Time flies when you’re trying to tackle the world’s toughest problems. A decade has passed since 1,000 people packed into Pick-Staiger Concert Hall to celebrate the announcement of a $101 million gift from alum Roberta “Bertie” Buffett Elliott ’54. At the time, it was the largest single philanthropic gift in Northwestern history. The investment aimed to transform global studies at the University by establishing and then bolstering the work of the Roberta Buffett Institute for Global Affairs.
Over 10 years, “the gift has had a really profound impact, putting global issues front and center in all parts of the University,” says Deborah Cohen, director of the Buffett Institute and the Richard W. Leopold Professor of History in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences.
The Buffett Institute has brought together interdisciplinary teams of researchers “to address the so-called wicked problems — global problems that are difficult to solve,” Cohen says. It has also made it possible for Northwestern faculty to deepen the public policy impact of their research. Current projects include those that support the reunification of families separated by war and help journalists detect deepfakes using technology developed by Northwestern engineers. The institute’s new Global 2Gen Education Working Group, which tests how two-generation interventions alleviate poverty and improve human development worldwide, was one of two 2024-25 Buffett Global Working Group grant recipients.
The institute offers a suite of programming, fellowships and funding opportunities designed to support students across Northwestern. In 2025 it launched a transformative set of global learning and research opportunities for undergraduates together with the University’s International Studies Program. Students from any year or major can take a new gateway course called Thinking Globally that introduces international studies as a discipline-bridging field. (This fall it focuses on climate.) Undergraduates can later take on global research assistantships, international service-learning internships or their own research abroad. To bookend the experience, the institute has created — and hopes to expand — a postbaccalaureate fellowship program that is enabling three graduating seniors to work abroad with partner organizations for up to one year.
Undergraduates participated in a peace conference simulation in May. Credit: May Malone/Buffett Institute
Students also have the chance to learn from global leaders. For example, a 2024-25 initiative that focused on international diplomacy in turbulent times culminated with a two-day symposium in April, during which high-level diplomats, negotiators and academics from around the world shared lessons from high-profile peace processes of recent decades. And in May the institute hosted an interactive peace conference simulation that allowed 40 undergraduate students to take on the role of negotiators in a fictionalized peace process.
“By putting themselves in the shoes of parties to a peace process, students learned to confront the challenge of resolving seemingly intractable conflicts,” explains Danielle Gilbert, assistant professor of political science, who designed the simulation.
The immersive, hands-on learning experience of plotting strategies, negotiating and voting on an agreement — even a fictional one — was valuable for student participants like John Sisco, a junior from Tampa, Fla., who is studying journalism and political science.
“Politics, particularly international politics, is an inherently controversial and inflammatory topic, so modeling real-world disputes in a closed simulation was a great way to develop valuable skills in a controlled environment,” says Sisco, who wants to pursue a career in diplomacy.
Programming that emphasizes broadening students’ horizons resonates with the institute’s benefactor.
“It is critical that we take steps to understand and address global issues through research and teaching,” Elliott says. “Iʼm so pleased to support the Northwestern students and faculty who are engaging in international studies and making an impact with this important work.”
The Buffett Institute supports the University priority of fostering interdisciplinary innovation among social sciences and global studies.
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