Alumni Directory Display

Galeela Michael graduated from the University of California, Santa Barbara, with a degree in Global Studies. As an undergraduate, Galeela worked as both a Campaign Lead at the Multicultural Center and as a Student Outreach Coordinator at the Office of Development, where she raised thousands of dollars for student initiatives. She was the President of UC Santa Barbara’s Pan-African Student Union, which served to amplify the voice of African students on campus. Galeela also spent a summer in Washington D.C., where she interned at The Congressional Black Caucus Foundation and conducted a research study analyzing the success of the Millennium Development Goals in Kenya, Ethiopia, and Nigeria. After graduating, Galeela returned to the San Francisco Bay Area, where she served as Programs & Operations Manager at a non-profit called /dev/color, which strives to maximize the impact of Black software engineers. Galeela was the third full-time hire at /dev/color, and made substantial contributions to the organization’s foundation, leading efforts to expand /dev/color to four cities nationally. Her experience at /dev/color jumpstarted her career at the intersection between tech and social impact, and today Galeela is most passionate about leveraging technology to improve peoples lives.

Fellow Bio:

Marilyn Michelow ‘07 is a molecular biology major from Pittsburgh, PA. For her PiAF fellowship, Marilyn will be working for the United Nations World Food Program in Windhoek, Namibia. Marilyn has long been fascinated by South Africa (her family is South African), but this will be her first time to Africa. At Princeton, Marilyn worked as a volunteer Emergency Medical Technician with the Princeton First Aid and Rescue Squad, tutored, and was a member of the Tower Club. Through Princeton, she worked in Paris, France, and studied for a semester in Auckland, New Zealand. She is interested in public health and infectious disease, and is deferring medical school to spend a year with PiAF.

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Alexandra (Alex) Middleberg graduated from Kenyon College in 2018 with a B.A. in International Studies. She also holds an M.A. in International Affairs from the George Washington University’s (GWU) Elliott School of International Affairs, where she focused her studies on transnational security, conflict resolution, and peacebuilding in the Middle East and Africa. For her capstone project, Alex designed an agricultural development program that aimed to facilitate the sustainable and peaceful return of Afghan refugees and internally displaced persons in Afghanistan through the expansion of agriculture technical and vocational education and training programs and the country’s agricultural sector. Following her studies, Alex worked on the Central and West Africa team at the National Democratic Institute supporting governance and democracy programs in Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and The Gambia. In her free time, Alex loves to travel, cook, spend time with friends and family, and jam to her favorite songs.

Fellow Bio:

Emily is an anthropology major with a certificate in music (viola) performance. At Princeton, she took part in the Princeton University Orchestra, STAND, and the Student Volunteers Council, and she spent last summer with Princeton in Asia, teaching English in China. When not at school she lives in Springfield, VA, though she has also lived in New York, Pennsylvania, and Maine. She hopes her time on the east coast of the U.S. will prepare her for a year on the east coast of Africa, working in Mozambique with the UN World Food Programme. While in Maputo, she plans to pick up Portuguese (really quickly), to become even more fond of Afro-Portuguese music, and to learn a lot.

Originally from San Diego, California, Kelsey graduated from Harvard with a B.A. in Social Studies, focusing on human rights and humanitarian frameworks in the global south. Her senior honors thesis, “Permanent Impermanence: Identity and Agency in Nyarugusu Refugee Camp, Tanzania,” examined Congolese refugees’ experiences with protracted conflict and prolonged humanitarian aid dependency in western Tanzania, where she conducted 5 weeks of ethnographic research. While at Harvard, Kelsey also received a minor in Modern Middle Eastern Studies and a language citation in Swahili. As an undergraduate, she spent two summers working for a small HIV/AIDS education nonprofit based out of Arusha, Tanzania, and returned to East Africa for a third summer to intern with the National Unity and Reconciliation Commission in Kigali, Rwanda, where she edited the first English-language translation of The History of Rwanda, used across Rwandan schools for civic education. Kelsey is thrilled to continue her work with refugees and looks forward to exploring life in Nairobi.

