The following story originally appeared on the W&M Alumni Magazine website as an online exclusive. – Ed.

Since its founding 21 years ago, William & Mary’s Global Research Institute has received widespread recognition for applying groundbreaking multidisciplinary research to critical issues facing our world. Now, GRI is ready to take the next step: securing its future.

This month, the institute is launching the GRI Accelerate Initiative, an effort to raise $10 million that will provide long-term support for its operations and allow for the development and expansion of projects.

A key goal of the initiative is to increase the number of internships and mentored research opportunities for students, whose demand far exceeds the number of available positions. About 250 William & Mary students currently work with GRI’s nine labs as research assistants or participate in credit-bearing applied learning experiences. The Accelerate Initiative seeks to double those numbers.

The effort received a head start with two leadership gifts of $1 million each from Tom McInerney P ’07, chair of the GRI Advisory Board’s Development Committee; and from Jennifer Tepper Mackesy ’91, who recently stepped off the GRI board to join the W&M Board of Visitors, and D. Scott Mackesy ’91.

Other GRI supporters have committed additional gifts totaling $1 million so far, bringing the amount raised to $3 million. GRI aims to complete the fundraising effort before moving in the summer of 2026 into its new home in Robert M. Gates Hall, a research and teaching hub shared with the Institute for Integrative Conservation and the Whole of Government Center of Excellence. Half of the total will support current GRI operations and programs, while the rest will be invested as an endowment.

GRI Director Mike Tierney ’87, M.A. ’88, P ’15 said the Accelerate Initiative will enable the institute to make strategic investments in research that has the potential to scale and strengthen public-private partnerships that enhance undergraduate education.

Among the significant global issues in which GRI has made an impact are Chinese foreign policy, U.S. national security policy, conservation, economic growth in developing countries, public health, and mobile technology and development. One of GRI’s founding labs, AidData, is recognized as a leading expert on China’s overseas lending and resulting debt. Brad Parks ’03, executive director of AidData, and his team have conducted briefings with decision-makers at the Treasury Department, the State Department and the White House, and AidData’s findings have been highlighted in over 500 media outlets.

“Funding from the Accelerate Initiative is designed to provide seed capital for investments in field-altering research, increased opportunities for teaching through research, and support for the unsexy, but vital, functions of a modern research university that enable students and faculty to focus on the creation and dissemination of new knowledge,” said Tierney, the George & Mary Hylton Professor of International Relations at W&M. “We need to put a foundation in place that sustains GRI at William & Mary for all time coming.”

Catalyst for growth

McInerney, president and CEO at Genworth Financial, initially became involved in William & Mary through one of his daughters, veterinarian Erin McInerney Smith ’07, and son-in-law, Chris Smith ’07, co-founder of The Virginia Beer Co. He said he learned about GRI’s projects from Chris, a history and economics major at William & Mary. A previous gift from McInerney established a new postdoctoral fellowship that advances GRI’s international study and research collaborations.

“I’m a firm believer that at an excellent university like William & Mary, a global perspective is important,” McInerney said. “What happens in other countries has a major impact on the U.S. and will affect William & Mary students and their lives and careers going forward.”

Through GRI, undergraduate students are able to conduct applied research with faculty and postdoctoral fellows, co-author journal articles and participate in policy briefings for government officials.

“At most universities, it’s the faculty and Ph.D. students who are doing that kind of work,” McInerney said. “I think William & Mary’s undergraduate experiences make for better students and better graduates, and ultimately better people who go out into the world and do good things.”

Jen Mackesy said she and Scott — a former W&M tennis teammate of Tierney’s — have long admired GRI’s work. She followed the institute’s progress as a member of the W&M Foundation Board of Trustees, and she spoke with Tierney about it in greater depth while they were both serving on the search committee that led to the hiring of William & Mary Director of Athletics Brian Mann. Mackesy is also connected to GRI board member Will Smith ’14 (a brother of Chris Smith) as a supporter of LEAD Edu, a nonprofit he founded to empower young leaders through sports and academics. 

