Alumni Directory Display

A Southern California native, Khadija Hassanali graduated from Claremont McKenna College with a B.A. in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics. As an undergraduate, Khadija returned to her mother’s home country of Tanzania to work with the Asante Africa Foundation, an NGO that administers programs to increase the accessibility and quality of education in East Africa. During her sophomore and senior year, she competed in the Hult Prize Competition, in which she developed social enterprise solutions to tackle the issues of Early Childhood Education and the Refugee Crisis. Inspired by the intersection of business, technology, and social innovation, Khadija interned with Tectonica Studios, a start-up in Buenos Aires, Argentina that creates websites for political campaigns and NGOs. The fall of her junior year, Khadija studied in Granada, Spain, where she honed her Spanish language skills and studied the history of the Andalucia. Most recently, she interned with Deloitte Consulting, where she worked with a major healthcare client in the Bay Area. Khadija is looking forward to developing her interests in technology innovation as a Data Analyst and Project Manager at mSurvey in Kenya. Climbing shoes packed, she is eager to scramble around Nairobi and learn about the city her parents immigrated from.

Alumni Update:

Nicholas is based in Durham, NC while completing a Master’s in Biomedical Sciences at Duke University School of Medicine. Nicholas applied to the 2020 medical school application cycle, and ultimately hopes to focus on sexual health amongst LGBTQ* adolescents.

Fellow Bio:

Nicholas, a native of North Carolina, ( UNC ’17) graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a degree in American Studies and minor in Social and Economic Justice. While at Carolina, he co-founded UNC’s chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) to challenge stigma surrounding mental illness. He worked with University administration to enhance mental health-related policies and procedures affecting students, faculty, and staff. He has also worked with the Infectious Disease Clinic at UNC Hospitals to craft a nutritional program for the clinic’s HIV patients, with a focus on the intersection of nutrition, race, and class. Nicholas is an alumnus of Columbia University’s Summer Public Health Scholars Program (SPHSP). While studying at the Mailman School of Public Health, he served as an HIV/AIDS Prevention and Outreach Intern with CAMBA where he facilitated focus-group sessions comprised of parents of LGBTQ* youth to communicate the relationship between familial acceptance and positive health outcomes in queer adolescents. For fun, Nicholas enjoys spending time with friends, watching sports (go Heels!), staying active, and binge-watching Rupaul’s Drag Race. He’s honored to join BIPAI Botswana and explore Gaborone and beyond!

Fellow Bio:

Leah (Princeton ‘11) is an English major from Montclair, NJ. She also earned a certificate in Spanish and studied in Spain through the Princeton in Toledo Program. While in college, Leah spent a semester at the University of Cape Town in South Africa and studied at the University of Leeds in England during the fall semester of her senior year. At Princeton, Leah danced in the Expressions dance company and interned at Princeton Alumni Weekly. While in Uganda next year, she hopes to travel, take African dance classes, and climb Mt. Kilimanjaro without passing out.

Alumni Update:

Ela is currently the Communications Manager for Habitat for Humanity’s Terwilliger Center for Innovation in Shelter, an international unit focused on housing market systems development in more than 40 countries.

Fellow Bio:

Ela, a native of Canada, graduated from Davidson College with an honors degree in History focusing on colonial Africa and the diaspora. While at Davidson, Ela studied abroad in Dakar, Senegal and completed independent research at the British Library as a Kemp Scholar and Kelley Scholar, which culminated in an 80-page honors thesis on the British East India Company’s dependence on African slavery. After graduating, Ela worked for Habitat for Humanity International in Washington DC, supporting their global programs in WASH (water, sanitation, and hygiene), land tenure, gender, and urban development. As a fellow, she helped organize regional conferences on land tenure in South Africa and the Philippines and represented Habitat at the ninth World Urban Forum in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Prior to working for Habitat, Ela served on the international Board of Directors of WE Charity, traveling as a speaker. She also shared the stage with Al Gore, on various occasions, addressing top media executives, including CEOs from Fox, Time Warner, and Universal McCann. Ela is also a proud alumni of Pearson College UWC in British Columbia, Canada.

