Alumni Directory

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.

Alumni Update:

John is currently living in Lancaster, PA. He sells raw milk at a farmer’s market and works on a small organic produce farm.

Fellow Bio:

John studied political science at Princeton with a concentration in international relations. He is from Brooklyn, NY, where he returned after graduation to work for Raymond James as an assistant financial advisor. At Princeton, John played rugby, studied abroad in Cape Town, and held a summer internship at the International Action Network on Small Arms in London. John also taught English in Taipei, Taiwan, and Tianjin, China. John wrote his thesis on counterinsurgency strategy and looks forward to surveying victims of armed conflict in Northern Uganda.

Alumni Update:

After working in Baltimore around community investment for the past five years, he has returned to graduate school at McGill University to pursue a master’s in urban planning where he focuses on neighborhood revitalization and schools. He currently splits his time between Montreal, Baltimore and Philadelphia

Fellow Bio:

Michael Arnst was an International Studies (African Studies concentration) and German literature double-major and is originally from Chaska, Minnesota. While an undergraduate, he interned at the East African Economic Development Center in Minneapolis and studied abroad at the University of Botswana. Since graduating, he has worked in the East and Southern Africa program at the National Endowment for Democracy in Washington, D.C., and acted as the membership manager for Kabissa, an online network of African civil society organizations. As a dedicated film and music festival junkie, he is excited to explore all the cultural offerings to be found in Cape Town.

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.

Zuwaina, a native of Wadi Halfa, Sudan, graduated from Columbia University with a triple degree in Economics, Political Science, and African Studies. During her time at Columbia, her passion for social justice and inclusion led her to several leadership positions in the African Students’ Association, the Columbia Admissions office, and more student organizations, earning her the Kings’ College Leadership Award for Inclusion & Diversity. Her love for Law and Policy-making, stemming from her own experiences of injustice in Sudan, led her to research experiences at Columbia Law School and the World Policy Institute. She also spent time at Weitz & Luxenberg, a law firm based in New York City specializing in mass tort cases. Recognizing that Education was her greatest privilege, she also spent time working with Abwab, a nonprofit organization based in Sudan which provides undergraduate students with mentorship opportunities in Khartoum, as well as Audre, a new program in which Columbia students and faculty lead workshops for Harlem fifth graders once a week. Zuwaina is driven by her love for Africa and its people, and will be joining Equal Education in Johannesburg, South Africa, in August of 2019, where she will be working in education reform, law and policy.

Alumni Update:

Audrey is currently the Systems Lead of One Acre Fund’s Zambia program, where she leads the Logistics, Procurement, and Business Operations (internal finance/data) teams, as well as technology integrations.

Fellow Bio:

Audrey majored in International Politics with a Certificate in International Development at Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. While in school, she interned at the Office of the Special Envoy for Sudan and South Sudan at the U.S. Department of State, TechnoServe, the Grameen Foundation, the Center for Global Development, and the International Fund for Agricultural Development. Audrey brought her interest in development and international affairs back to campus through her extracurricular activities. She worked with the Social Innovation Public Service Fund to allocate $50,000 annually to fund innovative service and research projects. She also worked with the Hilltop Microfinance Initiative’s Client Recruitment and Development teams to find new clients and donors to grow the small microfinance institution. In past years, she managed fundraising efforts to raise $24,000 for ‘charity: water’ and helped plan four major conferences with the Georgetown International Relations Club. While working with WFP in Uganda, Audrey hopes to explore East Africa and learn more about food security and humanitarian response operations.

Anu is from San Luis Obispo, California and graduated from Colorado College in 2013 with a degree in Sociology and a minor in Nonviolence. Anu’s primary interests lie in refugee affairs and post-conflict reconciliation. While at Colorado College, she conducted a senior thesis on migrant receptivity in small-town America through a case study of a rural Colorado town experiencing a rapid influx of East African refugees. Anu spent a semester studying post-genocide restoration and peacebuilding in Rwanda and Uganda. While in Rwanda, she carried out an independent study on the relationship between community-based conservation and empowerment in the villages surrounding Volcanoes National Park. She has interned at the National Geographic Society and the African Community Center, a refugee resettlement nonprofit in Denver. Anu currently works at OMNI Institute, a social research nonprofit evaluating grant-funded programs surrounding juvenile justice and behavioral health. While in Ethiopia, Anu is excited to learn some Amharic, participate in Ethiopian traditions, and explore the Bale Mountains, the Simien Mountains, and the numerous surrounding national parks.

Alumni Update:

After his fellowship, Byron stayed on with mothers2mothers for another two years. He moved back from Cape Town to New York City, where he got married and started at Rabin Martin, a global health strategy consulting firm. After about a year and a half at the firm, he transitioned onto the Corporate Contributions team at Johnson & Johnson. Funnily enough, in this new role, he manages a mothers2mothers grant and work with Rabin Martin on communications strategies for portfolios. Full circle!

Fellow Bio:

Byron is a comparative literature major from Morris Plains, NJ. After graduation, he had a short stint at a notable fashion magazine, yet spent more than 1.5 years at Bloomberg Finance, LP where he managed a small team in the client services department. Through Princeton, Byron was able to study abroad in Spain and Argentina in addition to volunteer for Child Family Health International in Oaxaca, Mexico. While in Cape Town for his fellowship, Byron looks forward to working at a NGO and tackling many issues that were addressed in his senior thesis in the real world!