Smith credits his time as a GRI Summer Fellow with sparking the creation of LEAD Edu: “Through GRI, I conducted applied research in Monrovia, Liberia, in 2013, and in that time I built relationships and discovered opportunities that would bring me back to Liberia two years later to launch our first leadership academy. Since then, I’m proud that we have hosted several GRI student researchers in both Liberia and Morocco.”

Both Mackesy and McInerney said they were impressed by students who spoke last fall to the GRI board about their projects, including the multidisciplinary Nepal Water Initiative. Among those were GRI Summer Fellows Kritika Jothishankar ’25 and Sarah Wozniak ’24, who spent seven weeks during the summer of 2023 conducting interviews with policymakers and stakeholders in Kathmandu about hydropower development in Nepal.

“I was blown away by the work being done by these students,” said Mackesy, a former W&M soccer player who is now part owner of NJ/NY Gotham FC, a National Women’s Soccer League team. She noted that Wozniak, as a member of the Tribe gymnastics team, has balanced her GRI work with demanding athletics and academic requirements.

“This highlighted the type of students we attract to William & Mary,” she said, “and how successful they are able to be in a very rigorous academic environment and also push themselves to get these experiences outside the classroom and do work that engages with people all over the world.” 

While serving on the W&M Foundation Board of Trustees, Mackesy chaired its athletics subcommittee during most of the recent All In campaign for W&M Athletics, and she and Scott served as an honorary campaign co-chairs, along with Todd Boehly ’96 and Katie Garrett Boehly ’95. In addition, the Mackesys have helped provide funding for several key athletics programs, facilities and scholarships, including the construction of the Mackesy Sports Performance Center, the Mackesy Tennis Center and the Jill Ellis Field at the 1987 Women’s Soccer Team Training Center.

The couple hopes their gift to GRI, along with McInerney’s and the other commitments, will serve as a catalyst to further expand the institute’s reach and impact, she said.

 “Being able to support GRI financially feels very rewarding in recognition of the incredible work by the advisory board, the faculty and staff and the students,” Mackesy said.

Focusing on people

Jothishankar and Wozniak, two of the GRI Summer Fellows, said their time in Nepal helped to shape the kinds of careers they envision for themselves. Both said the experience emphasized the importance of seeking out perspectives from all those who are affected by projects such as hydropower development.

They learned that while some stakeholders they interviewed see hydropower as beneficial for growth and economic self-sufficiency, others were concerned about the potential for environmental impacts such as flooding, as well as inequities in who benefits from infrastructure development. Their findings are summarized in a published report, “The Great Himalayan Chessboard: China, India, and the Geopolitical Gambit in Nepal,” which they co-authored with their mentor, GRI postdoctoral fellow Nara Sritharan. She was able to join GRI because of McInerney’s support for postdoctoral fellowships. A key goal of the Nepal Water Initiative is making such research accessible to policymakers and citizens.

Jothishankar, an economics and computational applied mathematics and statistics major who will graduate in December, said her work in Nepal helped her see how she could apply her academic focus to international development and climate research.

“This experience got me thinking about careers that combined my interest in data and development, and thinking about what more I could do with those two interests,” she said. Because she has extended family in India, she was able to contrast their views on Nepal’s water resources with those of the people she met during her fellowship.

For Wozniak, the trip to Nepal was her first time outside the United States. An international relations and economics major from Illinois who is now pursuing a master’s degree in business analytics at William & Mary’s Raymond A. Mason School of Business, she said her work on the project helped her discover a passion for international development in South Asia.

“It’s been my favorite work I’ve done at William & Mary and the most important work for me both personally and professionally,” Wozniak said, adding that she would not have had the opportunities in Nepal without GRI and the fellowship funding.

“Sometimes the academic world can become a bit of a bubble where you’re echoing the same viewpoints,” she said. “Stepping outside of that to a completely unfamiliar place forces you to think differently and to think critically, and gives you skills to make sure you’re hearing different sides of the story that are important beyond the research.”

“That sums it up perfectly,” Jothishankar agreed, noting that in Nepal, she observed how fields such as economics, marine science, religious studies and conservation are connected. “For me, the biggest eye-opener was the interdisciplinary research effort and how that inherently puts the focus on people.”

Contributions supporting GRI are welcome through the Global Research Institute Accelerate Fund.