he/him/his

 Max Kaye recently graduated from the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, where he majored in Culture and Politics (CULP) and obtained an African Studies certificate. Max designed his CULP major to look at strengthening state capacity on the African continent. He also closely follows developments in South and Central America and studied during his junior year in Argentina in a program centered on transnationalism and comparative development in South America. Max has a strong interest in philanthropy and has worked in business development at several nonprofits. As the Peace Programs Development intern at The Carter Center in Fall 2022, Max helped develop grant proposals and researched and created presentations related to European and Asian donors. Prior to that, Max was the Development Intern in the Global Economy and Development Program at Brookings Institution, where he supported the grants management and reporting process. Additionally, Max interned at PeaceTech Lab, a nonprofit dedicated to using tech and media to promote peace, and at the Culmore Clinic, a health care clinic for low-income, predominantly Spanish speaking clients. Max was raised in the Washington, D.C. area. During his free time, he loves to connect with friends and family, work out, watch a variety of sports, and read about new international developments.

Originally from Brooklyn, New York, Madeline Wong graduated from Tufts University with majors in biology and archaeology. Her college research with The Kibale Chimpanzee Project and The Kasiisi Project spanned biology, anthropology, conservation, and education in rural Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Madeline was the undergraduate One Health student contact in collaboration with Tufts Dental, Medical, and Veterinary schools and taught the importance of ancient cultures at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Uplifting her communities, Madeline supported microfinancing for immigrant small businesses in New York and Massachusetts. As a Princeton in Africa fellow with the communications and knowledge management team at the International Livestock Research Institute based in Nairobi, Kenya, Madeline has been reporting on sustainable livelihoods and gender projects that by design highlight South-South cooperation.

Neil Wary was raised in the Chicago suburbs and deeply cares about health equity, mentorship, and service. He recently graduated from Stanford University (2022) with a bachelor’s in Human Biology, a master’s in Epidemiology and Clinical Research, and a minor in Music. During his time at Stanford, Neil was involved with Stanford Medicine’s free clinics, edited Stanford’s Journal of Science, Technology & Society, and was a peer tutor. Neil has extensive research experience in cardiovascular and cardiometabolic diseases and wrote his master’s thesis on predicting insulin sensitivity using blood-based biomarkers. In his free time, Neil plays the violin. Following the Princeton in Africa fellowship, Neil plans to attend music conservatory and then medical school. He is excited to be joining the faculty at USAP Community School in Ruwa, Zimbabwe.

Kyilah Terry was born and raised in Chicago, IL and graduated with her Bachelor’s degree in International Studies and German from UCLA in 2019. In May 2021, she graduated from Georgetown University with her Master’s in International Relations with a concentration in migration diplomacy and refugee law. During her graduate studies, Kyilah worked as a research assistant at the Council of Foreign Relations (CFR), the U.S. Institute of Peace (Africa Center), the Migration Policy Institute (MPI), and the Institute for the Study of International Migration (ISIM), where she focused on forced displacement and migration management with a regional focus in Europe and Africa. These experiences culminated in her master’s capstone, which was later published in an academic journal, and focused on EU migration externalization policies in North Africa. As a result of her desire to gain more practical experience, she became a policy associate for an immigration consulting firm, where she authored legal and advocacy reports for non-profit immigration organizations in the D.C. area on climate-induced displacement in East Africa. Right before becoming a PiAf Fellow to IRC Kenya, she worked as a Congressional Fellow on Vice President Kamala Harris’s Domestic Policy team and handled VP Harris’s immigration portfolio.

