A Southern California native, Khadija Hassanali graduated from Claremont McKenna College with a B.A. in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics. As an undergraduate, Khadija returned to her mother’s home country of Tanzania to work with the Asante Africa Foundation, an NGO that administers programs to increase the accessibility and quality of education in East Africa. During her sophomore and senior year, she competed in the Hult Prize Competition, in which she developed social enterprise solutions to tackle the issues of Early Childhood Education and the Refugee Crisis. Inspired by the intersection of business, technology, and social innovation, Khadija interned with Tectonica Studios, a start-up in Buenos Aires, Argentina that creates websites for political campaigns and NGOs. The fall of her junior year, Khadija studied in Granada, Spain, where she honed her Spanish language skills and studied the history of the Andalucia. Most recently, she interned with Deloitte Consulting, where she worked with a major healthcare client in the Bay Area. Khadija is looking forward to developing her interests in technology innovation as a Data Analyst and Project Manager at mSurvey in Kenya. Climbing shoes packed, she is eager to scramble around Nairobi and learn about the city her parents immigrated from.

Alumni Update:

Keiana is currently a Justice Fellow at the Equal Justice Initiative where she advances public history work surrounding our nation’s history of racial injustice, facilitates community organizing around the country, and assists with legal intake. 

Fellow Bio:

Keiana graduated from Williams College with a BA in Psychology and a minor in Africana Studies. Throughout her undergraduate experience, she was deeply engaged with community organizing and education research in her hometown of Pittsfield, Massachusetts. She co-directed an organization called Converging Worlds focused on combating injustices in the prison system, and this allowed her to develop community programs, organize panels, and create a magazine to facilitate relationships between activism on campus and in the surrounding communities. As an Allison Davis Research Fellow, Keiana received two years of funding to conduct independent, faculty mentored research including the effects of race and gender on perceptions of high school students’ behavior and psychological support for behavioral concerns. She also studied abroad in Durban, South Africa, where she had the opportunity to study social and political transformation in the country and to conduct a mixed-methods evaluation of a diversion program offered by the National Institute for Crime Prevention and the Reintegration of Offenders. The following summer, she completed a research internship at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where she analyzed data and co-authored a pending publication on health interventions in Black churches. In the summer leading up to her fellowship, she and a peer were awarded the Davis Projects for Peace Grant to coordinate a social justice mentoring program with middle school students in Pittsfield. She is thrilled to continue her love for applied education research and non-profit work in Johannesburg

Alumni Update:

Katie is currently the Deputy Country Director at Action Against Hunger where she focuses on program quality, program development, and future-looking strategy. She is based in Erbil, Iraq.

Fellow Bio:

Katie studied International Development with concentrations in Economics and Sub-Saharan African Studies at UC Berkeley. Her passion for international development dates back to high school when she volunteered in Latin America with the immersion and community development program called AMIGOS de las Américas. Since then, she has worked in development through NGOs (Save the Children International, Women’s Microfinance Initiative), government agencies (State Department), multilateral organizations (UN High Commissioner on Refugees), community development programs (Mutual Financing of African Women, East Bay Sanctuary Covenant), academic research (UC Berkeley, Beatrice Bain Women’s Research Group, teaching “Development Theory and Praxis in Haiti”) and the private sector (Crowdsparc). Through these various experiences, Katie has lived and worked across the world including in Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Uganda and Cameroon. Most formatively, in Cameroon Katie conducted research exploring the relationship between different microfinance packages and borrowers’ incidences of domestic violence, which became the foundation of her senior honors thesis. Given her passion for fieldwork and research, Katie eventually hopes to pursue a PhD. In the meantime, Katie is looking forward to moving back to Uganda in order to see her friends, work more closely on-the-ground with refugees and learn from professionals in the field.

Alumni Update:

After staying on at at her fellowship organization, CCBRT in Tanzania, for an additional eight months, she moved to Washington, D.C. to work on the East and Southern Africa team at Chemonics in April 2019. She is still exploring how she can apply all she learned at CCBRT to continue serving women and girls, especially the most vulnerable, at home and abroad!

Fellow Bio:

Joelle graduated Summa Cum Laude from the Dual B.A. Program between Columbia University and Sciences Po (Institut d’études politiques de Paris) in May 2016, receiving bachelor’s degrees from both institutions. She studied Sustainable Development at Columbia University, where she was elected to the Phi Beta Kappa Society and received Departmental Honors. In her senior year, she was granted the Global Fellowship in Sustainable Development to conduct research for her thesis regarding safe water accessibility in arsenic-impacted areas of Bangladesh. During her time in France, she studied Political Science and specialized in the Middle Eastern region. Since graduation, Joelle has worked at Global Health Strategies, an international consulting firm specializing in global health communications and advocacy. Joelle is excited to explore Dar es Salaam next year and practice her Swahili. She is grateful for the opportunity to contribute to the amazing work of CCBRT in promoting maternal health.

JingKai, a native of Malaysia, graduated from UC Berkeley with a B.A. in Economics. He speaks professional Bahasa and Mandarin Chinese. At UC Berkeley, he had several student leadership positions as the External Vice President of Delta Phi Epsilon (UC Berkeley Professional International Relations Fraternity) and the External Events Chair of the International Student Association. JingKai has earned the Outstanding Delegate at the World Youth Economic Forum. He also has extensive research experience including as a research assistant for the Center for African Studies at UC Berkeley, analyzing the rotation in the ministerial cabinet in 36 African countries. In addition, he was a research assistant on an Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) study regarding social incentives for prenatal care and safe delivery in Sierra Leone and for Berkeley Initiative for Transparency in the Social Sciences (BITSS). He was an international development intern with the Uganda Village Project (UVP) in rural Uganda. JingKai is really excited for the opportunity to return to the continent as a Princeton in Africa fellow and looks forward to working with Imani Development in Malawi as a junior consultant.

