Fellow Bio:

Clare is a politics major from Montreal, Canada. At Princeton, she was manager of the Facebook Agency, a student employee at the library, and a member of Kappa Kappa Gamma and Cloister Inn. She earned certificates in political economy and environmental studies. After graduating, Clare worked at Bain & Company for three years as a strategy consultant in Boston and London. Since completing the program, she spent three months volunteering and backpacking in Central/South America and worked for TechnoServe (business development consultancy) in Swaziland for three months. She is very excited to be in Kenya next year, and she is eager to learn, explore, meet lots of people, and start up some pick-up frisbee (if it’s not unbearably hot!).

Ciara graduated from Princeton University with a degree in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. She heralds from South Africa. Her upbringing sparked an aptitude towards service, starting with an all-embracing portfolio of volunteer work in schools and hospitals within disadvantaged communities. Studying abroad has brought her important opportunities to learn at the cutting edge of research science. Recently, she performed extensive fieldwork in Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique, encompassing a continental-scale study on plant and animal species interactions. This project extended both her abilities to handle challenges as well as an undying respect and desire for field research. She also passionately cares about the environment, especially as it pertains to sustainability and continuously seeks out programs, worldwide, that look to achieve a positive impact in that field. Ciara’s time at Princeton has not only been about academic learning. Her inclusion in the rowing team has taught her how to push beyond her perceived limits, to continue on ignoring pain and exhaustion. The camaraderie of being part of the crew has forever molded Ciara’s loyalty and commitment to the team. Even with a naturally shy demeanor, Ciara has willingly taken on the task of telephone calling to raise funds from undergraduates, alumni, and parents in support of Princeton’s AG Campaign and now has taken on the role of co-chairing her own class’ AG Campaign. Ciara is, and always will be, a Princeton tiger. She is looking forward to exploring Kenya and pursuing her passions for service and research during her fellowship with Mpala Research Center. 

Fellow Bio:

Chris ’10 is a Mechanical and Aerospace engineering major from Buffalo, NY. At Princeton, he spent four years on the rowing team, was active in Engineers without Borders, and a member of Cloister Inn. While in Kenya next year he looks forward to meeting new people, traveling, and climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro.

Camille graduated from Columbia University with a degree in Human Rights, specializing in Anthropology, and a degree in Latin American & Iberian Cultures. After graduation, she worked on emergency operations with the World Food Programme in Haiti as well as with emergency preparedness and resilience activities, giving her exposure to the work of humanitarian agencies within a peacekeeping context. Camille interned in Colombia for Corporación Nuevo Arco Iris, a think tank analyzing conflict, peace, and reconciliation. She was also a legal intern at the European Roma Rights Centre and worked on cases concerning Romani evictions from settlements. She later conducted research in the Brazilian Amazon, accompanying researchers funded by a National Geographic grant, which helped focus her thesis on cultural responses to legal challenges of communities in this region, for which she received the Susan V Huntington Prize. Alongside her studies, Camille developed a lengthy field project involving resettlement with the Biloxi-Chitimacha Choctaw Tribal Council, whose community faces many political and environmental challenges. She has also worked with other human rights and humanitarian organizations in New York and is very excited about her fellowship in Nairobi to continue her work in these fields!

Cameron graduated from Case Western Reserve University with Honors in each of her three majors: International Studies, Political Science, and English. As an undergraduate, she joined a conflict-resolution delegation in Bosnia-Herzegovina to study grassroots peacebuilding efforts, spent a semester studying at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, and interned for the political and economic section of the U.S. Embassy in Gaborone, Botswana. Upon graduation, she was awarded two of the highest possible honors for students at CWRU, including the Edward Corcoran Award for outstanding leadership, character, and service as well as the Flora Stone Mather Alumnae Award for outstanding academic performance in the humanities. After graduation, Cameron combined her passion for reconciliation and her love of creative writing by designing, implementing, and facilitating a youth poetry camp for South African high school students with the support of a national $10,000 Davis Projects for Peace Grant. Additionally, she completed French language study and archival research on African immigration in Montpellier, France, funded by the competitive Eva L. Pancoast Memorial Fellowship. Her experiences in storytelling, grant writing, and international exchange inspired her to join International Rescue Committee’s team in Kenya as a Princeton in Africa Fellow.

