Fall 2014 seminar: M.R.P. candidate, city and regional planning
McGrath holds a B.A. in international studies from Loyola University Chicago. A background in international topics and engineering has developed into academic interests around issues of rapidly urbanizing cities in the Global South. In particular, McGrath focuses on Southeast Asia, Vietnamese language, and rural-urban linkages within the food systems of growing cities. Prior to coming to Cornell to pursue a master of regional planning, McGrath gained exposure to nonprofit organizations as a student in Chicago. During that time, McGrath studied at the Loyola Center in Ho Chi Minh City, studying general issues around development in Vietnam, as well as topical courses such as Vietnamese literature and contemporary gender in Vietnamese society. During his stay in Ho Chi Minh City he worked with LIN Center for Community Development to help design new fundraising strategies based on previous nonprofit experience in the U.S. and Haiti. McGrath's current research focuses on peri-urban agriculture in Hanoi around rapidly expanding urban development. He hopes to draw on visual and verbal storytelling as a way to access collective memory and historical context around the individual and community experience of development in Southeast Asia.