Richard Newsome was born and raised in Decatur, Georgia. After studying physics at Georgia Tech, he joined the Peace Corps as an education volunteer in Mozambique, teaching physics at a high school in the northern province of Zambezia. Although the global pandemic unfortunately cut Richard’s time with the Peace Corps short, it spurred his deep interest in learning about the causes of, and effective policies to alleviate, global poverty.

Richard’s career has been defined by a mix of direct action and research to better improve his own, and the broader development community’s, understanding of poverty. After returning from the Peace Corps, Richard coordinated with colleagues from his former Peace Corps site to lead Masks for Alto Ligonha: a COVID relief campaign which distributed over 6000 face masks to residents of Alto Ligonha and implemented a variety of other community-based covid relief measures. Additionally, from 2021 to 2023, Richard worked for DAI, one of USAID’s largest implementing partners, where he was a data analyst, enabling the organization to best deliver on its impact and development mission.

In addition to the courses which he has taken, Richard’s has furthered his education through his research in development economics. In his work with the African Development Bank’s Making Finance Work for Africa team, Richard and other Georgetown colleagues authored a report titled Access, Usage, and Quality of Financial Tools in West Africa Countries. During his summer internship at FGV EESP CLEAR in São Paulo, Brazil, Richard led a rapid evaluation of the country’s subsidized agricultural insurance program, Garantia Safra. And most recently, Richard conducted an independent investigation into the poverty and inequality benefits of expanded vocational education.

Richard’s experience at Georgetown, including his specializations in Economic Policy for Development and Quantitative Analysis and Evaluation, have prepared him well for a future career in the development sector. Richard is especially excited about continuing research in development economics, further developing our global understanding of how to improve the lives of the world’s poor.

Summer Internship

Over the summer, I worked with FGV EESP CLEAR, the research center for development learning and evaluation based in the Fundação Getulio Vargas in São Paulo, Brazil. While at CLEAR, I led a rapid evaluation of Garantia Safra, a subsidized agricultural insurance for family farmers in Brazil’s Northeast region. This investigation principally involved collating information regarding the project’s design, impact, and potential future challenges into one report. This involved collecting and analyzing primary data–for example regarding how often the program paid out participating farmers, levels of rainfall in the regions covered, and farming practices used by program participants–in addition to synthesizing information from independent reports and government sources, to develop a clear and complete picture of the program. At the end of the summer, my work was handed off to colleagues at CLEAR and the evaluation is ongoing. During this project, nearly all writing, research, and coordination with colleagues was done in Portuguese.