Alumni Update:

Ruba was the Outreach Coordinator for Princeton in Africa from February to September 2021. She is currently based in London, where she is attending The London School of Economics to get her master’s in international development and health.

Fellow Bio:

Ruba Idris is a recent graduate of the University of Pittsburgh, where she earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Health Services, Certificates in Health Services and African Studies and a Minor in Economics. She is interested in foreign affairs, health and development and intends to pursue a Master’s Degree in International Development, and later in the future, a Masters of Public Health. Ruba originally hails from Sudan and her cultural duality as a Sudanese-American has provided her with a deeper cultural understanding of countries in the global north and the global south. She plans to return to the African continent where she is interested in translating economic and entrepreneurial potential present within the young population into concrete skills while reducing the health issues that impact the population and its productivity. She aspires to work for various organizations focusing on development such as USAID, the World Bank and the United Nations. Ruba is passionate about working with people from different backgrounds, exploring various cultures, examining and understanding trends and links within developing nations, and understanding holistic paradigms of development. These interests are portrayed through her panoply of courses, which encompass language, economics, health and history, amongst other topics, and the various activities she has participated in such as study abroad, research and student organizations. During her 4 years in undergraduate school, Ruba worked to cultivate her leadership skills through different leadership roles in student organizations, which include her positions as president of the African Students Organization and the vice president of Model African Union. She has also expanded her cultural competency and deepened her understanding of development through her study and work abroad in Tanzania, Ghana, and Honduras, and through her research work with local African communities. Other than academia, Ruba is also very passionate about fashion and owns a T-shirt business that aims to spread knowledge about the continent of Africa. She hopes to one day incorporate Fashion into the economic development of the continent by cultivating a robust fashion industry. Ruba is a critical thinker and loves to learn and improve her personal skills. She enjoys being mentally challenged and strives to understand other points of views. She hopes to develop into a well-rounded individual who can mold to any sector within the development realm.

Julia is a graduate of UC Berkeley, where she studied Political Economy and Public Policy and cultivated an interest in using data to inform policy and improve livelihoods in the developing world. Her research experience at UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health and the Blum Center for Developing Economies heightened her interest in examining the relationship between the global north and south and advocating for health access as a fundamental human right. Originally hailing from Long Beach, California, Julia spent the last two and a half years supporting the design and implementation of evaluations and randomized control trials at Social Impact, a Washington DC-based international development consulting firm. During her time at SI, Julia gained field experience supervising data collection in Nepal, supported a maternal and child health evaluation in Laos, analyzed data for a Ghana education portfolio, and implemented a nationwide labor force study in Kosovo. In her previous work, Julia interned at a Los Angeles-based nonprofit where she worked to improve economic outcomes for marginalized communities, and contributed to policy briefs and research projects in human rights and sustainable development at a Madrid-based think tank.  Julia is looking forward to honing her monitoring and evaluation skills and focusing her efforts at the local level in Lwala.

Elaina, a Maryland native graduated from Princeton University with a major in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and a certificate in Global Health and Health Policy. Her interest in science and research began in high school when she was a part of the Science National Honor Society. She continued exploring biology fields the summer after freshman year at the Food and Drug Administration helping to research better ways of blood and platelet transfusions. After her junior year, Elaina spent 6 weeks in South Africa carrying out her Senior thesis research on the effects of African Elephants on ecosystem health. After spending the summer in South Africa she knew she wanted to go back to the continent to attempt to carry out more research in the field of conservation biology. She is excited to gain more experience in the field and continue to explore national parks as well as the African continent. 

Winnie (Eron) Godi was born in Kampala, Uganda and resettled in the United States with her immediate family in 1998. She graduated with honors, receiving degrees in both International Relations and Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies with a minor in Peace and Global Studies from Augsburg University. As President of the Augsburg Pan-Afrikan Student Union she created spaces deconstructing misogynoir and established a platform for black youth and women of color. Winnie was an Augsburg LEAD Scholar, Norway Peace Scholar, and 2017 Student Commencement Speaker. She was awarded 2017 Outstanding Senior Leader of the Year and was inducted into the 2nd annual Augsburg Senior Leadership Society. After graduating, Winnie served as a Community Partnership Specialist at Girl Scouts River Valleys, providing inclusive programming to over 200 girls of color. She was appointed by Governor Mark Dayton to the third cohort of the WFMN Young Women’s Cabinet of Minnesota, working closely with 24 other members to create and advance opportunities for young women in Minnesota. Over the past year, Winnie worked as a Kindergarten Teacher at Sabis International School in Nairobi, Kenya, challenging her students to explore non-traditional fields and is excited to continue a career in education in southern Africa.

As a public health activist, Lola Flomen believes that every life has equal value. Having volunteered at the Jones Safe House for Youth in South Africa, the Chiang Rai Special Education School in Thailand, and Oleleshwa’s Girls Secondary School in Kenya, Lola has a plethora of hands-on experiences in youth health programs in developing countries. A graduate of International Affairs with a focus on global public health at the George Washington University, Lola is most passionate about treating infectious diseases amongst girls and women of reproductive age. Working as an intern for Save the Children’s Department of Humanitarian Response, Lola has written dozens of memos on emergency health delivery mechanisms. Her work with family planning at the United Nations Foundation’s Universal Access Project and internship with Adolescent Sexual Health and Reproductive Rights Team at Save the Children led her to evaluate and monitor development agendas. In light of her recent experience with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Kenya, Lola aspires to become an epidemiologist and alleviate global preventable communicable diseases. Lola is looking forward to her PiAf post with PSI in Abidjan where she will be the Regional Evidence and Reproductive Health Fellow.

