Alumni Update:

Having just graduated from Sciences Po’s Paris School of International Affairs with a Masters in International Public Management, Sylvana is currently working at UNESCO as the Communication and Outreach Consultant for a project on intercultural dialogue for peacebuilding. She is based in Paris. 

Fellow Bio:

Sylvana is from Orange, Connecticut and graduated from Vanderbilt University in 2016 with majors in Political Science (focusing on International Relations and Comparative Politics) and English Literature, and a minor in Anthropology. She has studied abroad in Argentina, England, Switzerland, Rwanda, and Uganda. While at Vanderbilt, Sylvana tutored with The After-School Program, wrote for the online magazine the Odyssey, did freelance photography for groups on campus, and was an officer of Alpha Delta Pi, amongst other things. During her summers at university, Sylvana travelled to Gulu, Uganda with Pros for Africa on a medical mission and interned in the Multimedia Division of the New York office of Human Rights Watch. All of these experiences led to her decision to focus on human rights advocacy and development in Africa. Sylvana is beyond excited to explore West Africa, as well as visit her homestay families in East Africa, and start work with the ACA! Some of her goals for the next year are to climb Kilimanjaro and get accepted to law school!

Alumni Update:

Sarah currently works with the Global Impact Investing Network in New York City, increasing the scale and effectiveness of the impact investing industry. She has loved living in New York and working in the field, but will be leaving in May to travel before starting business school at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management in the fall!

Fellow Bio:

Sarah majored in Economics and minored in English. On campus, she played JV and inter-mural soccer, volunteered with the Common Good Grant program, a student run philanthropy, and chaired Bowdoin’s Judicial Board. Since graduating, Sarah has worked as Business Analyst in Deloitte Consulting’s Strategy and Operations practice. She has worked in a variety of industries, recently focusing on Finance strategy, and is interested in ways that business models can be used for social good. Sarah is originally from Washington DC, and has lived in Boston, MA for the past two years. She is excited to explore northern Ghana, and to better understand what really goes into the production of a cotton T-shirt!

Rohita graduated with a degree in International Affairs concentrating in African Studies as well as a minor in GIS/Cartography. She spent a summer in Ghana working with a small NGO empowering girls through sports as well as a semester in Rwanda studying post-genocide restoration. While in Rwanda she conducted an independent research project on local methods of conflict mediation by traveling around the country to observe dispute resolution processes. She’s also received the opportunity to intern at a variety of different organizations including All Africa Media, The Woodrow Wilson Center, as well as working on the Mandela Washington Fellowship, the flagship program of President Obama’s Young African Leaders Initiative. In her spare time, she works with a startup called Africa Talent Management, an organization that aims to connect local African talent with U.S. businesses expanding to Africa. Most recently she’s been working on the Digital and Strategic Communications team at Amnesty International USA designing emails in HTML, managing website content, and just learning more about non-profits in the digital space. Rohita is extremely excited to be going back to Ghana and doing Communications for the Global Shea Alliance.

Alumni Update:

Niklas is currently living in Brooklyn, NY and working at Acumen, a nonprofit that makes long-term debt or equity investments in early-stage companies providing critical goods and services to low-income customers. Niklas has also been working on Acumen’s Business Development and Portfolio Teams since his fellowship ended in 2012.

Fellow Bio:

Niklas (Princeton ‘11) is a Woodrow Wilson School major from Spearfish, South Dakota. At Princeton, he was the President of the Undergraduate Film Organization, a DJ for WPRB, and the Advocacy Chair for the Student Global AIDS Campaign. Niklas is an avid photographer and also enjoys creating electronic music from field recordings. At Princeton, he had the opportunity to study abroad in Havana, Cuba and work for the Solidarity Center in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Niklas is looking forward to an exciting year in Ghana learning about the cocoa industry and getting to know local farmers.

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.

Michael is from Stanwood, Washington and graduated from Claremont McKenna College in 2015 with a B.A. in Science and Management (an inter-disciplinary major focused on biology and economics) and a sequence in Human Rights, Genocide, and Holocaust Studies. After his sophomore year in college, Michael worked with ThinkImpact for two months in eastern Rwanda where he collaborated with a team of community members to develop a social enterprise focused on promoting small-scale agricultural projects. In the fall of 2013, Michael interned in the finance department of the San Francisco-based biotechnology company FibroGen. The following summer he worked at Stiftung Solarenergie, a non-profit solar energy company in the Philippines, where he led healthcare workers in orientations for solar energy systems and researched the response of development organizations to Typhoon Haiyan. During his senior year at CMC, Michael was a fellow at the Mgrublian Center for Human Rights, where he completed a thesis analyzing the economic and public health effects of progressive drug policies. In his free time, Michael enjoys backpacking, longboarding, and trying weird new foods. While in Ghana this year, Michael is extremely excited to learn more about infrastructure development in emerging markets through his work with eleQtra.

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.

John graduated with a BA in Business Administration from the Organization and Innovation Management program. From New Jersey, John’s transfer from a community college to Colorado State marked his change in career direction. Discovering his love for community involvement, John quickly immersed himself supervising an after-school program for low income families and volunteering as the lead student organizer for Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. Through his innovation-centric courses, John worked on projects for a local, socially conscious small business, Zero Hero, and an international NGO, Outreach Uganda. It was during this time that John realized his passion for work in developing countries: improving access to education, developing income generating activities to strengthen communities and encouraging a healthier lifestyle through innovation and shared responsibility. In 2012 John worked as a marketing intern for the Ah Haa School for the Arts and then moved to Ghana to volunteer and work as a project manager for Cheerful Hearts Foundation’s End Child Labour & Trafficking Project. He is excited to move back to Ghana and experience how the private sector can help achieve the regions development goals.

Grace graduated with a degree in International Relations and French and Francophone Studies. Originally from rural Virginia, she spent her time at W&M learning as much about the rest of the world as she could. While studying abroad in Cameroon, Grace completed a research project on Cameroonian perceptions of U.S. and Chinese foreign aid projects. She spent the following semester in Paris interning for a Tibetan cultural association. Grace returned to W&M to work for AidData, a research and innovation lab that provides easily accessible, transparent, and comprehensive information on foreign aid allocations. With AidData, she helped track Chinese foreign aid flows to Africa. Grace also spent her senior year as a research fellow with the Project on International Peace and Security, an on-campus think tank, and proposed leveraging GIS technology to study the potential relationship between foreign aid and security conditions. Grace spent her summers as a camp counselor sharing her love for marine science and sailing. She is looking forward to learning new languages and becoming more knowledgeable about all things shea-related in Ghana.

Alumni Update:

Grace works at USAID as a Relationship Manager for the Development Credit Authority, where she builds and strengthens partnerships with private financial institutions in six countries in Africa. She currently lives in Washington, DC but will soon relocate to Abuja, Nigeria.

Fellow Bio:

Grace (Princeton ‘11) majored in the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs with a certificate in African Studies. She originally hails from Livingston, NJ. While at Princeton, she worked behind the scenes on theater productions, served as Business Manager of Princeton University Players, and was a member of Princeton Tower Club. She is excited to return to the African continent after studying abroad at the University of Cape Town. She can’t wait to explore Ghana and learn everything she can about the African cashew industry, which will hopefully include many tasty samples.