Harvard Division of Continuing Education

1130 Wieuca Road is a Greek tragedy set in the American South with a political spine and maternal ghosts as its center. The screenplay employs proleptic structure to explore generational trauma, legal injustice, and memory within this Southern Gothic framework. By allowing future consequence to intrude upon present action, the work demonstrates how narrative time can be used not only to tell a story, but to embody the lived experience ofrupture and reclamation. Together, this thesis positions prolepsis as both a narrative strategy and a mode of emotional truth-telling, where time becomes a language through which stories oftrauma and transformation are most powerfully expressed as a form of “emotional architecture," through which filmmakers construct meaning by layering past, present, and future within a single experiential moment. In this way fractured chronology reflects the psychological realities oftrauma, memory, and identity rather than disrupting narrative coherence. The work includes foreshadowing, flash-forwards, flashbacks, memory and dream sequences and other nonlinear sequencing to reshape audience perception, intensify emotional resonance, and challenge traditional linear storytelling. Within my work, time is not presented as fixed but as fluid, recursive, and deeply tied to character interiority.

12 Million and Two Black Voices: The Ethnographic Convergence of Richard Wright and Kendrick Lamar investigates how two Black artists, separated by generations and working in different media, converge in their roles as cultural ethnographers. Through a comparative analysis of Wright’s prose and photography and Lamar’s lyrical narratives, this study interrogates the representation of systemic racism, historical trauma, urban confinement, and the formation of Black masculinity. Drawing on ethnographic theory, literary criticism, and cultural studies, the thesis examines the formal strategies—linguistic, visual, and sonic—by which both artists articulate the lived realities of Black America. Each chapter traces thematic and methodological recursions between Wright’s mid-twentieth-century portraits of racial oppression and Lamar’s twenty-first-century sonic geographies of resistance. Ultimately, the research argues that their works not only document enduring structures of racial inequality but also mobilize expressive culture as a form of critique, reclamation, and cultural survival. This analysis contributes to broader conversations on race, representation, and resistance, demonstrating the capacity of art across time and form to challenge ethnographic instability and assert agency.

Henry VII ruled England for nearly a quarter-century, from 1485 to 1509. While he was on the throne, the civil wars that tore the country apart through much of the previous century burned themselves out, and a new period of comparative calm and stability took hold. Historians long have understood Henry’s reign as a period of transition, particularly in his approach to government participation. The medieval period largely saw political power divided between the Crown and the nobility, who frequently vied with one another for supremacy. However, the transformation of that relationship, which began during the previous Yorkist dynasty, markedly increased once Henry ascended the throne. Power ostensibly coalesced around the Tudor Crown and its new middle-class managers as the nobility’s role became more advisory and administrative. In its place came educated and able men from the upper gentry, men who owed their elevated positions to the king’s favor rather than birth. Their increasing presence represented a shift in the makeup of English government, and it undermined the collective influence of the nobility, who institutionally retreated from the king’s presence to a more sedentary, peripheral position.

What typically happened to the displaced nobility? What did it mean to be noble? Contemporary scholarship has focused on Henry’s new professional administrators and largely sidestepped the remnants of the nobility. This prioritization risks dismissing the nobility as a purely medieval institution and prematurely concluding its story simultaneously with the Wars of the Roses. While the makeup of Henry’s government shifted towards a new professional-class of men from the ranks of the upper gentry, the nobility did not disappear. It was still very much present even if it no longer enjoyed the same institutional influence it once had. This work explores the period through the prism of three of Henry’s most prominent noblemen—John de Vere, thirteenth earl of Oxford, Thomas Howard, first earl of Surrey, and Edward Stafford, third duke of Buckingham—and shows that the nobility was not a monolithic institution during Henry’s reign but rather a multifaceted body in various states of flux. In short, there was not a singular way to be noble; how each nobleman carried himself and engaged in his affairs was entirely dependent on his individual relationship with the king.

Each of the three noblemen named above illustrates a different aspect of the shift. It was not a sudden, singular event, nor did it impact all nobles uniformly. Rather, it was thematic in character and gradually transformed the institutional nobility from an arbiter of unbridled royal power to a more advisory and supportive role. Understanding the shift is important because of how it transformed the period’s polity. Centuries of established tradition and government administration were largely abandoned, and in their place came the foundation of what would later become the British constitutional monarchy. In this work, I explore the shift and its impacts to gain a better sense of the transition from the medieval to the early modern period and better understand the transformative impacts of England’s first Tudor king.

