaign finance filings, NOM and press reports.

While NOM made significant investments this cycle, its electoral win/loss record is decidedly mixed. In fact, NOM lost more races than it won. NOM endorsed at least 29 candidates. As of Wednesday afternoon, NOM had lost 19 of these races, won eight, and the remaining two (the Minnesota governor’s race and a New Hampshire statehouse candidate) were undecided. With the exception of a judicial election they hijacked in Iowa, NOM lost its most expensive and high-profile gambits in California and New Hampshire and all of its races in Maine and the District of Columbia. And it fought campaign finance laws all along the way.

Read the full analysis of NOM’s 2010 activities.