Alumni Update:

Nate is a PhD student in economics at Yale University. His research involves work on migration, urbanization and risk, mostly focused on Africa. He currently has active work fieldwork being conducted on in Ghana and Tanzania. he is mostly in the United States, but makes fairly regular trips to Ghana.

Fellow Bio:

Nate Barker is originally from Vancouver, WA, and is a graduate of Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. While at Georgetown, he majored in International Economics and received a certificate in International Development. During his time as a Hoya, he studied in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and worked in consulting in La Paz, Bolivia. In his free time, Nate enjoys reading, and playing and watching soccer and basketball. He is thrilled about the chance to be working in Kenya next year, where he hopes to pick up Swahili, climb Mount Kenya, and contribute to micro-enterprise development with The BOMA Project.

Alumni Update:

Neal is currently living in NYC.

Fellow Bio:

Neal is a Biochemistry major from Pittsburgh, PA. While at Northwestern, he captained the men’s ultimate frisbee team and designed global head education curricula for GlobeMed, a nonprofit that pairs college students and grassroots health organizations. In addition, he has written for the Atlantic and spent a summer helping to update a community health worker program in Liberia. Next year, Neal looks forward to learning about public health, picking up some Sesotho, and exploring Lesotho – be it on foot, bike, or pony.

Alumni Update:

In the year since his fellowship, Nabil has been working in Washington, DC as a research assistant at the Center for Global Development, an independent think tank that focuses on issues in international development. His work at CGD is concentrated on migration, aid effectiveness, and international financial institutions.

Fellow Bio:

Nabil is from Simsbury, CT and graduated with a degree in International Political Economy and a certificate in International Development. While at Georgetown, he helped start Compass Partners, a nonprofit organization that works with college freshmen around the country to launch their own social enterprises. Since graduating he has been working full-time to bring Compass to more schools in the US and abroad. In his free time, he enjoys running, reading, and making his own ice cream. While in Gabon next year with Olam International, Nabil looks forward to learning more about the role for-profit companies can play in development, eating fresh mangos, and getting to know new people and a new country.

Fellow Bio:

Morgan is an Ecology and Evolutionary Biology major from Atlanta, GA. At Princeton, she was on the crew team and studied abroad in Panama and Kenya. Following graduation, Morgan returned to Mpala Research Centre, Kenya, where she worked on experiments looking at wildlife-livestock interactions. Next, from the bush to the big city, Morgan headed off to London for her MSc in Population and Development at the LSE. She has racked up quite a collection of photographs from her travels and is looking forward to adding many, many more when she returns to Kenya! Morgan is excited to head back to Mpala to catch up with old friends, watch elephants from her front porch, and to finally learn Swahili!

Michelle is originally from Philadelphia and majored in Human and Organizational Development with a concentration in International Development. During her time at Vanderbilt, Michelle co-founded two service organizations, mentored homeless, refugee and at-risk youth, and served as a Resident Advisor. Her work with an anti-child trafficking organization in India and a girls’ education fund in Kenya sparked her interest in international development. She was then able to study abroad in Shanghai and intern with a global health organization, Seva Foundation, out in Berkeley, CA, and those experiences solidified her interest in the international development field. Michelle is incredibly excited to work with the International Rescue Committee in Liberia and continue to explore different facets of international development. She feels that her time in Liberia will greatly impact her worldview, and she is looking forward to travelling, meeting new people, being challenged, living near the ocean, and absorbing Liberian culture.

Alumni Update:

Mike is now in his third year of residency in the Family and Community Medicine department at University of California San Francisco. He is working on research projects both related to social and health systems barriers to health care in Tanzania as well as impacts of homelessness on health in the US.

Fellow Bio:

Mike is a biology major with minors in anthropology and chemistry. Mike is originally from Minneapolis, MN and at Macalester he was a wide receiver on the football team, president of the Health Professions Student Coalition and a chemistry tutor. Through Macalester, Mike participated in summer research programs on campus and at the University of Minnesota and studied abroad in Gaborone, Botswana. In his free time, Mike volunteers at Regions Hospital and plays the saxophone. Next year in Botswana Mike looks forward to practicing the Setswana that he learned during study abroad, meeting new people and enjoying local food.

Alumni Update:

After working in Baltimore around community investment for the past five years, he has returned to graduate school at McGill University to pursue a master’s in urban planning where he focuses on neighborhood revitalization and schools. He currently splits his time between Montreal, Baltimore and Philadelphia

Fellow Bio:

Michael Arnst was an International Studies (African Studies concentration) and German literature double-major and is originally from Chaska, Minnesota. While an undergraduate, he interned at the East African Economic Development Center in Minneapolis and studied abroad at the University of Botswana. Since graduating, he has worked in the East and Southern Africa program at the National Endowment for Democracy in Washington, D.C., and acted as the membership manager for Kabissa, an online network of African civil society organizations. As a dedicated film and music festival junkie, he is excited to explore all the cultural offerings to be found in Cape Town.

Alumni Update:

Meredith is currently living in Brooklyn, NY where she lead sales and marketing at Soko, a social enterprise startup that uses technology to empower artisan entrepreneurs in Kenya. After almost two years in NYC, she’ll be moving to San Francisco in June, where she’ll continue her work at Soko. She looks forward to returning to Africa this fall to work with their team in Nairobi (and meeting their inaugural PiAf Fellow!).

Fellow Bio:

Meredith graduated with majors in Public Policy and International Comparative Studies with an Africa concentration. A native Californian from Palo Alto, she is proud to have also called Boulder, Paris, New York City, and Durham, NC home over the past four years. At Duke, Meredith served on the honor board of her sorority, Delta Gamma, and dabbled in West African dance and Afro-Cuban percussion. A former intern at a peanut butter company, she is excited to add the African Cashew Alliance to the list of nutty places she’s worked. Meredith looks forward to the next year of exploring a new culture, eating lots of mango, and dancing on many of Ghana’s beaches.

Fellow Bio:

Mark graduated with degrees in African Studies and Social Policy. While at Northwestern, he held leadership positions on the African Students Association, the Global Engagement Summit, and the Undergraduate Africa Seminar. Off campus, he studied Public Health and Forced Migration at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda, and interned with the Refugee Law Project, the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, and the Center for Forced Migration Studies. Raised in suburban Illinois, Mark is excited to experience life in the country of his father’s birth. He especially looks forward to improving his Amharic, interacting with hyenas at Harar, visiting other fellows in their respective countries, eating injera every day, and exploring the Addis music scene.

Alumni Update:

Marielle is the Impact Manager at Women Win, a multi-dimensional women’s fund with two main areas of work: Girls’ rights through sport and play, and women’s economic resilience. She is responsible for Women Win’s monitoring, evaluation, research, and learning practice. Marielle is also the co-founder of RefugeeForce, a social enterprise that develops the skills and careers of Refugees while bringing talent and diversity to the Salesforce ecosystem.

Fellow Bio:

Marielle graduated with a degree in History and a minor in Poverty, Social Justice, and Human Capabilities. While pursuing her degree, she captained the club soccer team, volunteered her time with mentally disabled adults in Houston, and studied public health in Copenhagen, Denmark. Through past internships, Marielle has studied Swahili in Kenya, researched family planning in Zanzibar, Tanzania, and built rainwater harvesting systems in Lesotho. Marielle is excited to return to Nairobi to gain experience in the field, brush up on her Swahili, and run the Lewa half-marathon next summer!