The idea that a customer would pay $150 for a cup of coffee seems to many people absurd, exploitative, and cringeworthy. Looking deeper the question becomes: where is a third wave café able to justify selling a cup of specialty coffee for such a high price? Also, what type of customer has the money and is willing to spend on what many would consider a luxury? There were only twenty-two cups available in the United States of this specialty grade coffee and the 100 pounds of these coffee beans had sold at auction for $2,000 per pound. It came from a single farm, single varietal in Panama. This thesis will describe the historical processes and events that led to third wave cafes producing specialty coffee in Portland, Oregon 1995-2020. The primary process that allowed this to happen is gentrification. This thesis will draw upon the works of many authors to explain the history of Oregon and Portland. It will then synthesize the theories of rent gap and stages of gentrification and show how it overlays with the history of Portland, Oregon. This thesis will also discuss the history of coffee domestication, production, and consumption from Yemen to Panama to Portland. There are strong parallels between the land use policies that allow for spaces of production to be exploited both in Portland and in coffee producing countries. This thesis will interrogate the common notion that gentrification causes displacement because former residents are displaced by newcomers. An important concept is the understanding of space and place.
People do not say that they were “dis-spaced” but they were displaced. It will show how areas with early third wave cafes and then later ones within walking distances were part of the cause for increases in real estate prices relative to the walkable neighborhoods surrounding them. Former residents were priced out of their homes and neighborhoods, many forced to live in government subsided housing. Being priced out can occur because of increased rent and/or increase taxes that is then included in the rent owed. Third wave cafes and specialty coffee are just one setting among many in a food system, especially in Portland, that causes but also reinforces gentrification and displacement. This thesis finally will finally provide verification to the common belief of people that third wave cafes and specialty coffee are signs of both a gentrifying and gentrified neighborhood. It provides a historical explanation for this belief by examining the causes. It also answers how does specialty coffee define what it is and how it determines value. At the same time, it provides an explanation for why a cup of coffee is $150 and why it was available in one of the most heavily gentrified neighborhoods in Portland. Different stages of gentrification overlap with each other and therefore it is possible to say that a third wave café would have not moved into a space if it had not gentrified but also a third wave café can cause gentrification in other spaces.

This novella is a fantasy thriller that wants to deal with death and its various shapes throughout a surreal journey, where a superior power challenges the protagonist to face his own guilt, or original sin.

Characters and storylines travel through time to recurring locations, connecting like in a puzzle, where only at the very end they will find the final resolution.

Touching afterlife themes, the story remains as earthly as it can be, letting morality dance with the uncertain context. Religious elements are present, representing the ongoing battle of evil vs. good, all within the personal decisions of a young man forced to enter each one of twenty-seven doors. But at the end, each door will be forced to comply with his innocent soul.

The story doesn’t follow a straight pattern at first. The rules of the world change constantly, yet the plot is ignited from the first word.

Approximately 2 billion people in developing countries around the world lack access to essential surgical care and services, resulting in the avertable deaths of over 1.5 million individuals each year. These startling statistics reveal a hidden notion and key premise, this being “avertable deaths.” These are deaths that could easily be adverted by garnering access to adequately equipped healthcare facilities that can provide provisional surgical care. Upon further examination, a fundamental barrier that inhibits access to surgical care is the lack of basic surgical instruments and supplies in healthcare facilities in developing countries. Without access to the most essential and basic surgical instruments and supplies, these facilities are extremely limited in their respective interventional scope and capacity to provide adequate surgical care. Upon reflection of this pertinent problem, a functional, yet dynamic solution must be improvised that is rooted in feasibility, this being 3-dimensional printing. The deployment of low-cost 3-dimensional printing technologies in developing countries could revolutionize the distribution and manufacture of surgical instruments in district-level healthcare facilities. While previous research has focused upon the applications of 3-dimensional printing materials for biological scaffolds or implants, limited research has examined the fabrication of simple, yet essential surgical instruments that are often in short supply in developing countries. Critical surgical instruments could be manufactured with sustainable, bio-based plastic materials at a fraction of the cost of conventional stainless steel medical supplies. Introduction of this new interventional approach could radically alter the current surgical care paradigm that is faced today and potentially save the lives of millions of individuals that die each year from preventable conditions.