Caleigh ived with a host family in rural Budondo, Uganda and interned for a local Savings and Credit Co-op (SACCO) for eight weeks in 2013. During this time, she worked with three other interns to develop a short- and long-term income-generating project for SACCO members. She recently traveled back to Uganda to independently research small-scale entrepreneurs’ perceptions of aid organizations in Kampala and Jinja for 8 weeks as part of her honors thesis. Caleigh has also worked as a research assistant for the Eleos Foundation, an organization that invests in market-based solutions to poverty alleviation in Africa and Latin America as well as for the Center for Complex Operations (CCO), a government think tank where she worked as a Research and Editorial Assistant for the Africa edition of CCO’s premier security studies journal, PRISM. She then served as co-director of Northwestern University Community for Human Rights, one of the largest social justice organizations at Northwestern that organizes the largest student-run human rights conference in the country as well as various programming events, a Spring Break service trip, and a student-organized seminar. She rowed all four years for Northwestern Crew Team, an entirely student-run organization, and was elected on the Executive Board where she served as Transportation Chair, Varsity Women’s Team Captain, and President. Caleigh graduated from Northwestern University in June 2015 with a BA in Political Science and International Studies with a focus on International Political Economy and Development in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Fellow Bio:

Beza is a Woodrow Wilson School major from Reidsville, NC. At Princeton, Beza was on the executive board of Pit Stop, an SVC project that tutors middle-school students in Trenton. Beza enjoys reading, writing, listening to music and most of all, traveling. She spent two semesters abroad while at Princeton, in Dakar, Senegal, and Cape Town, South Africa, and she has traveled to India, Namibia, and Ethiopia (where she is originally from). She is very excited to be living in Nairobi next year working for the IRC and hopes to do and see much during her fellowship.

Bear (Princeton ’17) is from Dallas, Texas. His full name is Sierra Moon Goldstein, but he goes by Bear. He graduated from Princeton University in 2017 with a degree in Psychology and Highest Honors. At Princeton, Bear was a member of the men’s varsity lacrosse team, where he was a two-time captain, a three-time All-Ivy and Academic All-Ivy selection, and USILA Scholar All-American. During his summers, Bear worked for the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency and the Nature Conservancy. He spent one summer in Hawaii conducting independent research on the cognitive underpinnings of mental toughness in triathletes. He also was a research assistant for a lab exploring intergroup relations, prejudice, and stereotyping in an academic setting. For fun, Bear enjoys playing sports, hiking, and music. He has a propensity for visual arts, especially photography. Prior to the fellowship year, Bear had never been to Africa. He is most excited about the new perspectives, skills, and relationships he will develop at Nyumbani Village and beyond.

Ayesha graduated from Columbia University with a degree in Economics and Mathematics. She grew up in Singapore, where she was exposed to all kinds of development work from a young age. Her active involvement in NGO work cultivated an interest in economic development, which she pursued in her formal studies of economics and math. She spent a semester abroad at CIDE in Mexico City, where she studied healthcare and broader development economics. She has maintained internships throughout her time in college, working in a variety of market-oriented capacities. As part of her internship at the Smithsonian Institution’s endowment, she routinely performed quantitative and qualities analyses to assess the relative success and risk of the organization’s portfolio. Her internship at KKR continued that exposure to market analysis, allowing her to analyze and explore the different strategies of the hedge funds that her team was invested in. She later worked at the investment bank Lazard Frères & Co., a global advisory firm that focuses on mergers and acquisitions. Her time at Lazard was similarly rooted in financial and industry analysis. She is excited to apply the lessons she has learned through her academic studies and professional experiences to the Lwala community!

Anchal graduated from Princeton in 2016 with a B.A. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, and a Global Health and Health Policy certificate. Her interests in the health of people, animals, and the environment were fueled by her first visit to the Mpala Research Centre in 2014, where she worked on a Nature Conservancy-funded rangeland rehabilitation and animal health project. She spent half of 2015 at Smithsonian field stations in Panama, conducting independent research on tropical ecosystems. This led up to her senior thesis, which examined the microenvironmental factors determining the distribution of an insect vector of Chagas disease. As an intern at the Indian Institute of Health Management, she researched the long-term sustainability of Human Milk Banks in Rajasthan and helped conduct community surveys to assess the impact of nutritional interventions. At Princeton, she was an editor for the Public Health Review, worked with university administration to improve mental health policies through the Mental Health Initiative, and proposed and led a civic engagement trip through Princeton’s alternative break program. Anchal looks forward to working at the intersections of science, conservation practice and outreach at Mpala this year, and to learning more about the savanna ecosystem, its wildlife and its people.