Alumni Directory Display

Carolyn grew up in New York and double majored in Neuroscience & Behavior and Italian Studies at Columbia University. While in school, Carolyn developed a keen interest for healthcare advocacy through her research and volunteering. At Columbia’s Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer’s Disease and the Aging Brain, she studied how health disparities and sociocultural factors affect the aging of diverse individuals living in New York City’s Washington Heights. Over the years, Carolyn has committed herself to maintaining a community-oriented focus by participating in various outreach opportunities; she has worked as a support counselor, first aid instructor, and Emergency Medical Technician, developing her skills in active listening and crisis management. She served as president of Columbia University’s chapter of Global Brigades, fundraising for and organizing a brigade to Honduras that provided medical resources, health education, and sanitation facilities to underserved communities. Carolyn currently works with the Cancer Outcomes Research and Education Program at Massachusetts General Hospital, where she implements supportive care interventions focused on improving quality of life, coping strategies, and patient empowerment via informed decision-making. While working with Young 1ove next year, Carolyn hopes to help similarly empower young people in Botswana regarding their health and education. She feels grateful for the opportunity to learn more about responsible engagement and sustainable development in a global health context, and is excited to engage with Botswanan culture, meet new people, and learn Setswana.

Kamila is originally from Uzbekistan and at the age of 6, her family immigrated to Queens, New York City. Kamila graduated from Princeton University in May 2021 with a degree in medical anthropology and a minor in global health and health policy. While at Princeton, she focused on studying infectious diseases in low-resource settings. This interest first developed during her study abroad program in India, after her first year. Her experience in Sonipat, India was formative and pushed her to explore the understanding of care in low-resource environments. Kamila has interned at Zithulele Hospital on the Eastern Cape of South Africa in a tuberculosis research study. There, she conducted quantitative research on the diagnoses and outcomes of tuberculosis patients and witnessed the burdens of infectious disease on the well-being of the Xhosa population. Additionally, she worked with researchers at the University of Malaya to conduct qualitative research trying to understand consistent condom usage in intimate partners of HIV-positive men who inject drugs, one of the country’s most vulnerable groups. Kamila wrote her senior thesis on the syndemic relationship between Covid-19 and tuberculosis on the Eastern Cape of South Africa. On campus, Kamila was a leader trainer and Wilderness First Aid instructor and coordinator for one of the largest outdoor action orientation programs in the country and works closely alongside the directors to update curriculum and developmental leadership goals. She is excited to continue working in public health and low-resource care as a Princeton in Africa Fellow Baylor International Pediatric AIDS Initiative.

Aishwarya graduated from Seton Hall University with a bachelor’s degree in Economics. In 2022, she graduated from Yale University with a master’s in International & Development Economics. She wrote her master’s capstone on the impact of economic sanctions on political rights and civil liberties of recipient countries. At Seton Hall University, she served as an Editor in Chief of the University’s business newspaper. At Yale University, Aishwarya worked at the Lowenstein Project, a human rights clinic in the Schell Center for Human Rights at Yale Law School. She served on a project regarding water access in Palestine. Most recently, Aishwarya interned at Education Cannot Wait (ECW), a fund hosted by UNICEF that seeks to provide education in emergency and protracted-conflict zones. At ECW, Aishwarya worked in the Risk and Child Safeguarding unit, analyzing ECW’s portfolio risk, and evaluating the risks surrounding the fund’s grants. Furthermore, she assisted with drafting the fund’s policies for child safeguarding and prevention of sexual exploitation and abuse. Aishwarya has worked at the United Nations Office of the High Representative for Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries, and Small Island Developing States, and helped co-author a paper on the impact of COVID-19 on landlocked developing countries. She has also worked at Ernst & Young, a public accounting firm, as a consultant in Transfer Pricing and International Strategy. She enjoys photography, dancing, playing the guitar, hiking, baking, writing prose, tango, and learning about people’s lives. She plans to dedicate her career to international development and humanitarian assistance.

