Chris Wegemer’s primary focus is supply chain justice. Throughout the MAGIS program, he has done work for LaborVoices, United Students Against Sweatshops, the Worker Rights Consortium, and spent time in the Dominican Republic (drawn by the paradigm-breaking Alta Gracia factory, where workers are paid a living wage). Chris’s thesis focuses on the Designated Suppliers Program, a proposed system which would ensure that university licensed clothing is made in factories that are certified to treat their workers fairly.

Before coming to MAGIS, Chris studied physics at Providence College, electrical engineering at Columbia University, worked with various NGOs to provide sustainable energy in rural parts of developing countries, and taught math and physics at Idyllwild Arts Academy. Chris is incredibly grateful for the opportunity to pursue scholarly activism with such interesting peers under such amazingly dedicated faculty. He looks forward to a lifetime of learning and activism using the critical and global perspective gained in the MAGIS program.

During the summer 2012, Chris worked with LaborVoices, a start-up company that sets up cell phone networks to get direct feedback from workers about labor violations. He worked remotely, researching possible pilot projects. Chris also traveled in the Dominican Republic and Haiti for 6 weeks, primarily with labor activists. Two weeks of the trip were organized by the Fair World Project. Student-activists from all around the United States lived with workers of the Alta Gracia factory and toured the country, meeting with several unions and attending workshops on mobilizing support at U.S. universities. In the fall, Chris spent three months at the Worker Rights Consortium in Washington D.C. as a research intern. Among other things, he participated in research projects, assisted with factory investigations, and did background research on the Designated Suppliers Program for his thesis.

Chris Wegemer completed his M.A. with his thesis in Fall 2013, "Universities as Global Actors in the Apparel Supply Chain:The Designated Suppliers Program".