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PhD in Sustainable Development Student Profiles
Mark Orrs
Mark Orrs is a second-year student in the Ph.D. program in Sustainable Development. His primary interest is in African economic development. Other research interests include, tropical agriculture and arid/semi-arid lands, gender and education, and orphans and vulnerable children.
He is co-author of two articles on the HIV/AIDS stigma which were published in major public health journals. At present, he is preparing for research that will lead to his Master’s thesis, for which he traveled to East Africa in the summer of 2007 to explore his interests in agriculture, business development, and education.
In 2003, Mark earned a B.S. in Sociology from Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia. After a year of teaching fifth grade in Camden, New Jersey, he studied at the London School of Economics and Political Science, from which he received a Diploma in Economics before being accepted into the Sustainable Development program. Mark has traveled to East Africa multiple times, including in 2006 to film a documentary on street children in Nairobi. He has also worked at a home for HIV-positive AIDS orphans, socio-medical outreach projects into Nairobi’s slums, income generating activities for slum dwellers, and most recently with the Millennium Villages Project on multiple, varied initiatives.