Jessica graduated from Colgate University with a degree in Geography and Chinese. She graduated with honors for her thesis on the efficacy of malaria policy in Kenya. Throughout her undergraduate career, she developed a passion for global heath and conducted global health-related research in Uganda and Kenya. She has co-authored two papers on malaria and HIV, published in the Malaria Journal and Nature. Prior to the Princeton in Africa fellowship, Jessica worked in both the government and the non-governmental sectors. She has worked as the assistant to the director of the DC Department of Human Services. Subsequently, she was a senior program assistant on the policy and advocacy team at PATH, an international non-profit that uses innovation to deliver health services to resource limited settings, where she gained a deeper understanding of data analytics and data visualization. In her free time, Jessica loves to cook and try new foods. She is looking forward to joining Healthy Kids/Brighter Future in Zambia as a member of the monitoring and evaluation team.

Alumni Update:

Jessica is currently the Development and Community Relations Coordinator at New Door Ventures based in San Francisco where her work focuses on leading individual giving development and New Door’s volunteerism program. She resides in San Francisco. 

Fellow Bio:

Jessica, a native of Hartland, Wisconsin, graduated from Macalester College with a B.A. in International Studies, minors in Anthropology and Political Science, and concentrations in African Studies and Human Rights and Humanitarianism. Jessica’s interest in Africa began when she volunteered at a children’s home in South Africa when she was 13 years old. She has worked with the home for over 8 years. That inspired her to create her own non-profit organization, 15:30 Project, providing the children she works with opportunities for higher education. Her work has been highlighted in local media outlets and earned her several nationally recognized awards. At Macalester, Jessica interned with the U.S. State Department at the embassy in Mozambique where she helped draft the 2016 Human Rights Report. Then, Jessica interned with Kakenya’s Dream in Washington, D.C., advocating for girls’ education and against female genital mutilation in Kenya and assisting with advocacy initiatives. She studied abroad in Gaborone, Botswana where her semester focused on urban development. In Botswana, she conducted human rights research about discrimination against people with albinism. Jessica is interested in the intersection of education, human rights, and diplomacy particularly in the Southern African context. 

Jessica graduated from Macalester College with a BA in Economics and an interdisciplinary concentration in International Development. In college, she participated in the four-year civic engagement program Bonner Community Scholars and worked at the youth farming organization Urban Roots.  Jessica studied abroad at Ashesi University in Ghana. Her involvement with Sesa Mu Farmers’ Initiative inspired her honors thesis, which used econometric methods to analyze the effect of loan timing on fertilizer use in Ghana. Jessica earned the Winter Mann-Hill Fellowship to design and lead a workshop on sexual violence prevention and response for Ashesi students that volunteer with Future of Africa, a nonprofit that serves street children. She served as an AmeriCorps VISTA at the International Rescue Committee’s refugee resettlement office in Utah and developed initiatives to improve access to contraception and better respond to domestic violence. Jessica has worked on a farm in Nicaragua, attended the UN climate negotiations in Paris, and is passionate about health equity. She is excited to continue working with the International Rescue Committee in Sierra Leone and support education, health, and women and girl’s protection and empowerment programs. 

Avukile was born and raised in South Africa. She recently completed her Bachelors of Arts Degree in Molecular Biology and a minor in Spanish at Colorado College. In addition to English, Xhosa, Zulu and Setswana, she speaks advanced Spanish after having studied abroad in Spain, Peru and Chile for immersive cultural programmes. Avu has always been passionate about the scientific and social impacts of HIV/AIDs. Thus, during a summer in her sophomore year, she interned in South Africa, doing public health community research and volunteering with the TB/HIV care association that offers care and community-based treatment adherence support. Then, she interned in Colombia helping youth find strategies to tackle prominent public health issues such as teenage pregnancy and drug addiction. In her junior year, she worked as the Diversity and Inclusion Programs Coordinator at Colorado College, organizing and planning student campus events, panels and lectures for minority and international students on campus. She served as a mentor for sophomores and led a cultural mentoring team for a local refugee family from Colombia. She loves playing volleyball, practices yoga and meditation. Avukile plans to get a master’s degree in public health after working a few years with public health organizations. Avu is excited for the wonderful professional and cultural opportunity in working with BIPAI in Botswana!

Jeff graduated from the University of Southern California in 2017, with degrees in Environmental Studies and International Relations. As an undergraduate he has examining the interplay between the environment and a globalizing world. In pursuit of these interests, Jeff has traveled to Western China, the Philippines, Scandinavia, and South Africa, with various research projects and academic endeavors. His focus has been finding ways to increase the sustainability in agriculture and food systems. To this end, Jeff has explored the agriculture space from multiple vantage points. In Tel Aviv, he worked at a venture capital firm, analyzing their agriculture and food technology assets. In Los Angeles, he interned with a start-up incubator, leading their agriculture initiatives. This parlayed itself into a position interning with an agricultural technology start-up. Jeff is thrilled to be working with Imani development in Malawi, and hopes to gain a new perspective on agricultural development while there. He is also excited to learn some Chichewa and potentially climb Mount Mulanje.