The goal of this work was to investigate a novel new technology being used to improve total shoulder replacements in patients with difficult to treat anatomy. The new technology is the use of three-dimensional (3D) implant creations that can be tailored to a patient’s specific shoulder defects as opposed to shelf, standard size implants. The project will help provide management direction to improve the efficiency in the global supply system so that surgeons in various parts of the world may have access to surgical components in the shortest time without significant delay. The study findings were that hindrances to 3D adoption for just-in-time surgical usage primarily include difficulties with sterilization and lack of a global validation metric when performed at multiple international centers, as opposed to one location in a single country. This research topic has a direct clinical impact to improve patient quality of life and decrease their period of pain and suffering, while awaiting a total shoulder replacement.

Recent research has begun to examine how the effect of leader behaviors differs across subordinates and organizations. Thus far, leadership style has been one of the most discussed and debated factors associated with leadership effectiveness, as early research on its antecedents began with the search for specific attributes that differentiate leaders across the two labels represented by transformational and transactional leadership to explain individual differences in effectiveness. Specifically, leadership style has been linked to outcomes such as subordinate ratings of leadership potential and motivation to lead. This study tested whether certain behaviors contribute to individuals being particularly adept at either transformational or transactional leadership style, as rated by subordinates. 110 leaders from 12 countries engaged in this research, assessing their own leadership and requesting feedback from 337 subordinates. Using multiple linear regression, this study tested the hypothesis that relational-oriented and change-oriented behaviors predict a more transformational style of leadership. Conversely, this study also tested the hypothesis that task-oriented behaviors predict a more transactional style. The question of whether leaders’ self-awareness of their behaviors (as measured by the congruence between leaders’ and their subordinates’ ratings of their behaviors) is associated with higher ratings of transformational leadership was also assessed. Extensive analyses revealed that transformational leadership was associated with higher ratings on the full spectrum of leadership behaviors, with specifically higher relational-oriented and change-oriented behavior ratings. Additional quantitative analysis also showed a strong relationship between self-awareness and transformational leadership.

Recent research has begun to examine how the effect of leader behaviors differs across subordinates and organizations. Thus far, leadership style has been one of the most discussed and debated factors associated with leadership effectiveness, as early research on its antecedents began with the search for specific attributes that differentiate leaders across the two labels represented by transformational and transactional leadership to explain individual differences in effectiveness. Specifically, leadership style has been linked to outcomes such as subordinate ratings of leadership potential and motivation to lead. This study tested whether certain behaviors contribute to individuals being particularly adept at either transformational or transactional leadership style, as rated by subordinates. 110 leaders from 12 countries engaged in this research, assessing their own leadership and requesting feedback from 337 subordinates. Using multiple linear regression, this study tested the hypothesis that relational-oriented and change-oriented behaviors predict a more transformational style of leadership. Conversely, this study also tested the hypothesis that task-oriented behaviors predict a more transactional style. The question of whether leaders’ self-awareness of their behaviors (as measured by the congruence between leaders’ and their subordinates’ ratings of their behaviors) is associated with higher ratings of transformational leadership was also assessed. Extensive analyses revealed that transformational leadership was associated with higher ratings on the full spectrum of leadership behaviors, with specifically higher relational-oriented and change-oriented behavior ratings. Additional quantitative analysis also showed a strong relationship between self-awareness and transformational leadership.

In the wider field of narrative nonfiction and the narrower genre of biography, there is a trend in recent years to write of the “life” and cultural import of inanimate objects, from spoons to sugar. This has extended to works of literature, and it is in this tradition that I am writing a biography of Ancrene Wisse (A Guide for Anchoresses), a book with 800 years of influence over a variety of audiences. A precise date for the creation of this text is difficult to pin down, but the scholarly consensus has landed on 1220–1230. It was written mainly for an audience of anchoresses, women who lived a reclusive religious life inside a cell attached to a church. Its influence in England quickly grew, and as it did, the practice of anchoritism grew as well. I argue, in this biography of the text, that the popularity of the Ancrene Wisse and the anchoresses who were its initial (but not ever exclusive) audience grew in tandem until the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century. While the practice of anchoritism all but died out, Ancrene Wisse has continued to have an active afterlife among scholars in several disciplines.

