Alumni Directory Display

Maya is a ‘22 Princeton graduate, studying Civil and Environmental Engineering with a certificate in Latin American Studies. Maya loves learning about other people and places. She was involved with the Princeton Chapter of Engineers Without Borders Kenya team, working with communities in the Kuria West region to implement water projects. Her time in Kuria West inspired her to take an African linguistics course, and she wrote her final paper on mother tongue language education policy in Kenya. Maya conducted an independent research project in 2019, interviewing residents from the Corozal District of Belize about their experiences with changes in their environment. Witnessing the pivotal role mangrove played in coastal communities led Maya to study wave attenuation from mangroves at the Army Corps of Engineers Research and Development Center and inspired the topic of her senior thesis on mangrove restoration, using the case study of Corozal. Originally from Minnesota, Maya likes to spend her free time hiking and talking with friends.

Fellow Bio:

Tom McKay ’08 is a politics major from Ridgewood, NJ focusing in international relations. At Princeton he was the captain of the men’s varsity squash team which was Ivy League champions and advanced to the final of his sophomore, junior, and senior years. Tom also served as the Vice President the Tiger Inn. Though he has never been to sub-Saharan Africa, Tom is excited to spend next year in Nairobi, Kenya where he will be a program intern for the International Rescue Committee. While in Africa, Tom helps to immerse himself in the local culture by joining a local soccer team.

Alumni Update:

A couple of years ago, Chinook switched from a career of commercial helicopter piloting to being a high school teacher. Chinook works in a small rural school in BC and is halfway through her Masters of Arts in Education.

Naomi grew up on Long Island, NY and graduated from Williams College, where she studied Economics and Public Health. She wrote her undergraduate honors thesis on the effects of cash transfer and empowerment programs on maternal and child well-being in Uganda, for which she was awarded Highest Honors and received the Jack Larned 1942 International Management Prize for a student paper of superior quality dealing with developmental enterprises. She also received the Van Duyne Prize in Economics to support her thesis work throughout her senior year. She spent eight weeks as an intern at IPA in Malawi, where she experienced the difficulties that arise when working in a developing country while also assisting with a project that focused on improving the incomes of small-holder farmers. She spent her junior fall in South Africa studying community health and social policy. After Williams, Naomi interned at HealthRight International, exploring how an international health organization manages both grant opportunities and projects in-country. Prior to her fellowship with Princeton in Africa at the Clinton Health Access Initiative, Naomi was a Research Associate at the Schroeder Center for Health Policy, based at William & Mary, where much of her work focused on domestic healthcare policy.

Alumni Update:

Immediately after PiAf, Amaka attended law school, and then clerked with a federal judge for a year. She then went on to work in the international arbitration practice of the global law firm Shearman & Sterling. In January, she quit to work with a think tank based in Nigeria. She also had a baby last year who’s turning 1 on May 7!

Alumni Update:

Immediately after PiAf, Amaka attended law school, and then clerked with a federal judge for a year. She then went on to work in the international arbitration practice of the global law firm Shearman & Sterling. In January, she quit to work with a think tank based in Nigeria. She also had a baby last year who’s turning 1 on May 7!

Samantha Mendoza graduated from St. Edward’s University in Austin, Texas with a degree in English Writing & Rhetoric and minors in English Literature and Global Studies. She mentored students through leadership development programs and writing courses, and as student Body President, she co-founded a program that raised awareness about college sexual assault. She spent a summer studying Peace and Conflict in Uganda and Rwanda, and another summer leading a group of students to volunteer at the an orphanage for HIV-positive youth in Capetown, South Africa. Samantha then earned a prestigious Fulbright fellowship to teach middle-school English in South India. She spent her weekends mentoring high school students through the college application process and taking a 6-hour train to volunteer at a non-profit in Bangalore. Samantha has just completed a Master’s program in Magazine, Newspaper, and Online Journalism at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications to pursue her goal of becoming an international journalist. She currently reports on community issues in Syracuse, New York, and writes about women’s rights, feminism, and politics for a national audience. She will spend the summer interning at NBC Studios before moving to Monduli, Tanzania for a one-year role as the Scholarship and Communications Coordinator at the Indigenous Education Foundation of Tanzania.

Alumni Update:

Rebecca recently finished a Masters in International Development and Management at Lund University in Sweden, and is interested in working in the areas of women’s empowerment, youth leadership, and rural livelihoods.

Fellow Bio:

Becca is from Blairstown, New Jersey and graduated with a degree in Environmental Studies and a minor in Anthropology. While at Davidson, Becca worked for the Office of Sustainability to support new environmental initiatives on campus, and was also a summer Sustainability Scholar and Environmental Justice Intern. She recently studied in India, Senegal, Argentina, and Washington D.C., which allowed her to write a thesis on an urban political ecology of food insecurity. She is passionate about increasing food and environmental literacy among children and adults and hopes to share this while working with the Rwanda School Project. Becca also loves the outdoors and looks forward to running, hiking, and exploring throughout the year in Rwanda.

Alumni Update:

Since his fellowship year, Brent has relocated to Honolulu and is now a Certified Eye Bank Technician. He serves as Director of Operations at the Lions Eye Bank of Hawai’i, an eye tissue recovery and distribution nonprofit dedicated to meeting the transplantation needs of the Hawaiian Islands. His organization works to keep sight-saving eye tissue accessible to the communities that donate it, and he is proud to honor the wishes of eye donors and their families while strengthening the independent medical infrastructure of the Islands.

Fellow Bio:

While pursuing a double major at the intersection of Biomedical Engineering and African Studies at Yale, one of the things Brent enjoyed most was working with his campus chapter of Engineers Without Borders to design and implement infrastructural innovations that reduced water poverty in rural communities in Cameroon and Tanzania. Brent feels lucky to have seen up close the powerful effects that a community-level, locally directed development plan can have on improving health outcomes on the African continent, and so he is grateful for the chance to continue enabling that kind of work with Princeton in Africa, as a Sustainability Fellow at Nyumbani Village in Kenya. In the future, he hopes to use his skills as an engineer, combined with the firsthand knowledge of real-world needs and challenges gained during his fellowship year, to develop more affordable biotechnologies that can help to close resource and personnel gaps in medically underserved parts of the world.

she/her/hers

Mahilet Mesfin graduated from the University of Washington in 2021, completing an honours Bachelor’s in International Economic Development with a minor in Human Rights–and received a Henry Jackson School fellowship for her achievements. Additionally, Mahilet has recently finished her Master’s in Science at the London School of Economics (LSE), finalising a degree in International Social and Public Policy. Born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, she is deeply committed to catalysing and unlocking transformative economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa, seeking to redefine the continent’s narrative. Whilst studying for her undergraduate degree, Mahilet was elected President of the Black Student’s Union, leading and facilitating discourse on equity programs for its Black student body. Continuing her commitment to empowering the diaspora during her Master’s studies, she was elected as the Co-President of PFAL – Programme for African Leadership at the LSE. Within this capacity, she represented the interests of her fellow African leaders. Whilst also acting as a representative for the prestigious Firoz Lalji Institute for Africa.
Additionally, as a Lead Engagement Officer at the Seattle City Council, Mahilet worked to support her district’s elected Councilmember’s office. Undertaking issues concerning economic development, social mobility, and homelessness. Here, she managed and conducted concise research on the correlative effects of displacement and collected reports on community-backed civil service groups, organising engagement initiatives at the Seattle City Council. Organising engagement events with local stakeholders and community members in South Seattle, Seattle’s most economically diverse neighbourhood. During this, Mahilet contributed to over 20-analytically backed policy briefs.