Ian Stiehl graduated from Dartmouth College with a major in Astronomy and a minor in Mathematical Physics while completing the pre-medical track. His honors thesis integrated all three courses of study in a project that applied information theory to the field of extrasolar planetary science. He examined whether computational methods could distinguish between different types of planets (e.g., Earth vs. Jupiter) without the need for input physics. Involved in the Native American Program at Dartmouth, Ian spent three years working as a tutor and advising younger students on scholarship applications. Outside of school, he interned at Allegro Pediatrics in Washington state and researched how the musculoskeletal system responds to spaceflight with funding from the Stamps Scholarship. Originally from Seattle, he grew up loving the outdoors, an interest he maintained in college. He has led multiple backcountry canoe and hiking trips around the US and relishes the opportunity to explore northern Tanzania. In his free time, Ian loves running, racing on Dartmouth’s triathlon team all four years of college. In February of 2023, months of training came to a close as he participated in the Kilimanjaro marathon. With Tanzanian Education Corporation, Ian has served as a computer science teacher, an IT manager, a STEM project advisor and more. He started both a Girls in STEM program that meets weekly and a digital literacy development program for teachers at Tumaini Senior Secondary School (TSSS) where he works. Also in pursuit of bridging the computer knowledge gap, he initiated a partnership between TSSS and the International Certificate of Digital Literacy (ICDL). ICDL classes for A-level students are currently in the pilot phase for a full launch in July 2023. Ian has been grateful to his colleagues, students, and friends at TSSS for welcoming him into the school community.

Lauryn Spinetta is a recent graduate of Princeton University (’22), majored in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. During her time at Princeton, she served as the captain of the Women’s Club Soccer team and as a Peer Health Advisor. Lauryn tells others that she is from Austin, Texas but has roots spread across the world, having moved twelve times growing up in support of her father’s military service. Born overseas, holding 3 citizenships, and earning her FAA private pilot’s license, and having traveled to over 15 countries and counting, Lauryn is irrevocably infected with wanderlust. During the summer of 2019, Lauryn volunteered at Levolosi Health Centre in Arusha, Tanzania, spending 3 months assisting medical professionals in the labor and delivery ward. The following summer, she joined the Rubenstein Research Group and began research into the interaction between wildlife and livestock in Mpala, Kenya. This experience contributed to her junior-year independent work and her senior thesis addressing the social and developmental environments of Plain Zebras in Ol Pejeta, Kenya. Lauryn also served as a clinical research intern at Cardiothoracic and Vascular Surgeons as well as an intern with the Cardiac ICU at Dell Children’s Hospital in Austin, where she co-authored two articles and an abstract from her research to improve the quality of cardiac care and patient outcomes. In her last semester at Princeton, Lauryn was a part of the EEB Field Study Abroad Program at the Mpala Research Centre and the Turkana Basin Institute in Kenya. After a successful Princeton in Africa fellowship, Lauryn plans to attend medical school and pursue a career dedicated to the service of others. In her spare time, Lauryn is a voracious reader and loves to fly planes and go hiking. She is very excited to spend a year working and exploring Rwanda.

Madison is from Frenchtown, NJ and graduated from Princeton University with a Bachelor of Arts in Public and International Affairs with a minor in Global Health Policy. Growing up in a rural community, she has been interested in the field of development since a young age, specifically in health and agriculture. At Princeton, this interest was expanded to the international sphere when she interned at Mpala Research Centre in Kenya. Although she was working on an ecology project studying the local zebra population, this experience launched her interest in rural development. Following this experience, she worked with Community LIFT to research the impact of grassroots-based, community-member-led development in Memphis, Tennessee through qualitative survey collection. This project solidified her interest in leveraging investments to make positive social change. She also has strong competencies in grant writing, having worked in a government-capacity building with Emerging Public Leaders; research, having helped in drafting Rural Investments to Protect Our Environment’s white paper; and R, having assisted in the first analysis of International Care Ministries’ Uganda program. During her academic career, she mentored middle and high school students through a digital exchange program, worked to promote reproductive health on campus, and was a teaching assistant to a junior seminar that examined democracy and development promotion through USAID. Madison is excited to work with ILRI and continue to deepen her knowledge of agriculture development.

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.

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.

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.