Alumni Directory Display

Emma Anderson is a graduate student at the London School of Economics pursuing an M.Sc. in international development and humanitarian emergencies. She graduated with a B.A. in international affairs from The George Washington University in 2020. During her master’s degree, Emma worked as a graduate consultant at the U.K. Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office, researching the humanitarian-development nexus in northeastern Nigeria and proposing policy recommendations to close humanitarian aid gaps in the region. At DevTech Systems, Emma served as proposal coordinator for USAID-funded projects in Jordan, the Philippines, and the DRC. Emma has also worked specifically on the Sahel region of Africa during her time at the World Justice Project, where she researched extensively rule of law and access to justice in 5 different Sahel countries. She has conducted field research in Jordan and worked at an anti-violence center in South Africa, and has published multiple articles, blogs, and academic papers. Emma also formerly ran a podcast called Foreign Affairs Inbox, managing a team of student hosts and conducting interviews with high-profile guests. For fun, Emma likes to run a radio show at her local station in London! She is thrilled to be joining IRC Somalia as a PiAf Fellow for this upcoming year.

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Krystin Anderson is a 2023 graduate from the University of Florida (UF) where she earned her bachelors in Anthropology with a focus on cultures and a minor in Ethnomusicology/Music History. Her academic interests intersect with sociocultural anthropology, international and diasporic organizing, Pan African History, education, and music. She seeks to ascertain how cultural understandings can impact our connection with those from different backgrounds, and how historic knowledge can impact international relations. Krystin devotes her person to building community and making and enjoying art. She served as the 2022 Director of UF’s Dr. Patricia Hilliard-Nunn Black Hair Expo, an event that opens citywide discussion of black woman-ness and black hair politics through speeches, fashion shows, and performances. She was a Housing Resident Assistant, a mentor in the International Mentor Association, and an International Scholars Program fellow. Krystin has a passion for language and culture, which has driven her travel and study abroad experiences to New Orleans, France, Colombia, Mexico. She prides herself on what she has learned working as a teacher of English as a Second Language at UF’s English Language Institute. Krystin’s passion for oral history and storytelling has been embodied in her research with UF’s Samuel Proctor Oral History Program, where she is also the 2023 Coordinator for the annual summer fieldwork research trip through the Mississippi River delta. Krystin is also a talented vocal performer and has been a member of the UF Gospel Choir, a Graduation National Anthem Singer, and one of the SEC sports singers for UF matches of multiple sports including women’s basketball, softball, and volleyball. She also performs around the state and country as a jazz, R&B, and soul singer. Krystin embraces her familial home of Jamaica and has been steadily involved in the Jamaican Student, Caribbean Student and Black Student unions, where she partakes in events, mentors, and performs on many different occasions.

A New York native, Maggie graduated from Temple University with a BA in Photojournalism. She is a founding member of Temple Refugee Outreach, connecting students with refugee families for tutoring in basic urban living and the English language. She has produced published work for audiences in South Africa, Italy, and the United States. As a rising junior, Maggie independently produced a short documentary on AIDS orphans living in Johannesburg, South Africa, with university funding. She continues to volunteer as an HIV awareness ambassador for the NGO Hope Cape Town. Maggie studied the politics of European migration in the context of the global refugee crisis during a semester abroad in Rome, going on to document West African migrant workers picking fruit for mafia-run produce companies in southern Italy. Stateside, Maggie has reported on issues ranging from incarceration, food access, and addiction, to transgender rights, police brutality, and gang violence. She worked as a photojournalist in New Orleans, New York, and Philadelphia, and will continue to explore the U.S. as a Denver Post intern this summer. Maggie is thrilled to explore Rwanda and work with Gardens for Health International, where she will produce photo, video, and written content as a communications Fellow!

Megan, a New Jersey native graduated from the University of Southern California with a major in Psychology and a minor in International Relations. As an undergraduate, she was awarded funding to participate in a summer research trip in Iceland, Norway and Finland where she studied the impact of climate change in the Arctic region. In her junior year, Megan spent a semester studying at the University of Cape Town, where she developed a deep interest in economic development and public policy. Following her semester abroad, she interned at Ubuntu Pathways, a South Africa based non-profit that provides comprehensive health, household, and educational services to people in Port Elizabeth’s townships. After graduating, Megan worked as the director of a research lab that studies non-democratic politics. In this role, she used computational social science methods to explore propaganda in Gabon and Congo, as well as to analyze patterns of corruption in autocracies.  Megan is thrilled to be joining The BOMA Project in Nanyuki, Kenya. She looks forward to gaining a more nuanced understanding of international development and income generation, learning Swahili, and exploring Kenya’s natural beauty!

Janhavi was born and raised in India and graduated from The George Washington University (GWU) with a master’s in international affairs in 2018. During her graduate study, she worked with Search for Common Ground (SFCG) in Yangon, Myanmar for a summer, supporting research and advocacy efforts for peacebuilding programs in the country. Janhavi credits this experience with propelling her into the world of international relief and development and has since conducted research on youth civic engagement in Myanmar in partnership with the US Agency for International Development (USAID). She has also consolidated refugee resettlement casework from Uganda for submission to the US and Canada with the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) and analysed US and UN policy frameworks for humanitarian access and assistance in Yemen, Syria and South Sudan at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Additionally, through an internship at the International Peace Institute (IPI), she supported research efforts focused on Protection of Civilians (POC) mandates in UN peacekeeping missions and the effects of sanctions regimes on humanitarian action. Janhavi drew from these experiences in informing her approach to her most recent role as well, as she wrote weekly editorials on foreign policy, international security and development, and humanitarian affairs for a digital publication (Statecraft) in India. As crises evolve to become more multifaceted and complex, she believes it is more necessary than ever to continue strengthening her understanding of international development and humanitarian response efforts in hopes of supporting impactful, innovative, and sustainable solutions.