Alumni Update:

Alex is currently a first-year MBA student at the Yale School of Management. She will be spending her summer interning at the Boston Consulting Group in Philadelphia.

Fellow Bio:

Alex is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame where she majored in Political Science and Peace Studies. Since graduating, Alex has worked as the Raise Hope for Congo Assistant Campaign Manager at The Enough Project, part of the Center for American Progress, in Washington D.C. She develops campaigns targeting both the U.S. government and major electronics companies that use the Democratic Republic of Congo’s minerals to address the root causes of conflict in eastern Congo. As a student, Alex studied in Uganda, Rwanda, and Tanzania, and most recently she traveled to the eastern Congo with Enough. In her free time, she plays soccer on two co-ed teams and likes to go on long bike rides around D.C. Alex is excited to explore West Africa and see first-hand how multinational companies can operate successfully and responsibly in Africa.

Alumni Update:

After her fellowship, Lisa took time off to backpack Thailand and Australia with some friends. She is now living in Washington, DC (her roommate is other former PiAfer!) working for Deloitte’s federal emerging markets practice, where she’s been focusing on capacity building and training development for USAID and its counterparts.

Fellow Bio:

Lisa is originally from San Diego, CA  and graduated with a B.A. in International Affairs. While at GWU, Lisa dedicated a year of service to the AmeriCorps Heads Up initiative, where she led literacy programs for a class of second graders in an inner-city Washington, D.C. elementary school. She also worked with Calcutta Kids, a maternal-child health NGO in Calcutta, India, designing behavior change communication curriculums to combat diarrheal disease among slum children. Upon graduating, Lisa returned to Calcutta to create and implement health training modules for Calcutta Kids’ team of community health workers. In her free time, Lisa enjoys doing yoga, taking naps and seeing live music. While in Gabon next year, Lisa is excited to live by the beach again, as well as learn how the for-profit businesses model can be adapted to incorporate social and environmental impact.

Alumni Update:

In the fall, Helena started a Masters of Public Health at the Harvard TH Chan School of Health. Her degree is in Environmental Health, with a focus on Climate and Sustainability.

Fellow Bio:

Helena is half-German, half-American and grew up moving around Europe. She graduated from Princeton University in 2016, where she majored in Anthropology and earned certificates in Latin American Studies and in Global Health and Health Policy. In her senior thesis, she studied the intersections between water, political belonging, and health in rural Peru. Her interest in the country stemmed from nine months spent in 2011-2012 working as a volunteer in Urubamba, Peru through Princeton’s Bridge Year Program, where she worked on projects related to community health and youth development. In 2014, Helena was selected as a Global Health Scholar by the Center for Health and Wellbeing at Princeton, which allowed her to conduct her fieldwork for her senior thesis back in Urubamba. At Princeton, she was a peer academic adviser and was involved in student organizations related both to global health and student health. Helena spent a semester studying abroad in Santiago, Chile, and has interned for organizations in Colombia and Panama. She enjoys running, cooking, and traveling, and she cannot wait to hike the mountains around Maseru.  After her year in Lesotho, Helena intends to pursue a career in global health.

James graduated with a degree in Government and Legal Studies and is originally from Little Rock, Arkansas. He enjoys traveling, learning other languages, and outdoor activities like hiking and whitewater kayaking. At Bowdoin, he was on the rowing team and led a group of volunteer tutors who staff a study center at the Portland Housing Authority. He also had several major opportunities to travel and volunteer abroad, spending a summer teaching English and volunteering at a health clinic in Rwanda, 6 weeks spent as a kindergarten classroom assistant at Safe Passage in Guatemala City, and a semester in Lima, Peru studying and volunteering as a math tutor and leading a leadership workshop with disadvantaged urban youth at Building Dignity. While in Ethiopia next year, James looks forward to teaching Chemistry, learning Amharic, and getting involved with the health clinic at Project Mercy.