Alumni Update:

Yuting is a Senior Consultant at Dalberg Global Development Advisors, a consulting firm that focuses on international development and poverty alleviation issues. At Dalberg, she has helped a major US foundation shape its investment strategy with regards to women’s property rights in developing countries. She has also worked on a project to improve market dynamics around HIV diagnostics devices. Prior to Dalberg, Yuting worked at Endeavor, an organization that supports entrepreneurs in emerging markets. She has also received her MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business (Class of 2013). Yuting is currently based in NYC, but is about to make the cross-country move (yet again) to the Bay Area, where she will join Dalberg’s SF office.

Alumni Update:

Yassi is finishing her second year at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts. Her concentrations are International Negotiation, Conflict Resolution and International Communication. Last summer she interned with both Global Kids and DAI in Washington, DC/Bethesda, MD.

Fellow Bio:

Yassi (Georgetown ‘11) is a graduate of the School of Foreign Service and is from Queens, NY. At Georgetown, she majored in International Politics and also earned a certificate in African Studies. She was actively involved in campus ministry groups such as GU Sisters for Christ and GU Gospel Choir. Yassi has visited Chad and Central African Republic, where her parents are from, and studied abroad at the University of Cape Town in the spring of 2009. While there, she fell in love with the South African people, learned a great deal about the country’s history, politics, and culture and is excited to return and experience a new city as she works with Student Sponsorship Programme in Johannesburg.

Weiwei graduated from Stanford University with a major in Economics and minor in East Asian Studies. Weiwei has professional experience on three continents. She spent two summers working in China, where she supported organizations ranging from an internationally renowned art gallery to a global supply chain management company. She also interned for a mobile payments startup in Ghana through Stanford SEED, an initiative by the Stanford Graduate School of Business that aims to combat poverty through innovation and entrepreneurship. Prior to Princeton in Africa, Weiwei spent two years in management consulting at ZS Associates in San Francisco, where she advised healthcare clients on sales and marketing strategy.

Vivian is half Namibian and half Nigerian and has lived in both places for most of her life. She earned her Bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, where she focused on natural resource management and international development in Africa and Latin America. Although she has spent most of her life in Africa, she has had the opportunity to work and study in various other areas of the world, including the United Kingdom, Ecuador and Brazil. Throughout her travels, studies, and work experiences she has gained great quantitative skills especially as it relates to data analysis and statistics as well as developed her organizational skills and multilingual communication. She is proficient in both Portuguese and Spanish and also speaks some French and Afrikaans. Vivian hopes to pursue a career in development especially as it relates to natural resources. Most recently Vivian has worked at the BRICS policy centre in Rio and at ONE campaign, an advocacy organization, founded by Bono, focused on tackling extreme poverty. Vivian is also passionate about the intersection between development, education and the arts and is the co-founder of the Georgetown Circle of Women (a girls’ education nonprofit), a published poet and a dancer. Vivian is excited to head back to the African continent where she is eager to be a part of harnessing young African leadership in the hope of transforming the continent for the better.

Fellow Bio:

Wenli is a psychology major from Memphis, TN (no, she doesn’t like country music and, alas, they never taught her to read minds). At Princeton, she was a member of Terrace Club, did nothing athletic whatsoever, and earned certificates in both neuroscience and creative writing. She also studied abroad in Melbourne, Australia, for a semester and got to feed a kangaroo. While in Cape Town, Wenli hopes to learn to drive a stick shift on the wrong side of the road, and maybe, just maybe, pet a (small, baby, tamed) lion.

Uma Guarnaccia graduated from New York University with a Bachelor’s in Applied Psychology and a minor in Media, Culture, and Communication. At NYU, she made the Dean’s List two years in a row. Her interest in travel and service began with her trip to the Dominican Republic, where she developed curricula and taught English. She also spent a year fundraising for the same project. Uma expanded on this experience while studying in Ghana for four months. In Ghana, she volunteered at City of Refuge, an NGO, where she produced, directed, and developed two documentaries. While there, she also mentored children who were survivors of child slavery. Additionally, she developed curricula, tutored children on reading comprehension and English language skills, and created the school’s yearbook. Uma also has extensive research experience from her time as an intern at the Yale University Child Study Center. While there, she conducted structured assessments on anxiety disorders affecting parents and children. She analyzed data using SPSS to create two research projects. The results were presented at various research fairs and conferences. She also interned with Columbia University’s Global Mental Health Program, where she conducted qualitative interviews for a research project on intimate partner violence and substance abuse in Uganda. In addition, she wrote news content for the Global Clinical Practice Network website and produced a short video to raise awareness for refugee mental health. Subsequently, she also interned at The Quad Manhattan, an after-school program where she taught children with special needs.

Originally from Accra, Ghana, Vanessa grew up in Romeoville, Illinois, a town next to the city of Joliet, Illinois. A Shakespeare fanatic, she heartbreakingly had to leave Romeoville to attend the University of Minnesota, where she graduated in 2016 with degrees in Journalism and History. Vanessa has written for The Minnesota Daily, Minnesota Public Radio, and The Reporters Inc., a nonprofit journalistic house. Vanessa is interested in all aspects of journalism, including philanthrojournalism and global communications. A longtime history buff, she served as the diversity outreach intern and a National History Day mentor for the Minnesota Historical Society. Vanessa was involved in various campus organizations, but counts her time as a 2014 Orientation Leader as her favorite. Vanessa believes in getting a well-rounded experience in academics and work, which led to her interning for Congressman Keith Ellison and working as an ESL classroom assistant for adult refugees. Due to her internships at organizations that work to strengthen communities in Minnesota and throughout the world, she was named a Kevin Mossier Award Scholar. Vanessa is a soccer fanatic and spent the summer of 2015 in Berlin researching German soccer history. This resulted in a 60 page research paper on the formation of German national identity through World Cups. Vanessa is beyond excited to come to the rainbow nation and work with the future leaders at the African Leadership Academy – and possibly beat some students in soccer. She is especially excited to learn from the students at ALA and explore Johannesburg!

Fellow Bio:

Veda ’10 hails from the small island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean. He came to Princeton thinking to major in Mechanical Aerospace Engineering but is actually graduating in Politics, with a certificate in Political Economy. Veda has always been very involved with the international community at Princeton. Between his sophomore and junior year, Veda spent a year off in Mauritius, where he founded the Young Volunteers Association. Back in Princeton, he explored the field of Social Entrepreneurship and interned at Ashoka in Washington DC  last year. While he is sad to give up on French theater, which he has been doing for the last five years, he is really excited to go work with the young folks at the African Leadership Academy and be the world traveler and the citizen of the World that he wants to be.