 

Alumni Update:

Razan is currently a management consulting associate at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), where she works in the firm’s advisory practice focusing on cybersecurity and data privacy. She is based in Denver, USA.

Fellow Bio:

Razan Eltayeb graduated from Colorado State University with a degree in Political Science and International Studies, with a concentration in the Middle East and North Africa. She co-founded and acted as President of Global Awareness and International Affairs, an organization dedicated to fostering international awareness and career development through networking opportunities, leadership projects and real-world experiences. She won the William & Jean Griswold Award for International Studies for recognizing the need for this platform and contributing to the greater CSU international community. With an interest in public policy, Razan interned for state Senator Andy Kerr and has joined him in advocating for bills such as funding for full-day kindergarten, aiding in his participation in committees and communicating with his constituents. She worked with the global health nonprofit, PATH, coordinating department touchpoints across various program and country offices. Razan learned project management skills by leading the communications rollout for the project management community within PATH, curating a monthly newsletter. She has completed the Project Management for Development Professionals training, receiving her certification in 2017. As a Learning Fellow with Population Services International in Nairobi, Razan is excited to sharpen her analytical and communication skills and hopes to contribute to PSI’s global portfolio.

Leah graduated from Northwestern University in June 2019 with a double major in Journalism and International Studies. In the spring of 2019, Leah was a reporter for Pacific Standard, a California-¬based news organization that focuses on social and environmental justice issues. Previously, Leah completed a journalism project about environmental justice issues in Panama. During the summer of 2018, Leah interned in La Pista, Guatemala, consulting for a community organization on environmental challenges in La Pista. At the end of the internship, Leah and her teammates created a trash collection program in collaboration with the local government to reduce the burning, burying, and littering of inorganic trash. Leah and a teammate returned to La Pista in December with a research grant to conduct independent research on the impact and sustainability of the trash management program. For fun, Leah served as the co-director of the radio station’s media team at Northwestern, which involved photographing, interviewing, and writing about underrepresented music. Leah ultimately hopes to pursue a career in environmental law and policy with an emphasis on human rights.

Avdeep Dhillon graduated from University of California, Berkeley, with a degree in Political Economy and a concentration in Economic Development. In her last semester, she worked for Kiva as an Impact Investing Intern in their Direct to Social Enterprise portfolio to help social enterprises around the world access capital to grow their businesses. In her time at Berkeley, Avdeep founded Development Solutions Organization at Berkeley, through which, she helped Basic Needs, an International mental health NGO,  improve their impact measurement and evaluation. Avdeep also founded a course on Networking at the School of Information of Berkeley, started to give first generation college students the resources to build their own professional networks. Born and raised in Punjab, India, she has lived, worked and studied in Panama, Dominican Republic, Washington D.C., San Francisco and London. She is really excited to add Nairobi to the list through PiAf, where she will be working with Population Services International to develop a PSI Social Enterprise in East Africa.

Sanjeev graduated from Duke University with a degree in Political Science. His time at Duke was defined by his work in the field of forced migration and human rights. He conducted field research with Iraqi and Syrian refugees in Jordan, led a youth mentoring program for resettled refugees in Durham, North Carolina, and led a project to create an online platform to share data and analysis on global migration. His senior thesis focused on the origins of the Rohingya conflict in Myanmar. Sanjeev has a diverse array of experiences working internationally. He conducted research into war crime trials for the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network in Serbia, studied the impacts of drought on marginalized populations in rural India for UNDP, and provided legal support to the Statelessness Section at UNHCR headquarters. After graduation, Sanjeev was selected as a Hart Leadership Fellow by Duke and was placed at the Issara Institute in Bangkok, Thailand, where he provided support to a number of research projects focused on eliminating human trafficking and forced labour among migrant workers in global supply chains. He is an avid reader, a complete history nerd, a huge soccer fan and a photography enthusiast. He is looking forward to learning more about working with displaced populations through his time at IRC Tanzania.

Alumni Update:

Beverly is currently freelancing with lifestyle magazines, where her most recent assignment focuses on the arts in West Africa. She’s based on the East Coast.

 

Fellow Bio:

Beverly Danquah graduated from St. John’s University where she studied communications with a concentration in journalism and a triple minor in business, legal studies and international studies. At St. John’s, Beverly made the Dean’s List every year and was the student commencement speaker. Born and raised in the Bronx, Beverly’s interest in journalism and travel began when she studied abroad in Italy, Ireland and France on the U.S. Dept. of State Benjamin A. Gilman Scholarship, where she studied international relations with a focus in migration. While abroad, Beverly visited a total of 14 countries.

Beverly has had internships with: Moda Operandi as a fashion copywriter, the New York City Council’s Press Office, CNN’s Reliable Sources with Brian Stelter in production, ABC News’s Nightline in production, MSNBC as a digital editor, Saturday Night Live as a writer’s researcher and MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show in production. While at MSNBC, Beverly curated MSNBC’s daytime and primetime programming through social posts and was on the frontlines of producing compelling videos to show audiences what the journey was like for immigrants after they crossed the southern U.S. border.

She is an alumna of the New York Times Student Journalism Institute and served as peer mentor of about 12 students in undergrad. Beverly’s talk show at the Manhattan Neighborhood Network received a Public Media Award for Most Educational Youth Talk Show. She is a freelance event producer at the Apollo Theater, more recently assisting with production on the Apollo’s AFRICA NOW Jesus & Jollof Live Event.