November 20, 2009 — .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address), a 2009 Arts and Science graduate at the University of Miami, was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship that has enabled him to continue studying the socioeconomic impacts of changing agricultural-production system in Laos. He began his research there last year, as a recipient of the UM’s “Beyond the Book” Scholarship.
The Fulbright grant will fund Kenney-Lazar, who majored in Geography and Regional Studies at UM, for an additional 10 months of study and work in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic. Last year, when he first navigated his way through remote areas of the country, he interviewed a wide variety of government officials, village leaders, and households in order to acquire first-hand data about the occurring changes. Though he knew little of the language, with the help of a translator he was able to learn about the challenges farmers were experiencing as they faced an uncertain future. He studied how village livelihoods were being affected as farmers switched from substance-based rice farming to market oriented rubber productions.
As Kenney-Lazar’s research advanced, he became passionate about the issue and conducting fieldwork. In his own words, “this experience became one of the most formative of my undergraduate career and firmly set me on a path of academic research.”
At UM, Kenney-Lazar was an avid participant in study abroad programs to enrich his education. During the summer of 2007, he was part of the Atlantic Coast Conference’s International Academic Collaboration program to study sustainable development in Vietnam. The following year he spent the 2008 spring semester at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. It was there that a professor with previous research experience in Laos inspired Kenney-Lazar to embark upon a research project of his own.
Last year, the Department of Geography and Regional Studies named him the outstanding undergraduate student of the year. “Miles seems like someone who is 35, not a 21-year-old student,” said Douglas Fuller, chair of the department. “He is very independent, extremely thoughtful, and had an awful lot of courage to launch himself into an unknown country at his age. He is certainly Ph.D. material.”
To follow Miles Kenney-Lazar’s endeavor visit his blog: http://mileskenney.blogspot.com/.
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