Nicole, a native of New Jersey graduated from Seton Hall University cum laude with a degree in Finance and studied at the pre-legal institute at Seton Hall Law School. Nicole started her career in health industry consulting at PricewaterhouseCoopers, based in New York City, where she strengthened her professional skills, researched developments in patient access, and worked with global pharmaceutical organizations on business strategy development. At Seton Hall, she led service projects in New Jersey, Colorado, and El Salvador, primarily serving the homeless population, prisoners, and young adults. Following graduation, Nicole served as a Board of Regents member, mentor for college students, and financial literacy instructor. Nicole visited South Africa for the first time in 2017 and she is grateful to return to the region to work for the Clinton Health Access Initiative on the Sustainable Health Financing team in Mbabane!

Alumni Update:

Samantha is currently a Research Associate with FHI 360, where she does global public health research, primarily qualitative and quantitative research on family planning in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Fellow Bio:

Samantha Archie is a young professional in international development, specifically interested in monitoring, evaluation, and research with a gender focus. Samantha developed her passion for international development during her study abroad experiences in Guatemala, Tanzania, and Uganda while pursuing a degree in International Relations and Global Health at the University of Southern California. In 2016, she was awarded the prestigious Boren Scholarship to study Swahili and intern at an agricultural microfinance organization in Arusha, Tanzania. In her senior year, she returned to East Africa to conduct her own independent mixed methods research project for her honors thesis, which aimed at understanding what contributes to gender differences in entrepreneurship program outcomes in Northern Uganda. Since graduating from USC, she has worked at Women for Women International, where she performed data analysis to test the effectiveness of WfWI’s programs in conflict regions and Innovations for Poverty Action in Monrovia, Liberia, where she oversaw the implementation of a market access intervention connecting farmers with agricultural goods dealers. Samantha is very excited to embark on her next endeavor as a Women and Girl’s Protection and Empowerment Research Fellow at International Rescue Committee-Sierra Leone.

Matt, a native of Colorado and Minnesota, (Princeton ’16) graduated from Princeton University with a degree from the Woodrow Wilson School in Public and Foreign Affairs. During the summers, Matt did a French immersion program in Chicoutimi, Quebec. He also interned for the US State Department in Paris, France and the US Global Leadership Coalition in Washington D.C. Following graduation, he worked at Deloitte Consulting. While there, Matt worked on several proposals aimed at bringing increased energy generation to countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, among several other federal projects. In his free time, Matt enjoys hiking, snowboarding, and photography. Matt is excited to travel to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania as the International Rescue Committee’s Supply Chain Operations Fellow.

Diane Arthur, Ghanaian-American raised in Michigan, graduated from Northwestern University with a major in Human Development and Psychological Services and received a Certificate in Civic Engagement. At Northwestern, she served as Community Engagement Chair of the African Students Association, where she focused on bridging the gap between African students and the larger Chicago African community. She demonstrated a commitment to coaching and mentoring other students towards international exchange and exposure by co-leading the Buffett Institute for Global Studies Fellowship Advisory Board. Her time off-campus included an international development internship in Udaipur, India, where she developed a life skills education curriculum. Diane then spent one academic year studying at the University of Ghana, exploring social work and political science from the Ghanaian perspective. During her final year of university, she interned for Upwardly Global, where she mentored underemployed and unemployed immigrants and refugees towards professional success in the US. Subsequently, she interned with EngageBetween, a boutique multicultural diversity and inclusion consultancy, where she helped to build and facilitate cultural competency workshops. After working as a Change Management Consultant at IT consulting firm Capgemini, she went on to facilitate international internships for study abroad provider, Institute for the International Education of Students (IES) Abroad. These experiences solidified her commitment to working with individuals and communities to pull down employment barriers through higher education, and to see this realized on the African continent. A few of her favorite things include jewelry, blueberry cake donuts, and biking!

Elebetel Assefa is a recent graduate of Tufts University where she studied African History and Philosophy. Raised in Debresina, Ethiopia, Elebetel committed her undergraduate career to investigative research confronting global injustice and inequality, specifically around Africa. As a Gill Fellow, she conducted research on piracy in Somalia, exploring environmental justice, globalization, and exploitation in the Horn. She also examined the role of African universities in sustainable development, focusing on the experiences of female students. As a coordinator for the Tufts with Rwanda Fellowship, Elebetel developed and taught a class about the 1994 Rwandan Genocide against the Tutsi that emphasized issues of indigeneity and citizenship in Africa. She will continue this work as an Experimental College Peer-Teacher by creating and teaching a course on the global 1960s, decolonization, and imperialism. Elebetel nurtures learning spaces that encourage curiosity, self-knowledge, and compassion. She wants to use research and teaching to challenge eurocentric narratives by producing knowledge that centers on the histories of marginalized voices. While at Tufts, Elebetel also worked at a community development agency to actualize programs fighting poverty by examining public policy and working closely with stakeholders to influence economic legislation. She is a founding member of the Ethiopian-Eritrean Student Association and uses her free time to volunteer at local community centers teaching Amharic and mentoring students. Elebetel also volunteers at her former high school, where she tutors and mentors’ English language learners. She enjoys attending book clubs, learning languages, and being the youngest child in her family.