Zara graduated in 2015 from Davidson College where she majored in Political Science and minored in Economics. Her senior honors thesis explored the role of ethno-federal arrangements on economic development in Kenya, Somalia, and Ethiopia. During her time at Davidson, Zara attended the Rift Valley Institute’s Horn of Africa field course in Jinja, Uganda and interned for Spark Microgrants in Musanze, Rwanda, where she created a resource guide for facilitators covering various topics relating to international development. She also spent a semester at Sciences Po in Paris and had the opportunity to travel to Colombia to study the country’s internal conflict. Most recently, she interned for the Children’s Rights Division of Human Rights Watch, where she researched child labor issues within mining and cocoa farming sectors in various West African countries.  She is excited to spend the upcoming year working with the African School of Economics and specifically its Institute for Empirical Research in Policy Economy, using her French, and integrating into Beninese culture.

Violette is a French native who just graduated from Johns Hopkins University, with a dual degree in International Studies and Public Health Studies. Her interest in international development was sparked after an internship at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs in Paris, where she worked in the Health and Human Development sector, mostly focusing on health issues regarding women in developing countries. The following year, she was chosen to represent France at the G(irls)20 Summit, which picks one young woman from each G20 country to meet and discuss changes in women’s status around the world. Her passion for African culture and public health related issues regarding women in Africa broadened after a semester abroad in Cape Town, South Africa, which led her to return to Africa the following year, in Ethiopia, as an intern for the AMREF. She is looking forward to discovering a new part of Africa and a new area of development work, as a fellow at the UN World Food Program in Dakar, Senegal.

Victoria graduated from the University of Albany with a degree in Social Welfare. While at UAlbany, she served in the Student Association, Residential Life and as a peer mentor for programs aimed at supporting first-generation students. Since graduating she has served in the non-profit sector working in the areas of education, access and advocacy. Victoria developed a strong passion for work in Africa after she went to Ghana in 2011 and assisted with curriculum development, outreach, youth development and women’s empowerment initiatives. In her free time, Victoria enjoys being outdoors, dancing and spending time with friends and family. While in Kenya, Victoria is looking forward to going on at least one safari, learning how to make a few Kenyan dishes and working with local artisans through her work with Soko!

Tyler majored in International Relations and History at Claremont McKenna College. Tyler studied abroad in Marseille, France and Fez, Morocco, where he studied French and North African culture and history. Throughout his time at CMC, Tyler worked at the Mgrublian Center for Human Rights, where he wrote a paper on the 2011 Somali famine for the International Network of Genocide Scholars. He set off for northern Tanzania in the summer after his sophomore year, where he interviewed teachers and students about a new public debate program for the Asante Africa Foundation. In his junior year, Tyler wrote a research paper for the CIA’s Historical Collections Division on the role of intelligence in the 1973 Arab-Israeli Conflict, which was presented at a symposium at the Nixon Presidential Library. In the following summer, he interned at the Center for Preventive Action at the Council on Foreign Relations. Before his PiAf fellowship, Tyler worked at the Education Advisory Board, where he conducted research on higher education. Tyler is a lover of all things outdoors and cannot wait to enjoy all of the natural beauty South Africa has to offer, and hopefully pick up some isiXhosa along the way.

Susan holds a Bachelor of Fine Art with a minor in Human Rights and Conflict Studies as well as a teaching certificate in Art Education from Birmingham-Southern College. During her undergraduate career, she discovered an interest in promoting cross-cultural empathy through creative storytelling. Susan explored her passion for cultural exchange by traveling to Avedo, Ghana, where she taught art and English at a rural primary school. She also spent a semester studying art in Florence, Italy. While in Birmingham, Susan participated in long-term service-learning initiatives. She partnered with NorthStar Youth Ministries, an outreach program where she taught weekly art classes and mentored elementary students. Susan also participated in service throughout her internship at Glide Foundation, an internationally recognized social services organization in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco. While at Glide, she contributed to the Communications department’s efforts to share powerful stories of hope and healing and also assisted with creative arts programming for Glide youth. After graduating, Susan taught in an inclusive classroom for both children with special needs and typically-developing children. She is thrilled to begin this adventure and looks forward to learning from the Maru-a-Pula community, discovering the arts in Botswana, and exploring the country’s breathtaking landscape.