Ellie graduated from the College of William and Mary, where she studied Public Policy and Africana Studies. At William and Mary, Ellie volunteered with adults with developmental disabilities at the Arc of Greater Williamsburg, and mentored recently-arrived migrant students adjusting to the local middle school.  Her experience in East Africa began when she spent a summer traveling in Uganda before college. She then returned to serve as an Education and Communications Intern for the Maendeleo Foundation, a social enterprise providing digital literacy and entrepreneurial skills training to clients in Mukono, Uganda. In this role, she produced external communications and contributed to grants-based funding applications for the Foundation.  Ellie’s undergraduate research was executed in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, where she spent four months conducting ethnographic fieldwork with Maasai labor migrants. Her honors thesis explores the social networks that arise to mitigate the risks of both voluntary migration and forced displacement for pastoralist populations in Tanzania. In preparing for her research and during her time in Dar, Ellie honed her Kiswahili skills and developed her interest in the effects of national-level public health and economic policy making on marginalized communities in Tanzania.

Alumni Update:

Jillian is currently a project coordinator at The Ohio State University College of Nursing, where she manages an NIH-funded project seeking to reduce cardiovascular disease risk in young black adults through a culturally and environmentally tailored mobile health program. She recently completed a Certificate in Public Management and began her MPH where she will focus on global health and health policy.

Fellow Bio:

Jillian, a native of Baltimore, Maryland, graduated from the University of Virginia with a dual degree in Global Development Studies and English Literature. While at UVa, Jillian was a member of the University Guide Service, a Rotunda Student Ambassador, and the Head Manager for the Varsity Women’s Volleyball Team. Since 2016 she has led an action-based research project investigating the use of public health models in alleviating youth violence in a township outside of Cape Town, South Africa. She and her research partner are currently writing a paper suggesting a complimentary use of contagious and chronic disease models in conceiving of youth violence in order to design effective and sustainable community-based programs to combat consequences and implications of youth violence. For this work, Jillian and her team were recipients of a Davis Projects for Peace Award, multiple UVa research grants and awards, and were participants in the Clinton Global Initiative University conference in 2017. Through her internships, Jillian has developed a passion for using data storytelling to empower traditionally marginalized populations, while also creating layered narratives of impactful work for both donor and internal facing communications. Jillian is excited to explore the global development field and all that Tanzania has to offer in her role on the External Affairs team at CCBRT.

Originally from London, Ryan graduated with a Masters in Public Health and Bachelors in Economics from the Case Western Reserve University, concentrating in Humanitarian Aid and Global Health.  At Case Western Reserve, Ryan worked as an Emergency Medical Technician for the Case Western Reserve Emergency Medical Service, an organization for which he also served on the executive board as the treasurer and assistant chief.  Ryan also took part in a variety of research projects in chemistry, organizational behavior, and epidemiology and interned with the University Hospitals Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital in the Child Health and Policy Division, where his interest in public health originated.  Ryan then went on to work as an intern with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Kuala Lumpur where he researched HIV spread in refugee populations and the impact of testing and treatment as preventative measures.  Ryan also worked at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine as a Teaching Assistant for the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics.  Ryan will be the Regional Monitoring and Evaluation Fellow with Population Services International in Johannesburg and hopes to learn more about HIV epidemiology in the region.