Fellow Bio:

Brad Milligan ’08 is an ecology and evolutionary biology major, with certificate in African Studies and environmental studies. Brad is from Kijabe, Kenya, and enjoys sports and the outdoors. At Princeton, Brad was involved in club soccer and Princeton evangelical fellowship. He also participated in community service projects in Trenton, NJ and Louisiana, and did independent research on human-wildlife interations in Kenya. Brad hopes to spend his life helping others, and looks forward to becoming more involved with international aid and development through his fellowship with Lutheran World Federation in Burundi.

Alumni Update:

Emily signed on to a longer contract with SteamaCo and is now working as their Digital Product Manager in Nairobi. They are using their technology to operate 25 microgrids across East Africa, and are currently raising money to expand internationally.

Fellow Bio:

Emily is a Civil/Environmental Engineering Major from Needham, MA. She also pursued studies in Computer Science and Sustainable Energy. Her favorite class at Princeton was building a hybrid wind/solar power system which could be deployed in a disaster relief setting, and she is excited to continue working in a similar field with access:energy in Kenya. Over the past 4 years, she has also been involved in Princeton’s Engineers Without Borders chapter, recently leading the project to construct a potable water system in Samne, Peru. In her free time, Emily enjoys playing on the club field hockey team and rock climbing.

Victoria Monge graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a degree in health policy and management from the Gillings School of Global Public Health, as well as a degree in global studies. She also holds a certificate in international politics from Sciences Po Grenoble in Grenoble, France. At UNC Chapel Hill, Victoria worked at the local Refugee Support Center, where she served as a French translator and collaborated with various governmental agencies to meet the needs of the Center’s clients. She is a member of Phi Beta Kappa as well as the service fraternity Alpha Phi Omega and has also worked in several different research labs throughout college. Victoria recently completed her senior honors thesis on the intergenerational effects of witnessing intimate partner violence on a cohort of young children in South Africa. During a previous corporate strategy internship with the insurance company Humana, Victoria created a business case for investment in the social determinants of health by healthcare payers. More recently, she interned with the Shot@Life team of the United Nations Foundation, where she advocated for increased access to vaccinations for children around the world. Following the Princeton in Africa fellowship, Victoria plans to attend law school and pursue a career in global health law. Originally from Michigan, she enjoys reading, swimming, and learning languages. She is looking forward to working with American Leprosy Missions this coming year.

Caitlin is originally from Eugene, Oregon but has spent the past five years in the bay area at Stanford. She majored in African history and did an M.A. in African studies. Both of these focused specifically on the African Great Lakes region, so she’s excited to spend some quality time in the region for the next year. During her undergrad she wrote a thesis on land conflict and historical memory in North Kivu, DRC, and worked on more short-term projects in Kampala and Bujumbura. At Stanford, she studied abroad at Oxford and was part of Stanford STAND, a human rights related group on campus. She’s excited to spend next year learning all the things you can’t get from sitting in a classroom, and using (and improving) her French.

Alumni Update:

Following her fellowship, Meyris moved back to New York City to work at a policy advocacy organization that champions gender equality. Meyris is currently attending Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), where she is pursuing an MPA in economic and political development with a focus on Africa.

Fellow Bio:

Meyris was born in the Dominican Republic and grew up in New York City. She graduated from Brown University in 2016 with a degree in Political Science and Africana Studies. She further pursued her interest in African politics and histories by spending a semester studying International Politics and Gender Studies at the University of Cape Town. While at Brown, Meyris was a tutor through Brown Refugee Youth Tutoring and Enrichment, a student-led program that partners Brown tutors with students in refugee families living in Providence. She was also a member of Brown UNICEF and served as the club’s secretary for two years. Her passion for international development led her to intern at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), where she worked with the Africa Ebola Unit and the Office of Development Planning. She has also served as a healthcare intern at the Lenox Hill Neighborhood House, an investigative intern at the Rhode Island Commission for Human Rights, and a production intern at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. While living in Tanzania, Meyris is excited to learn about disability and maternal health through her position at CCBRT, experience Tanzanian dances and music, learn Swahili, and maybe even climb Mt. Kilimanjaro.