Olivia graduated from Columbia University with a BA in Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies (MESAAS) and Environmental Science. She wrote an honors thesis on stand-up comedy in East Africa entitled, “Laughing with Redykyulass: Critical Comedy in Moi’s Kenya.” She speaks French and Spanish fluently, and is currently focused on improving her Swahili and Turkish. Before college, Olivia spent a year in Paraguay living with a local family and volunteering full-time at a daycare for low-income children. Olivia has also had the opportunity to spend two summers in Africa, during one of them she studied Swahili in Kenya after being awarded a FLAS language scholarship. At Columbia, Olivia has been a member of GlobeMed in which she has organized fundraisers for global health issues and learned about grassroots global health organizations. Olivia also worked as a research assistant at the Earth Institute throughout her undergraduate career. In her first role, she assisted with the development of a systems thinking framework to enable African policymakers to choose relevant anti-malaria interventions. Her most recent project involved examining maize yield variability in African smallholder farms. Olivia is excited for work with the WFP as well as exploring Kampala and picking up some Luganda!

Nima recently graduated from Harvard University with a degree in Sociology. While in college, she explored interests in development, economic inequality, and global trends in race and racism. This year she will be working with Population Services International’s East Africa office, based in Nairobi. The fact that some of the world’s citizens live decades longer and healthier lives than others is one of her biggest concerns, so she is very excited about starting work at PSI. She’s looking forward to applying both new methods (like mobile delivery of health services and social marketing) and more familiar ones (social science research) towards that end. During her fellowship, she hopes to explore the Nairobi food scene, improve her Somali (the language of her cultural heritage) and eat way more nyama choma than is wise.

Nafees graduated from Georgetown University in 2012 with a degree in Government focusing on International Relations, a minor in French, and a certificate in Muslim-Christian Relations. She studied abroad in Turkey, Egypt, and France. While at Georgetown, she was a Manager at The Corp, the largest student-run business in the US, and hosted a radio show called Riot on the Radio. In the north of Pakistan, she interviewed micro-entrepreneurs for Sarhad Rural Support Program’s monitoring and evaluations team. She helped start-up Swat Relief Initiative, an NGO that helps victims of Taliban occupation of Swat, Pakistan. Upon graduation, Nafees worked as a Fellow at the United Nations Information Center. She then worked as a Senior Associate at Chemonics International, where she managed the last USAID project in Mongolia, which worked to increase the competitiveness of small and medium enterprises. She is excited about spending the year in rural Kenya and Uganda where she’ll be working in micro-grants.

Monica was born in Tennessee but has always felt more comfortable on a plane traveling somewhere new.  At Stanford, she majored in Human Biology with a concentration in Global Development and Social Justice and minored in French.  After her sophomore year, while attempting to research the connection between colonialism and maternal health outcomes, she traveled to Madagascar and Uganda and found herself deeply changed in the process.  Newly committed to social impact, she worked at Dalberg Global Development Advisors in Washington, D.C., volunteered at East Palo Alto Tennis and Tutoring, directed Stanford’s student government’s Social Impact Initiative, chaired the Pre-Professional Team of the Social Entrepreneurial Students’ Association, and wrote an honors thesis in the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law about the effect of contraceptive prevalence on maternal mortality.  Before leaving for Togo, she worked at the Tides Foundation in San Francisco.  Monica is obsessed with coffee and tea from around the world and can’t wait to see what new adventures await her in West Africa.  While still figuring out whether she wants to pursue a career as a physician, she hopes to soak in the experience and become a more informed global citizen.

Alumni Update:

Monique has recently transitioned to a Senior Analyst in the DAI Sustainable Business Group. Her work focuses on implementing innovative social investment programs on behalf of corporate clients, several of which are in West Africa.

Fellow Bio:

Monique graduated in 2015 from Hamilton College in New York where she majored in World Politics with a minor in Economics. Her academic focuses were Africa, international development, and economic sustainability. Her senior thesis was a comparative case study of Chinese and American development models in Africa, specifically Ethiopia and Ghana. Monique spent the fall of 2013 in Cape Town, South Africa studying human rights and multiculturalism and conducting independent field-research on poverty in a local township. This past summer, Monique interned with Calvert Investment Management in Bethesda, Md., where she assisted with corporate sustainability research focused on gender and diversity. Monique also has had past work experience with the Child Labor Coalition and the UNESCO Chair & Institute of Comparative Human Rights in 2013 and 2012 respectively. At Hamilton, Monique was a member of the Varsity Softball team, worked as a Peer Presenter at the Career Center, a Research Assistant in the Government Department, and was the treasurer for the on-campus group Liberty in North Korea. Monique will be fulfilling the role of Communications Officer for the African Cashew Alliance in Accra, Ghana starting in June 2015 as a 2015-16 Princeton in Africa Fellow.