Having traveled in over 30 countries, Michael Rivera is an interdisciplinary professional who seeks to understand how effective intercultural communication and empathy contribute to sustainable change. Michael earned dual degrees in music and biology with a certificate in Spanish medical interpreting from Florida State University. Thanks to an undergraduate research grant, he traveled to West Africa for the first time in 2016, where he conducted ethnographic fieldwork and ethnopoetic analysis of music-based health education initiatives funded by foreign and local organizations during the Ebola epidemic. His thesis was selected for presentation at the Society for Ethnomusicology’s annual meeting, and was subsequently published by Indiana University Press in Africa Today. Following graduation, Michael spent the next few years working with education and nonprofit institutions. As an AmeriCorps VISTA member, he established a mixed-methods evaluation system for Chicago-based nonprofit Harmony, Hope & Healing and co-developed the organization’s therapeutic songwriting curriculum for individuals experiencing homelessness, addiction, and incarceration. As a 2021 graduate of the Global Leaders Institute for Arts Innovation, he co-designed and facilitated a five-week program evaluation workshop for over 10 Latin American organizations promoting music education for social change. As an ESOL instructor, he taught migrant workers for two years in the States; spent a year as a Fulbright scholar teaching in secondary schools in Côte d’Ivoire; and currently designs and teaches Business and Academic English courses at the African School of Economics in Benin. He is also an advisor for the university’s pre-doctoral program, where he provides career development coaching for students applying to top PhD programs in Europe and North America. In addition to being a PiAf Fellow this year, Michael is a Master’s-level candidate for the Cambridge Diploma in TESOL. He spends the rest of his time making music, studying languages, and writing for the Human Ingredients travel blog.

Anna Roberts is a Fellow with the International Rescue Committee in Sierra Leone. Before this, Anna spent six years navigating public-private partnerships in the United States, focusing her career on improving the lives of the poor. Anna worked as a Budget Director for New York City, serving a high-poverty district with a large population of religious minorities. As Budget Director, she ran the yearly $7mm budget, coordinated Get Out the Vote in four languages, and succeeded in getting childcare vouchers baselined in the NYC budget, benefiting poor families across New York. Anna also spent two years in affordable housing, working with state, federal, for-profit, and non-profit actors across the United States to bid on expiring government contracts in order to keep housing units affordable. Anna is a Dartmouth College alum, and just completed a master’s degree at Sciences Po in Human Rights and Humanitarian Action, with a concentration in African Studies. She is working on a yearlong research project for the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights building a Participatory Policy Assessment tool that will better help policymakers evaluate policies related to people in poverty. Anna co-organized the 2021 International Humanitarian Studies Association conference, hosted by Sciences Po, where she moderated panels on conflict and sexual violence. Anna is excited to bring her experience with policy design, research, and stakeholder communication to the development and humanitarian fields.

Anny, a native of Bogotá, Colombia, graduated Summa Cum Laude from the University of Massachusetts with majors in Anthropology and Women’s and Gender Studies. A passionate reproductive health advocate, Anny was selected as a Reproductive Rights Activist Service Corp fellow, in 2015 and interned for Ibis Reproductive Health researching the intersection of maternal and child health and abortion access. At UMass she organized and led a service-learning initiative focused on indigenous women’s empowerment and safe stoves for improved indoor air quality in Guatemala. After this trip, she became the Education Coordinator for the Beacon Voyages for Service program at UMass, overseeing the social justice-based education for the program at large. Anny is also a former executive board member of Colombia Vive, a Boston-based human rights organization. Following graduation, she joined Timmy Global Health as their Medical Programs Coordinator in the Dominican Republic (DR). In this role she oversaw a community health promotion program and led regular medical service trips to several communities straddling the Haiti-DR border. Anny hopes to continue learning and advocating in the area of global public health and to dedicate her career to advance health as a human right across geographical borders.

Rachel graduated from American University with a BA in International Studies and focused her studies on sustainable international development and African regional studies. While studying abroad in Nairobi, she interned with SAVO, where she worked on project design, grant-writing, survey administration, and site visits in Kibera. Rachel also studied in Morocco and interned at Transparence, Maroc. Upon her return to the United States, Rachel interned with Roots of Development, an NGO that empowers people in Lagonave, Haiti, to direct their own development, then worked with the organization as the monitoring and evaluation coordinator, where she developed project’s M&E and impact assessment strategies. Prior to the Princeton in Africa fellowship, she worked with the Tahrir Institute of Middle East Policy as the projects and communications assistant. Rachel looks forward to learning about social and economic development in West Africa and supporting the capacity-building of aspiring Beninese thinkers as a Projects Coordinator at the African School of Economics.