Alumni Update:
Joseph is continuing to work as a secondary science teacher at Maru-a-Pula School in Gaborone, Botswana. He also helps teach swimming, produces a student-run podcast, and trains older students to be peer mentors.
Fellow Bio:
Joe attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison, graduating in 2013 with a degree in biology and a certificate in global health. While at school, he conducted pre-clinical research on potential therapeutics for prostate cancer before focusing his studies on public health. He traveled to Kenya to learn from healthcare providers and community organizers about their methods of managing the HIV/AIDS epidemic. While there, he worked as a sexual health educator with HIV-positive adolescents, focusing on opening a dialogue about sexuality, stigma, and relationships between Kenyans and Americans. After graduating, Joe joined Teach For America in Milwaukee, WI to strengthen his teaching skills. He has taught high school science for the last three years in both the public and charter school systems while simultaneously earning a Master’s degree through Marquette University’s Department of Educational Policy & Leadership. He looks forward to moving to Botswana for his first extended trip abroad teaching science at Maru-a-Pula in Gaborone. He wishes to learn more about the role of culturally relevant teaching in an era of global competition as well as the intersections between educational and public health policies.
Alumni Update:
Julia is beginning medical school at NYU School of Medicine in New York City. She is excited to be pursuing her passion and looks forward to defining her direction within the practice of healthcare over the next few years.
Fellow Bio:
Julia graduated from Princeton in 2016 with a degree in Molecular Biology and certificates in Quantitative and Computational Biology (QCB) and Neuroscience. Before Princeton, Julia took a gap year in which she worked on a dairy farm in Costa Rica, backpacked in Alaska, and interned for nonprofits and research laboratories. While at Princeton, she sang second soprano in the University Chapel Choir, served on the student board of the Episcopal Church at Princeton and on the Faculty-Student Committee on Discipline, and was a member of the club squash and running teams. She worked for the past two years as an undergraduate researcher on a neuroscience project investigating the connection between the cerebellum and cognitive behavior, and hopes to pursue global medicine after her Princeton in Africa fellowship year in Gaborone, Botswana. She is excited for the challenge and reward of teaching and forming relationships at Maru-a-Pula and for the chance to adventure and explore!
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!
Fellow Bio:
Jennifer is from Victoria, BC, Canada, and will always be an ocean girl. She was an ecology and evolutionary biology major at Princeton but—illogically—spent the year after graduation teaching art (and music, and computers, and ESL) at an international school on a misty mountaintop in South India, through Princeton in Asia. She is wildly excited to be returning to Africa, having done her senior thesis research on hybrid zebras in Kenya. A “Jill of all trades,” Jennifer looks forward to doing anything and everything for the Komku Trust, while pursuing her interests in art, writing, music and exploring.
Originally from the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California, Hannah graduated from Middlebury College with a degree in International and Global Studies and minor in Global Health. While at Middlebury, Hannah served in board positions with clubs like GlobeMed and danced with Midd Masti, a South Asian dance group. Throughout her academic career, Hannah held internships at Gardens for Health International, Global Brigades in Ghana, and the U.S. Embassy in El Salvador; she also spent a wonderfully warm winter term teaching English in Costa Rica. Hannah assisted in a long-term research project with a Middlebury professor and spent one summer in Amhara, Ethiopia collecting field-notes on the Women’s Development Army, a government program seeking to empower women and improve health outcomes from a grass-roots level. Her passions for health equity and access were strengthened during her junior year abroad in Argentina and Tanzania. While in Buenos Aires, she interned at a maternal hospital and conducted independent research on comparative health policy. In Tanzania, Hannah studied political ecology, Kiswahili, and spent a month living and studying with a Maasai healer. Hannah is excited to relocate to Gaborone, Botswana to join the Young 1ove team, learn Setswana, and finally escape harsh winters of Vermont.
Alumni Update:
After his fellowship ended in June 2014, Fritz moved to Moscow, Idaho where he is completing his first year of medical school at University of Washington School of Medicine. This summer, he will be implementing small-scale global health initiatives within a longitudinal cardiovascular study in Nepal. This fall, he will move to Seattle, WA to start his second year of school.
Fellow Bio:
Fritz is from Boise, ID and graduated with degrees in biochemistry and philosophy. While at Whitman, Fritz was the volunteer coordinator at a free health clinic, CFO of Whitman’s student government, a starter on the club rugby team, and an avid wearer of topsiders. Also while at Whitman, Fritz led two Spring Service Trips to New Orleans, rebuilding houses destroyed by Hurricane Katina. This past year, Fritz has been working as a medical scribe in the Emergency Department back in Boise. He also started his own tutoring company and interned at the Boise Basque Culture Museum. Having never been to Africa before, Fritz is looking forward to just about everything during his fellowship. As an aspiring physician with an interest in pediatrics, he is especially looking forward to working with kids in Botswana and hoping he can match their energy!
Emily graduated from Kansas State University in May 2017 with a Bachelor’s of Science in Elementary Education, a secondary major in International Studies, and minors in Spanish and Nonprofit Leadership Studies. In the summer of 2013 Emily taught English for a rural migrant community in Puebla, Mexico then headed to Valparaíso, Chile in spring 2014 to teach English in an urban public school. In the summer of 2016, Emily returned to Latin America to teach English at a local cultural center in Cuenca, Ecuador. In between trips, Emily enjoyed working as a Program Leader and Intern for the Boys and Girls Club of Manhattan and as a teaching assistant for first semester college freshmen in the course Introduction to Leadership Concepts. Emily spent her final semester at K-State student teaching in a local kindergarten classroom and also finished her fifth year playing bass drum in the Kansas State University Marching Band. Moving forward, Emily is excited to teach at Maru-a-Pula and learn about the Botswanan education system. She hopes to use the skills she has gained throughout her collegiate experiences to challenge her students to think critically and creatively about the world around them.
Fellow Bio:
Emily (Wesleyan ‘11) is from Princeton, NJ. She majored in Psychology and French Studies and received the Writing Certificate. At Wesleyan, Emily was a member of the club ski team, the Ebony Singers gospel choir, and she led a community service group that taught elementary school children about disabilities through puppet theater. While in Botswana next year, Emily looks forward to learning more about pediatric HIV/AIDS care before she heads off to medical school.
India is from Bellevue, WA and is a 2014 graduate from Pitzer College of the Claremont Colleges. At Pitzer, India created her own Global Health major and graduated with honors in Spanish. Through studying abroad twice, once in Costa Rica and Nicaragua and later in Botswana, she developed a strong interest in public health and pediatric care. As a former member of the Pomona-Pitzer women’s soccer team and previous Soccer Without Borders coach, India is excited to explore athletics in Botswana. India is thrilled to return to Gaborone to work with the Baylor International Pediatric AIDS Initiative, and hopes that this experience will enrich her understanding of international health and pediatric epidemiology. After her PiAf placement, India will pursue a MSPH in International Health: Global Disease Epidemiology and Control at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Alumni Update:
Devan is still in Boston with her wonderful husband and fellow PiAf-er, David Bartels! They welcomed their second child in later summer of 2019. After being a staff anesthesiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital for the last 2 years, she moved to Williamstown, MA, to start working as an anesthesiologist at Berkshire Medical Center. As her family gets a bit older, she is looking forward to engaging more in volunteering abroad including in southern Africa.