Lori Receives Hariri Research Award for Urban Refuge App
Noora Lori, Assistant Professor of International Relations at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, recently received a research award from the The Hariri Institute for Computing and Computational Science and Engineering for Urban Refuge, an app created by Pardee School students that aims to connect refugees with resources through a simple mapping tool.
Urban Refuge was selected as a recipient of the award as a project that crosses typical disciplinary boundaries as well as one that supports ambitious research and forward-looking education initiatives. Current and previously funded projects represent a broad array of the exciting new computing-related and data-driven research happening across the BU community.
The app began in the IR 500 Forced Migration and Human Trafficking class taught by Assistant Professor of International Relations Noora Lori, bringing together a group of female undergraduate and graduate students with a variety of backgrounds who shared a passion for innovating solutions to the current refugee crisis as well as future crises. Lori founded the Pardee School Initiative on Forced Migration and Human Trafficking in 2015 to foster similar educational initiatives.
Taking an idea from a Pardee School classroom to the real world, the group created the Urban Refugee App, an aid locator designed to geocode hundreds of international and domestic organizations serving refugees in Jordan including clinics, schools and aid distribution points.
The award will provide funding so that data can be collected for faculty and graduate student research in determining spatial concentration of aid and revising the way aid is allocated and distributed in cities as part of a larger mapping project.
Learn more about the Urban Refuge app: