Lydia, a Public Health major from Skidmore College, is an enthusiastic and passionate young lady motivated by her need to serve. She has experience in project development and implementation through her Davis Project for Peace. With $10,000, she was able to develop and implement workshop sessions aimed at expecting parents and provided them with baby items for completion of sessions. Each session discussed topics from antenatal care, birth preparedness, and birth plans. Her independent undergraduate research sought to examine the factors that determine women’s choices during childbirth. She also has academic research experience conducted in multiple countries. During those times, she mostly explored healthcare and how one’s community and culture affects access, quality and cost. This developed her qualitative research skills with minimal resources. Lydia has also been able to develop and strengthen her monitoring and evaluation of projects skill via her work with various local NGOs.  She will be spending her year of the fellowship in Liberia working for Last Mile Health.

Alumni Update:

In Fall 2019, Sofia began a Masters in Teaching at the University of Chicago as a part of the Urban Teachers Education Program (UTEP). During her fellowship year, she had the opportunity to focus on school management at the primary level and she is thrilled to have the opportunity to focus on educational equity in the United States over the next five years.

Fellow Bio:

Sofía, a native of Chicago, graduated from New York University, Abu Dhabi with a double major in Theater and Political Science with a concentration in Social Research & Public Policy. Sofia completed her final two years of high school at the United World College of Southern Africa. During her time at NYUAD, Sofia co-founded the Girls’ Education Network (GEN), a leadership development program for middle and high school girls in Abu Dhabi. Throughout her undergraduate career, Sofia held a variety of internships related to education, public service, and human rights. She has interned at the Human Rights Advocacy Centre in Accra, Ghana. At NYUAD, Sofia worked in the Office of Community Outreach and Office of Spiritual Life and Intercultural Education. Sofia has received numerous awards including the Associate Vice Chancellor’s Award for Excellence, NYU President’s Service Award, NYUAD’s Campus Life Community Service Award, and the Dalai Lama Fellowship. She is firmly committed to her values of empathy, humility, and hard work and believes that the first step when entering a new community is to listen.

Michelle is originally from Philadelphia and majored in Human and Organizational Development with a concentration in International Development. During her time at Vanderbilt, Michelle co-founded two service organizations, mentored homeless, refugee and at-risk youth, and served as a Resident Advisor. Her work with an anti-child trafficking organization in India and a girls’ education fund in Kenya sparked her interest in international development. She was then able to study abroad in Shanghai and intern with a global health organization, Seva Foundation, out in Berkeley, CA, and those experiences solidified her interest in the international development field. Michelle is incredibly excited to work with the International Rescue Committee in Liberia and continue to explore different facets of international development. She feels that her time in Liberia will greatly impact her worldview, and she is looking forward to travelling, meeting new people, being challenged, living near the ocean, and absorbing Liberian culture.

Alumni Update:

Kim splits her time between Kigali, Rwanda and Bujumbura, Burundi as the Grants Manager for the IRC Rwanda-Burundi. She began this post in November 2013. Kim has also been elected as one of two ambassadors representing the IRC Rwanda-Burundi office as part of the IRC’s global Strategy Assembly. Prior to resuming work with the IRC, Kim began part-time work immediately following her fellowship in the billing department of a dental office in New Jersey, while she simultaneously looked for full-time jobs in international development/humanitarian aid.

Fellow Bio:

Kim (Princeton ‘10) is a proud native of Blackwood, NJ. At Princeton, she studied at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, while simultaneously pursuing a certificate in African Studies. During her time on campus, she was involved with Princeton-UNICEF, the International Relations Council, Chapel Deacons, and Princeton Faith and Action. She was also a member of Charter Club. Through funding from Princeton, Kim was able to take a language course in Egypt, study abroad in Cape Town, South Africa, and volunteer in Kigali, Rwanda. She also spent a summer interning with the United Nations Information Center in Washington, D.C. Since graduating, Kim has been pursuing her MA in Dispute and Conflict Resolution at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. While in Liberia next year, Kim is looking forward to learning about Liberian culture and history and getting a chance to work with IRC’s field projects.

Alumni Update:

Jennifer is currently in her first year of the two-year Master’s Degree in Public Administration in International Development at the Harvard Kennedy School, studying development economics and policy. She is interested in climate change policy and economics, and currently hunting for an internship in that field for this summer.

After her fellowship in Liberia in 2006-2007, Jennifer stayed at the IRC for an additional 6 months as the Field Manager in the Lofa County Field office, where she managed logistics for IRC programs in the County. She moved home at the end of 2007 and joined President Obama’s presidential campaign as a volunteer and then full-time Field Organizer. Jennifer worked in the Communications Office at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the Department of Commerce in Washington, DC for two and a half years during President Obama’s first Administration and was the Press Secretary for the State of Pennsylvania for his re-election campaign in 2012. She spent the time between the 2012 campaign and starting school catching up with family and friends and travelling to a few new countries!

Alumni Update:

Becca is back in the U.S., at Georgetown Law, where she is focusing on Refugee and Humanitarian law (and missing the field every day). She’ll be here this summer at Human Rights Watch, and would love a PiAf get-together!

Fellow Bio:

Becca ’10 is an International Relations and History major at the University of Pennsylvania. Becca was editor-in-chief of the Journal of International Relations through Sigma Iota Rho, the national honors society for international studies and helped plan student-led consulting projects in the developing world through Penn International Business volunteers. Becca earned certificates in French language and African Studies. While at Penn, she studied abroad in Paris and worked in Ghana doing education and community development and research for the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia. Becca is thrilled to learn about Liberia’s fascinating history, enjoy local beers and music, and gain some crazy West African tales next year.

Alumni Update:

After PiAf, Ariel obtained her MD and MMSc in Global Health Delivery from Harvard Medical School. She started an internship in summer 2015 in family medicine at Contra Costa Regional Medical Center.

Fellow Bio:

Ariel graduated from Princeton in 2005 with a degree from the Woodrow Wilson School and certificates in both African and Latin American studies. Following graduation, Ariel spent two and a half years as a Peace Corps volunteer in Mali, West Africa. Since her return to the U.S. in 2008, she has been doing a pre-med post-bacc and plans to begin medical school in 2010. Ariel loves West Africa and can’t wait to return for her PiAf fellowship.

Anny, a native of Bogotá, Colombia, graduated Summa Cum Laude from the University of Massachusetts with majors in Anthropology and Women’s and Gender Studies. A passionate reproductive health advocate, Anny was selected as a Reproductive Rights Activist Service Corp fellow, in 2015 and interned for Ibis Reproductive Health researching the intersection of maternal and child health and abortion access. At UMass she organized and led a service-learning initiative focused on indigenous women’s empowerment and safe stoves for improved indoor air quality in Guatemala. After this trip, she became the Education Coordinator for the Beacon Voyages for Service program at UMass, overseeing the social justice-based education for the program at large. Anny is also a former executive board member of Colombia Vive, a Boston-based human rights organization. Following graduation, she joined Timmy Global Health as their Medical Programs Coordinator in the Dominican Republic (DR). In this role she oversaw a community health promotion program and led regular medical service trips to several communities straddling the Haiti-DR border. Anny hopes to continue learning and advocating in the area of global public health and to dedicate her career to advance health as a human right across geographical borders.

Alumni Update:

Nina is currently serving as a Special Projects Officer at the Akilah Institute, a Kigali-based higher education campus and online school for women in East Africa. In the fall of 2021, she will begin her studies as a dual Master of Social Work and Master of Social Policy candidate at the Brown School in Washington University, St. Louis. 

Fellow Bio:

Nina graduated from the University of Virginia with degrees in English and Arts Administration. At UVA, she worked primarily in the arts community as a producer of student theater, co-chair of the Student Council Arts Committee, and as an Arts Mentor to local elementary-aged students. Her thesis focused on the representation of death in children’s literature, which she supplemented with a self-published children’s novella. After graduation, Nina moved to Memphis, TN, where she has spent the past two years. There, she worked as an assistant fifth-grade English teacher at a Title I public school and implemented mental health procedures to support her students suffering from trauma and anxiety. She additionally worked as an Urban Fellow for the City of Memphis to foster summer literacy among youth. Currently, Nina is finishing up a service year at The Well, a pediatric wellness center, where she teaches nutrition, movement, and mindfulness to children. For fun, she dabbles as a lounge singer, attempts to cook, and loves to explore the Delta region. Nina is excited to pursue her interest in the intersections of educational and health equity at More Than Me and can’t wait to meet her wonderful new students.