This thesis includes opening chapters from an adult literary novel set three years in the future and tentatively titled A Bouquet of Petals. Told in retrospect, the fictional work follows fifteen-year-old Josie Benner as she navigates coming-of-age at a time when the U.S. birthrate has plummeted by thirty-three percent. In the shadow of her mother—a renowned sociologist—Josie begrudgingly relocates from Maine to Cambridge where she becomes privy to university students analyzing the links between fertility and forever chemicals in the soil, microplastics in the water, global warming and our nation’s food supply. Everyone talks of consequence. No one speaks of choice.

But as violence against women increases, so does Josie’s awareness. A trusted new friend helps Josie realize what’s at stake for women—and children—when healthcare is metered out by politics before medicine. And Josie can’t help notice something more. Resistance? And a secret language? One without words, but manifested in quiet brushes on the subway, petals of paper tucked under a tip at a café. So much like the small note she’d found in her home by the shore.

As Josie comes to understand the discreet, hushed correspondence of women and the true revolution it’s inspired, she can’t help think her father’s disappearance might have something to do with the rebellion of women banding together in the silent solidarity of protest and empty wombs—a new kind of choice—in a quest to protect their human (and reproductive) rights.

This thesis examines modern interpretations of Augusto Boal’s politically engaging and transformative theatrical theory, the Joker System and its derivatives. The concentration of the research uses Boal’s system as the lens for which to examine how televised satire, specifically The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, utilized this historically linked theory of public engagement with politics, policy, and government through theatrical interpretation of modern journalism in both video and print. The arts have, historically, interpreted and commented on contemporary cultural and current events, most ardently at the beginning of the modern era at the turn of the twentieth century. Traditionally, this entailed creating satirical performance art by which performers interpret and perform narrative that is both informative and engaging for an audience that is more proletariat than bourgeoisie. Most art is created for specific audiences and this thesis emphasizes that the 24-hour televised news is both journalism and theatrical narrative. However, my argument takes exception that the target audience of the 24-hour news has been directed towards a demographic that is homogenous, when the information reported on has broad effects on a much larger demographic than it is intended to serve. Boal’s Joker System is the reinterpretive tool utilized by The Daily Show, and similar programs, to disseminate information to the underserved demographics often overlooked by cable news. His tools share a tradition with the modern theatre of the twentieth century, and Modernism in general, that focuses on elevating and educating the meager masses in an effort to combat their exploitation and disenfranchisement.

The rise of utilization of next-generation sequencing (NGS) tests in the clinical practice and drug development settings has increased the need for additional regulatory oversight and company practices to support the growth. The operational effects of next-generation sequencing tests, from both the regulatory and growth burden is largely undervalued during the test development process. As such, if the operational components that affect the scalability and success of a product can be classified, there is a higher likelihood of the overall clinical adoption and FDA approval success. This study focuses on the regulatory oversight of next-generation sequencing tests and the components of the product that can affect the operational outcomes. Through the review of current FDA Medical Device regulations and comparison to other categories of regulated products, the overall regulatory needs and opportunities for improved oversight can be achieved. Furthermore, by review of the technical, performance, and operational criteria of currently approved NGS tests, an overall predictive model can be generated to offer perspectives into the regulatory, development, and operational components of non-FDA approved tests. Through this review, via a comprehensive analysis of the regulatory requirements, assay specifications, and operational components of next-generation sequencing tests, a viable model for the prediction of clinical adoption and FDA approval was generated.

After the "golden era" of antibiotic discovery in the 1950' and 1960's pharmaceutical companies failed to discover novel antibiotic classes leading them to abandon research in spite of the growing threat of antibiotic resistance. In the late 1980 three novel antibiotics: linezolid, daptomycin, and lysobactin, were discovered but all three founding companies terminated the programs early. Soon after, linezolid and daptoymycin were resumed by new companies and turned into blockbuster drugs. This thesis investigates what factors led to the termination and subsequent initiation of these important programs and how we can learn from the decision-making. Specifically, the importance of key leaders, risk-taking, timing, therapeutic focus, and scientific expertise are highlighted using these case studies and provides a framework for future antibiotic development programs.

Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), is a highly prevalent and disruptive disorder as it is highly resistant to both pharmacological and psychological treatments (Borkovec et al., 2002), and has a high financial burden on both the patient and primary and mental health care (Dibonaventura et al., 2014). While Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is considered the most effective treatment to deal with GAD, unfortunately, it is not always effective as less than 50% of the patients showed progress in follow-up assessments (Borkovec & Ruscio, 2001). There is a misconception that anxiety and stress are similar or even associated together; meaning if a person experiences one then by default he/she must have the other. While dealing with anxiety can be stressful, there is a defined fine line between both terms and an unclear relationship besides elucidating similarities in symptoms. The primary purpose of this study is to examine the association between generalized anxiety, stress, and gut health. If there is an association between all three factors, then it is possible that the tools for treating GAD are not entirely psychological but quite possibly a combination of psychological and physiological treatments. This study has been completed in Kuwait by 70 participants ages 18-65 who voluntarily took part in this online study powered by Qualtrics, an online encrypted and password protected survey builder.

Antimicrobial resistance is a growing problem throughout the world. Government agencies and other global health organizations have created software for tracking emerging microbial threats on a facility, state-wide and international scope. Epidemiological software uses statistical algorithms to discern between aberrations of resistance in a given location and time, and whether these “clusters” can be attributed to a specific cause versus chance alone. The retrospective spatiotemporal scan statistic software, SaTScan, has diverse applications. In this project we demonstrate the use of SaTScan version 9.8 within the free epidemiological software WHONET. Microbiology data collected from 2000-2006 at Brigham and Women’s Hospital was used for retrospective analysis. Three algorithms: the space-time continuous uniform, the space-time discrete Poisson and the space-time permutation were run on the same data set with limited parameter adjustments per model. Three variables were considered within each model: maximum spatial size within the population at risk, baseline days, maximum temporal size and number of Monte Carlo simulations. As demonstrated by this study, we found that there was a significant difference in cluster detection between the three probability models. Furthermore, we demonstrate the effects of varying values when defining the spatiotemporal scanning window. The findings of this study allow epidemiologists and computational biologists alike in better understanding the parameters of these algorithms, and create a more precise narrative of outbreaks in antimicrobial resistant clusters. Further prospective validation of these results would give a better understanding of the accuracy and clinical importance for the clusters found. This could be utilized world-wide for other WHONET users, and can guide public health policies in the event of an outbreak or epidemic.

Millions of dollars, not to mention invaluable community trust and energy, are wasted every year on ineffective community redevelopment programs and projects that fail to live up to their goals due to lack of community buy-in. Community organizations have begun to acknowledge the shortcomings of conventional engagement methodologies, but a lack of solid data on the benefits or long-term efficacy of differing engagement methods has left a critical gap at the question of how and why to invest in one engagement method over another. Given the considerable expense and importance of effective engagement to community resilience, my research sought to analyze the variables that influence successful local-level engagement and outcomes for community resilience initiatives and provide practical, relevant, and implementable engagement guidance for those on the front lines of community resilience. Striving to fill the gap between the ‘why’ of engagement to the ‘how,’ I explored the question of which engagement methodologies are demonstrably most and least effective by testing the hypotheses that: 1) the perceived overall levels of the variables of “shared values” and “trust” in a community would correspond positively with the efficacy of project-specific community engagement efforts; 2) the more investment organizations made in ongoing, transparent communication, and the more varied and overlapping those forms of communication were, the greater the sense of “trust” and “shared values” community stakeholders would have; and 3), engagement strategies based on the shared values of a given community, such as financial security, personal health, or social connectivity, would prove most effective. In order to test these hypotheses, the Envision sustainable infrastructure assessment tool was used as a framework to undertake a comparative analysis of the data presented in reports by cities participating in the United Nations Office for Sustainable Development (UNOSD) Voluntary Local Review (VLR) process. Representativeness was established by including reports submitted to the UN in 2021 from distinct geographic locations, histories, and social structures, and the analysis considered the general maturity of the initiative and/or the experience of project leadership with similar initiatives. My analysis achieved the goal of categorizing engagement methodologies in the resilience sphere, determining that the most effective engagement methodologies for community resilience initiatives do appear to be based on the shared values of a community and providing a list of best practices to consider when designing and implementing resilience initiatives. It became evident that organizations should plan to build exploratory actions and activities into the earliest stages of resilience initiatives to discover and successfully establish authentic and transparent lines of communication between participants and organizers, identify shared values and sources of or threats to trust, and thus increase community receptiveness and eventual program success. Further, it highlighted the value of the Envision framework for use in the evaluation and refinement of all manner of programs and projects and provided follow-on research opportunities in the development of an interactive, algorithmic tool for data-tracking, knowledge-sharing, and capacity-building between communities.

