she/her/hers

Renée Ledoux is graduating from Tufts University in May 2023 with a B.S. in Biology and Community Health. While studying for a semester in Copenhagen, Denmark, Renée focused her studies on healthcare abroad compared to the U.S. During her undergraduate years, Renée focused on public health initiatives and providing support to those is strengthened by her internship with the Kasiisi Project, an education, health, and conservation nonprofit based near Fort Portal, Uganda. She is responsible for conducting grant research, writing grant proposals, and assisting with the development of programming for the mobile clinic and girls’ health. Renée loves the outdoors and has led backpacking orientation trips for Tufts University. She plans to pursue a career as a physician following the Princeton in Africa Fellowship.

Elena is an Eritrean American and a graduate of Occidental College in Kinesiology & Public Health. She is passionate about fostering sustainable public health development, dedicating herself to both service and research. At Occidental, her primary research endeavor was a longitudinal study examining the impact of schoolyard greening renovations on physical activity and social behaviors among schoolchildren in Los Angeles. Using SPSS & ArcGIS, she organized and analyzed large-scale data sets to provide quantifiable evidence supporting environmental equity. Elena’s efforts made her the first Kinesiology student to receive Occidental’s Science Scholar Fellowship grant to develop and implement several innovative research protocols for the study. Additionally, she helped conduct research studies examining the accessibility of oral health coverage through Medicaid and the potential health burden of consumer products targeted towards women of color. Elena also served as a Community Health Worker for Every Woman Counts, which provides free mammograms and pap tests to uninsured and undocumented individuals across LA County. Upon graduation, she worked as a COVID-19 Case Investigator & Contact Tracer for the LA Department of Public Health. She most recently served as a Clinical Research Coordinator for a study addressing post-traumatic stress symptoms among assault-injured youth at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Elena’s experiences have nurtured her lifelong commitment to community-driven development and evidence-based health intervention, which she is eager to continue exploring with BIPAI Eswatini!

Edwina was born and raised in Ghana. She graduated from Stanford University in 2020 with a degree in Energy Resources Engineering and a minor in African Studies. She worked with energy companies in New York City developing community-generated clean energy solutions for the Long Island community, and with oil companies in Southern California where she developed solutions to mitigate carbon dioxide emissions from an oilfield. She explored her interest in service by working on self-designed projects with two Ghanaian NGOs – the West African AIDS Foundation (WAAF) where she designed and implemented a community intervention program to train Ghanaian high-school-aged youth as HIV/AIDS peer and Smartix Education where she developed a comprehensive sexual health education curriculum and teaching module for Ghanaian schools, through a fellowship from Stanford University. She is passionate about female empowerment and worked with Stanford’s Clayman Institute for Gender Research where she conducted research, analyzed data, and helped plan events. Through these academic and professional experiences, she explored the intersection of energy, health, and education. She speaks English, Asante Twi, Fante, French, Yoruba, Mandarin, and Igbo and enjoys cooking, building-watching, learning new languages, and reading African Science fiction books. As a young African, she is excited by the upsurge in youth-led innovation, service, and social activism across the continent and is eager to work with fellow African youth to contribute to the continent’s well-being and development, while cultivating meaningful relationships. Post fellowship, she hopes to pursue an MBA focusing on social impact on the African continent.

Trina Swanson, from Iowa, studied Medical Anthropology at Princeton University, and earned certificates in African Studies and Global Health. She also studied Kiswahili, and spent two summers in Tanzania, continuing her Kiswahili studies and interning at a health center. These summers, she also volunteered as an English teacher at a local market, and then at a shelter for homeless girls and their children. Her senior thesis was an ethnography of maternal healthcare for Tanzanian girls and women under age 21. She conducted interviews with health care providers, young mothers, and their families, traveling throughout Arusha and the surrounding villages and holding many adorable infants. Trina spent a prior summer interning in development at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. During her third year of university, she helped PiAf out on the backend as an intern, so she is excited to now be a fellow herself. On campus, she was also involved in Matriculate, a college access non-profit, and she rode weekly overnight shifts with Princeton First Aid and Rescue Squad as a licensed EMT. Since leaving Princeton, Trina has been volunteering at her local district health center on the Covid-19 response and doing research for the JUST data lab at Princeton to build a “Pandemic Portal” on the intersection of race and COVID-19. Trina has a passion for social justice, and hopes to attend medical school and devote her career to global health. She also loves to play violin, watch musicals, and make homemade hot fudge.

Michal graduated from American University’s School of International Service, focusing on governance and identity in Africa. At American, Michal was a founding member and Inaugural Gala Director for No Lost Generation, a student-led refugee advocacy initiative partnered with the State Department, where she raised $4,000 benefitting children’s education in Kenyan refugee camps. Throughout her undergraduate career, Michal developed her finance and research related skill sets with various organizations including the State Department, Peace Corps, International Rescue Committee and Search for Common Ground. Michal expanded her academic background in African affairs by studying abroad at the United States International University – Africa (Nairobi) and the School of Oriental and African Studies (London). She interned with the Center of Domestic Training and Development in Nairobi, an organization serving vulnerable women and girls, and was a volunteer for SOAS’ Annual African Development Forum. After graduating early in December 2018, Michal was a full-time Finance Fellow at a political consulting firm in Washington D.C., where she supported research and fundraising alongside business development initiatives. As an Eritrean-American, Michal is excited to return to the continent and work with BIPAI Swaziland and Eswatini’s Ministry of Health to increase access to health care for marginalized peoples.

Naomi grew up on Long Island, NY and graduated from Williams College, where she studied Economics and Public Health. She wrote her undergraduate honors thesis on the effects of cash transfer and empowerment programs on maternal and child well-being in Uganda, for which she was awarded Highest Honors and received the Jack Larned 1942 International Management Prize for a student paper of superior quality dealing with developmental enterprises. She also received the Van Duyne Prize in Economics to support her thesis work throughout her senior year. She spent eight weeks as an intern at IPA in Malawi, where she experienced the difficulties that arise when working in a developing country while also assisting with a project that focused on improving the incomes of small-holder farmers. She spent her junior fall in South Africa studying community health and social policy. After Williams, Naomi interned at HealthRight International, exploring how an international health organization manages both grant opportunities and projects in-country. Prior to her fellowship with Princeton in Africa at the Clinton Health Access Initiative, Naomi was a Research Associate at the Schroeder Center for Health Policy, based at William & Mary, where much of her work focused on domestic healthcare policy.