Lauren Acker

About

Lauren Acker was born and raised in Southeast Michigan. She graduated from Washington & Lee University in 2012 where she earned her BA in Sociology/Anthropology. She spent one of her undergraduate summers studying abroad in Valparíso, Chile and another conducting ethnographic research in Sololá, Guatemala. Lauren lived and worked in Oregon (Hood River and Portland) for four years before returning to Virginia to for Law School.

This summer, Lauren will be interning with Open Development Mekong (ODM) in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. ODM’s mission is to improve and support sustainable and equitable development by striving to meet international open data standards. ODM gathers objective and apolitical data from the Mekong region (Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam). Lauren will likely be working on a comparative study of intellectual property rights and copyright laws of the Mekong countries. Additionally, she may have an opportunity to work on a project relating to the impacts of climate change or food systems and  security in the region.