Alumni Directory

Alumni Update:

Claire is a third-year law student at the Washington and Lee University School of Law, where she has been able to further explore the intersections of health, law, and human rights that she saw during her fellowship year in Tanzania.

Fellow Bio:

Claire is from Richmond, VA and graduated from the University of Virginia (UVA) in 2015 with a degree in Foreign Affairs and French. While at UVA, she worked to facilitate dialogue around social, economic, and political issues as a Sustained Dialogue leader and group moderator and to promote interdisciplinary engagement in global public health issues as a student advisor at the UVA Center for Global Health. After graduating, Claire partnered with local agricultural cooperatives in rural, southwestern Rwanda to conduct research on gender equity as a UVA Center for Global Health Scholar. Following her return from Rwanda, she gained program management experience through her position on the Central and West Africa team at the National Democratic Institute, where she enjoyed supporting democracy development programs in Guinea, Niger, the DRC, Nigeria, and Ghana and having the opportunity to collaborate in French and English with her West African colleagues to solve programmatic challenges. Claire is excited to pursue her interest in the intersections of health equity, governance, and development through her position with CCBRT. She loves running, hiking, skiing, and cooking, and can’t wait to further explore East Africa and to work on her Swahili!

Fellow Bio:

Whitney is a Woodrow Wilson School major from New York City. She also earned certificates in both Portuguese and Latin American studies. While at Princeton, Whitney sang with the Katzenjammers and campaigned against sexual assault as a member of both Speak Out and SHARE. During her summer breaks, Whitney worked with the International Media Agency, Media Vest Worldwide, and studied in Brazil twice. She also spent the spring semester of her junior year in Cape Town, South Africa. Whitney is so excited to spend a year in Lesotho, where she looks forward to gaining a wealth of practical public health experience.

Alumni Update:

Elizabeth has been a Research Associate with the UNDP Independent Evaluation Office since September 2018. Recently she had the pleasure of returning to her PiAf host country (Uganda) to assist with the country program evaluation of UNDP Uganda.

Fellow Bio:

Prior to her Princeton in Africa fellowship, Elizabeth worked as a Program Officer for HIAS, an international refugee protection NGO, where she assisted with refugee assistance programs in East Africa, Chad and Latin America and deepened her interest in issues of global migration, displacement, and integration. Previously, she worked in communications for POV, an independent documentary series on PBS which puts a human face on contemporary social issues. Elizabeth is a graduate of Wesleyan University, where she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in history and French Studies, focusing on issues of gender, race and identity during the colonial and post-colonial era. As an undergraduate she spent two semesters in Paris. A native of New York, she loves to travel, read and try new foods. For the next year in Kampala, she is looking forward to enjoying the legendary Ugandan hospitality, exploring the continent, and contributing to IRC’s work helping refugees go from “harm to home.”

Olivia graduated from Columbia University with a BA in Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies (MESAAS) and Environmental Science. She wrote an honors thesis on stand-up comedy in East Africa entitled, “Laughing with Redykyulass: Critical Comedy in Moi’s Kenya.” She speaks French and Spanish fluently, and is currently focused on improving her Swahili and Turkish. Before college, Olivia spent a year in Paraguay living with a local family and volunteering full-time at a daycare for low-income children. Olivia has also had the opportunity to spend two summers in Africa, during one of them she studied Swahili in Kenya after being awarded a FLAS language scholarship. At Columbia, Olivia has been a member of GlobeMed in which she has organized fundraisers for global health issues and learned about grassroots global health organizations. Olivia also worked as a research assistant at the Earth Institute throughout her undergraduate career. In her first role, she assisted with the development of a systems thinking framework to enable African policymakers to choose relevant anti-malaria interventions. Her most recent project involved examining maize yield variability in African smallholder farms. Olivia is excited for work with the WFP as well as exploring Kampala and picking up some Luganda!

Morgan is from Boston, Massachusetts and graduated with degrees in Social Policy, African Studies, and Global Health. Both in and outside of school, Morgan pursued opportunities that expanded these studies beyond a purely academic, classroom setting. She had the opportunity to study abroad in South Africa and learned about the country’s system of public health and development. Throughout her time as an undergraduate, Morgan also taught health and sexual education workshops to freshmen in Chicago public schools, and worked with Jumpstart to provide literacy and language skills to preschoolers from low-income families. Beyond the university, Morgan interned in both government and non-profit public health-related settings, working at the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office on Women’s Health and at Oral Health America. In her free time, Morgan practices yoga—and actually hopes to become certified as a teacher—and loves to be outside as much as possible, whether it is biking or running, hiking or sailing. She also loves exploring new places, listening to new music, trying new foods and meeting new people. Morgan is thrilled to work in Tanzania at IEFT, as it is an opportunity for such novelty and an opportunity to grow and apply her academic pursuits.

