Andrea Burniske has more than 20 years of experience in international development, 15 of which were spent developing and leading programs and projects in countries such as Tajikistan, Peru, Colombia and Russia for various international development agencies. Her work has centered on environmentally sustainable economics and business development, women’s empowerment, and emergency responses among other areas. She is currently working at Purdue University where she is the Chief of Party for a USAID-funded program named Long-Term Assistance and Solutions for Research (LASER) as part of the Partners for University-Led Solutions Engine (PULSE), which seeks to promote close collaboration around development challenges between academic researchers and NGOs and other development practitioners. She talks to us about the role of media in social development, social structures and power relationships, human flaws, working with government and donors, building trust by being in the field and developing sincere relationships, corruption, the bridge between academia and development and much more. She joins us from Lafayette, USA. Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/rethinkingdevelopment)