Between 2012 and 2014, socially responsible investments (SRI) grew by 76%, with over $6.5 trillion now being held in managed SRI assets (Schueth et al., 2014). This remarkable growth accentuates the blossoming interest that retail investors in particular are showing in investment products that not only seek economic returns but also adhere to certain principles, such as aversion to particular industries or business practices (Berry, 2013). While investment managers have readily approached this fast-growing segment of the investment market, a persistent issue that plagues the industry is the lack of uniform understanding of what truly defines a socially responsible investment. Furthermore, while investment returns are easily measured, reported, and assessed, the sustainability profiles of ostensibly responsible investments are rarely reviewed, assessed, or challenged by third parties. It is therefore conceivable that investment managers responsible for developing and managing SRI funds, for retail investors in particular, may veer toward some investment products that do not correspond to their sustainability mandates in order to achieve much-desired economic returns at the expense of non-economic factors. This dire possibility would clearly entail some exploitation of the faith that investors place in investment managers’ practices, and thus calls for further examination. This research focused on determining whether the companies that constitute SRI funds are generally sustainable relative to conventional funds, with the goal of answering the fundamental question: Are SRI funds’ portfolio companies markedly more sustainable than those in traditional funds? From this research question, a hypothesis was developed and examined: Companies whose equity or debt is represented in SRI retail funds do not have inherent sustainability characteristics that differ from those of the companies in non-SRI funds. A subordinate hypothesis this research also explored was that there is significant overlap between the companies whose equities and debt are included in SRI funds and those whose equities are included in non-SRI funds. Another perspective of this premise is that SRI funds, in particular, typically include companies that do not rate highly as sustainable enterprises at least as often as they include companies that do rate highly as sustainable enterprises. The research methodology focused on establishing two sample sets of mutual funds: the first group comprising the 10 largest SRI mutual funds and the second group comprising 10 conventional mutual funds of comparable sizes (in terms of assets under management). A scorecard was then developed using commonly accepted measures of corporate sustainability—such as adherence to GRI reporting frameworks, existence of robust sustainability programs and governance structures, and activity in select industries. The scores of the top 10 most significant holdings in each of the 20 funds were assessed using the scorecard, and a comparison of the SRI group vs. the conventional group was conducted. This research study not only determined whether socially responsible funds are truly following their SRI mandates, but also introduced a framework for the assessment of these funds from a sustainability perspective going forward.

In the history of the transmission and adoption of the practice of Tibetan Buddhism in the American context, two teachers from the Kagyu tradition, His Holiness the Sixteenth Karmapa Rangjung Rigpe Dorje (Rang byung Rig pa’i rdo rje, 1924–1981) and Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche (Chos rgyam Drung pa, 1939–1987), taught in America in the 1970s, but took very different approaches. Trungpa Rinpoche, one of the earliest teachers to popularize Tibetan Buddhism in America, took an innovative and unconventional approach in his teaching style. By contrast, H. H. the 16th Karmapa, the head of the Karma Kagyu tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, took a traditional and conservative approach to teaching Buddhism. Through an analysis of the two “translation styles” of these teachers in their approach to transmitting Buddhist teaching in the American context, this thesis argues that despite their different forms, both teachers retain the core meaning of the teachings in terms of beliefs and practices. This thesis further shows how Trungpa Rinpoche’s non-traditional approach paved the way for the receptivity of Americans to the more traditional approach of H. H. the 16th Karmapa.

This thesis looks at the degree to which contemporary states have made plans to invest in regenerative agriculture. It assesses 59 countries’ National Adaptation Plans (NAPs), each part of a voluntary process created in 2011 under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. After selecting 10 NAPs with the most detailed proposals to increase the resilience and sustainability of their nations’ food systems, a case study of each is presented. A set of standardized questions guides this qualitative inquiry into the documents’ adaptation measures in the sector of agriculture. Cases are then compared to one another, resulting in a list of topics that encompasses what these nations aim to accomplish. Finally, the topics are compared to a list of policy options that the World Wildlife Foundation and Climate Focus developed, in cooperation with other organizations, toward the same goal of resilient agriculture. Five lessons learned are then discussed followed by a conclusion that includes recommendations for further research.