Michael Allen recently was awarded a $1.2 million grant from the Department of Defense’s Minerva Research Initiative to produce both quantitative and qualitative analysis of how U.S. troops are viewed while serving abroad.
Over the next three years, Allen and his team will travel the globe conducting qualitative interviews with military personnel, local activists and local government officials to get their perspective on the dynamics of having U.S. troops stationed in key areas. The team also will be collecting data and using geographic information systems, most often referred to as GIS, to map U.S. troop-based criminal activity in other countries.