Andrew Scruggs ‘16

This bio is current as of 2020. 

I have a master's degree in international development from Sciences Po in Paris and a diploma in international economics from the University of Notre Dame in the United States.

I have experience in advising French, Haitian, and American non-profit organizations, which includes successfully resolving governance and management crises for non-profit organizations. I have success in improving the financial and operational management procedures of non-profit organizations as well as improving the activity and the functioning of their governing boards.

Equally, I have a strong foundation in research methodology. This includes designing and executing a large socio-economic household survey in a rural community, executing statistical methods for academic projects, and researching organizational governance in the developing world.

I am interested in sustainable development, especially in the context of agriculture, migration, and food security. I want to work in a research or consulting-oriented job on agriculture and food policy issues and help contribute to the fight to end global hunger, either in the public or private sector.

I am fluent in English (native language), French, and Haitian Creole, and am proficient in Spanish. 

This profile was current as of 2016 when he was part of the on-campus Kellogg community.

Thesis Title: Extraction within the Informal Economy of Haitian Immigrants in Guadeloupe

The work I perform for Professor Richman has always focused around migration in the Caribbean and Latin America, especially Haitian migration, and consists of collecting statistics on migrants and analyzing the data in relation to international migration structures. This year, I am continuing a project with her in which I collect data on the Haitian and Dominican diasporas across the Americas and compare how well the two groups tend to perform across different countries. This includes looking into how educated the groups tend to be, their average income levels, the proportion of families living below the relative and international poverty lines, and other indicators of success. In addition, I help Professor Richman by reading and summarizing relevant literature either for her project on Caribbean diasporas or her project on examining financial systems available to Mexican immigrants in the US, as well as when she is reviewing a book for a colleague.

All of my research with Professor Richman has inspired and informed my own research at Notre Dame for my International Development Studies minor. Through my work with the ISP, I developed a passion for understanding how the criminalization of immigration can be understood in international migration structures. In the spring of my sophomore year, I applied for an Experiencing the World Fellowship through Kellogg and was awarded $5000 to go to the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe for two months to perform research on undocumented Haitian immigration there. I presented my findings at the 2014 Haitian Studies Association Conference, and then returned to Guadeloupe the next summer through a Kellogg Undergraduate Research Grant to build upon my work in a more rigorous way. The two summers I spent in Guadeloupe and the research I conducted there will be the basis of my capstone project for my International Development Studies minor, and will examine the informal economy unauthorized Haitian immigrants have created on the island of Guadeloupe in response to strict immigration laws.

Grant paper: Extraction within the Informal Economy of Haitian Migrants in Guadeloupe