Alumni Directory Display

Clara graduated from Bates College in 2016 with a B.A. in Environmental Studies and a minor in U.S. History. While attending Bates, Clara had the opportunity to study abroad for a semester in Rwanda and Uganda through the School for International Training’s program Post-Genocide Restoration and Peacebuilding. Upon returning to the States, Clara continued to cultivate her interest in East and Sub-Saharan Africa. During the summer of 2015, she received funding through Bates to work in South Africa, as well as to return to Rwanda to conduct independent research. While in South Africa, Clara gained hands on wildlife rehabilitation experience at the Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds. She then traveled to Rwanda to research how the coffee industry has been utilized as a reconciliation tool. During her final year of college, she completed a senior thesis analyzing Rwanda’s gorilla tourism industry through a positive peace paradigm. With a strong interest in East Africa and having previously worked on farms, Clara is excited to return to Uganda to work as a Farm fellow at The Kasiisi Project. She looks forward to expanding her understanding of conservation work, learning Rutooro, and becoming a part of the Kasiisi community.

Alumni Update:

After completing her fellowship, Lillian moved to Dublin, Ireland, where she is currently completing her Master’s in Public Health. Next year, she’ll be returning stateside to start medical school in New York City.

Fellow Bio:

Lillian is an English and Biology double major from Newtown, Pennsylvania. At Columbia, Lillian was Co-President of GlobeMed, volunteered at Harlem Hospital, and assisted with research on children’s psychological resilience and inner city pediatric asthma. Last summer, Lillian worked in Uganda with her GlobeMed chapter’s partner, Gulu Women’s Economic Development and Globalization (GWED-G for short), where she helped design an HIV/AIDS prevention project and became interested in the power of stories for health and development. Next year, Lillian hopes to do lots of hiking, explore Lesotho’s hip-hop and culinary scenes, and pick up some Sesotho.

Alumni Update:

Katy studied Political Science, Global Security, and African Studies and is originally from Eden Prairie, Minnesota. During her time as an undergraduate, Katy spent a semester at the University of Ghana where she interned for a women’s rights organization. At UW, she was the Chair of Amnesty International and the Regional Organizer for the Conflict-Free Campus Initiative. She conducted research for her senior thesis at the U.S. Africa Command. Katy is looking forward to exploring Nairobi, getting to know Kenyan hip hop, and attempting to learn Swahili!

Rachel is from Monterey, California. She received her degree in Development from the University of California, Berkeley in just three years while performing as a ballet dancer in San Francisco. Rachel joins PiAf from the World Bank where she worked to increase organizational learning and monitor a portfolio of subsidy projects promoting access to basic infrastructure and social services. Previously, as an intern with Women Thrive Worldwide, she supported a variety of efforts to influence the post-2015 development goals and translated into French a paper on Equitable Learning for All, which was shared with the UN High Level Panel. Through 2012, Rachel worked at the European Centre for Mineral Water Research in Naples, Italy, assisting in planning and implementing water extraction projects for Coca Cola, and facilitating stakeholder cooperation in the resource permitting process. While living in Italy over a period of two years, Rachel taught legal and business English in the Italian Ministry for Communications. Rachel has also worked as a volunteer translator for Plan International UK and UNESCO. This year with CHAI in Pretoria, Rachel is eager to pick up on South African street style, travel as much as she can within the region, and grow her understanding of policy making for development.

Cynthia graduated from the University of Florida with a degree in Political Science and French. She was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti and immigrated to the United States at the age of seven. She was raised in Bradenton, Florida. During her undergraduate career, she worked for numerous international non-profit organizations. As the Assistant Executive Director of Rural Empowerment Development Innovations (REDI), she assisted in organizing workshops and forums to help Kenyan female business owners improve their business methods. She also interned for the Development Outlook Consultancy (DOC), where she researched devolution in Kenya as well as education policies in Sub-Saharan Africa. Additionally, she served as the Vice-President of Love, Period Inc, which provides girls in Kampala, Uganda with sanitary products so they can attend school. Cynthia then worked as a full-time intern at the Florida House of Representatives, where she analyzed various education policy bills. Her passion for education and research inspired her to start Boulevard to Victory Inc, which is a non-profit organization geared towards empowering high school seniors by providing them with scholarships for college. Upon graduation, Cynthia received a Fulbright grant to teach English in Taiwan for a year. She is fluent in French and Haitian Creole and can speak Swahili and Mandarin. Cynthia is interested in the intersection of education and poverty. She hopes to increase her knowledge of international development, while enhancing her leadership and language skills.

Dhruvi is a graduate of NYU Abu Dhabi, where she studied Civil Engineering with a concentration in Urbanization and developed an interest to work at the intersection of policy and sustainable development. Her field experience working in Dharavi, Mumbai with local potters on mitigating air-pollution through the design of a retrofitted chimney highlighted the importance of developing cost-beneficial and need-based solutions at a local level. She has formed a strong understanding of global efforts geared towards environmental conservation through conducting research with NYU Langone and Yale University on mapping waste disposal pathways across the United States, with a specific focus on New York. Her senior capstone project highlights the rising need to better manage global waste, working to design an effective and sustainable system applying waste-to-energy technologies in Abu Dhabi. She is interested in transportation networks and spent last summer working at the New York City’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). Here, she worked on a wide range of projects from advancing congestion pricing to building out proposals for MTA’s organizational reform. By combining her experience with community-led initiatives to city-level projects, she is determined to build a career at the intersection of sustainable development, infrastructure, technology, and the environment. As an Indian-Kenyan, born and raised in Nairobi she is looking forward to developing her monitoring and evaluation skills in the context of her home country Kenya.

Born in Tucson, Arizona and raised in Seoul, South Korea, Amy graduated from New York University with a degree in Global Public Health and Anthropology. Amy grew up frequently moving between the two countries and attending numerous public and private schools. Experiencing a clash of cultures and different education systems, Amy became interested in the intersection of culture, education, and health. During her time in New York, she interned at HealthRight International, a global health and human rights NGO, where she took part in developing a ‘Reproductive Health and Human Rights’ online course. She also volunteered to teach teenagers to make healthy choices in public high schools in low-income communities. She studied abroad in Ghana and wrote a case study report about Ghana’s mental health system during her internship at KEBA Africa, highlighting the impact of policy and culture on health and education of abandoned children living in Accra Psychiatric Hospital. She also volunteered at a community-based organization where she developed and implemented a reproductive and sexual health curriculum at schools in urban slum areas. She hopes to continue serving underserved and marginalized populations, and one day see Africa lead the highest standard of healthcare and education.

Fellow Bio:

Christina ’10 is an Ecology and Evolutionary Biology major from the Lower East Side of Manhattan. While at Princeton, she was an RCA for Butler College, an Eco-Rep, a volunteer GMT with the Turn W Squad, and earned a certificate in Neuroscience. During her free time, she enjoys jamming to music in her jammies and playing the tabla in drum circle. Through Princeton, Christina worked at the Krokobite Community Clinic in Ghana, volunteered at Madre Teresa Orphanage and CAASALT in Salvador, Brazil, and studied abroad in Beijing, China. While in Lesotho next year she can’t wait to fall in love with new foods, music, and maybe picking up a bit of the local language.