Originally from Brooklyn, New York, Madeline Wong graduated from Tufts University with majors in biology and archaeology. Her college research with The Kibale Chimpanzee Project and The Kasiisi Project spanned biology, anthropology, conservation, and education in rural Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Madeline was the undergraduate One Health student contact in collaboration with Tufts Dental, Medical, and Veterinary schools and taught the importance of ancient cultures at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Uplifting her communities, Madeline supported microfinancing for immigrant small businesses in New York and Massachusetts. As a Princeton in Africa fellow with the communications and knowledge management team at the International Livestock Research Institute based in Nairobi, Kenya, Madeline has been reporting on sustainable livelihoods and gender projects that by design highlight South-South cooperation.

Alumni Update:

Mariah is finishing her second year of her MPH at UC Berkeley, where she is studying Epidemiology and Biostatistics. She is interested in environmental epidemiology and how environmental issues disproportionately impact vulnerable populations, including those on the African continent who are and will be most impacted by climate change.

Fellow Bio:

Based in Chicagoland most of her life, Mariah graduated in 2014 with majors in Environmental Science and International Studies and a minor in Global Health Studies. At Northwestern, she was involved in GlobeMed, a student-run nonprofit dedicated to promoting health equity; was a board member of an organization that hosts an annual human rights conference for students; was a community health volunteer with a student group that mapped health assets in north Chicago; and was a tutor and mentor at a before-school program at an elementary school. She received a departmental award for her senior thesis on the microbial ecology of certain indoor environments and the interactions between microbes and humans in those spaces and is publishing her research through the Biosciences Division at Argonne National Laboratory. She spent her junior spring near Cape Town, studying public health and development. She currently works at Chapin Hall in Chicago, a policy research organization dedicated to using data to benefit children, families, and their communities. Mariah is thrilled to be returning to South Africa and is looking forward to exploring the southern Africa region, living somewhere with mountains again, and working in the South African health sector.

Jessica is a Charleston, South Carolina native and graduate of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. She started her career in humanitarian work as an intern at the International Rescue Committee in Atlanta, GA assisting resettlement division caseworkers and aiding newly arrived refugee families. Later, Jes spent the summer in DC with Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service as a refugee/immigrant advocacy intern in the midst of the family separation crisis. There, she drafted written materials for the advocacy team, created digital media content, and engaged in Princeton Office of Religious Life research examining the relationship between the organization’s faith-based foundation and refugee resettlement. As a creative mind, freelance photographer, and global citizen, Jes seeks to combine creative and analytical problem solving in the humanitarian sector. She aims to produce digital media material for humanitarian organizations as a way of promoting awareness for global issues and inspiring engagement from worldwide audiences. Motivated by a deeply rooted love for language, culture, and learning, you’ll find Jes constantly on the move. This year, she’s excited to join Gardens for Health International – camera in hand – as a communications and development fellow in Rwanda.

Alumni Update:

Josh is currently working at Vera Solutions in Mumbai, India, as a consultant designing cloud-based monitoring and evaluation and other data management systems for a range of social impact organizations (from IPA and GAVI, to your small social enterprises). Sarah Evans (PiAf 2013-14) is also working at Vera!

Fellow Bio:

Josh is an International Studies major from Traverse City, MI. In undergraduate at Hope College (Holland, MI), he spent time abroad studying global health and development in Geneva, Switzerland and human rights in Kigali, Rwanda. Since graduation, Josh has spent time in India studying local governance systems, interned as a part of the Monitoring and Evaluation team at Search for Common Ground in Washington DC, and worked for Lutheran World Relief on the Constituent Engagement unit. In Malawi next year, Josh is looking forward to learning Chichewa and hopes to scuba dive in Lake Malawi.

Songyue Xu graduated from New York University Abu Dhabi with a degree in Social Research & Public Policy. Given her strong interest in economic development, Songyue has gained professional experiences in banking, consulting, consumer products, NGOs, and entrepreneurship. Songyue has interned as a strategy analyst in Dubai with Philip Morris International. Later as an investment banking analyst at Alpha Capital, a boutique financial advisory firm based in New York, she has advanced her skills in financial modeling through facilitating multiple M&A transactions between Chinese investors and American technology firms. As a treasury and trade summer analyst at Citibank in Hong Kong, she has also deepened her understanding in credit risk management. In 2017, Songyue studied in Ghana for a semester, during which she worked part-time at a local consulting firm. She has built a strong bonding with the continent ever since then. Songyue is passionate about community building. She has helped with grant writing for Media Response, a Ghanaian NGO, and has designed national school engagement projects with Special Olympics Summer World Games 2019 to expose secondary school students in the UAE to the spirit of Special Olympics. In daily life, Songyue enjoys dancing, rowing, and rock climbing.