Alumni Directory Display

Coryna Ogunseitan graduated from Yale in 2017 with a BA in Literature. She speaks Spanish and French and is most interested in literature of the black diaspora written in these languages. Her junior fall, she spent a semester abroad in Santiago, Chile, becoming fluent in Spanish and studying modern Ibero-American literature. The fact that many of these texts were not available in English led her to develop an interest in literary translation. She was an intern at Glossolalia, PEN America’s new translation journal, where she worked primarily on the issue “Women Writing Brazil,” a compilation of writing by all female Brazilian authors. She is passionate about making marginalized narratives, like those presented in Glossolalia, exposed to global audiences, and in keeping with this goal also worked to facilitate interviews with formerly incarcerated people for StoryCorps through the Yale Undergraduate Prison Project. With this organization, she also tutored inmates in the New Haven Jail for the GED. She is also involved in the writing community at Yale, and has served as Artistic Director of TEETH Slam Poets and an editor of Weekend, the arts and culture section of the Yale Daily News.

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.

Biafra is a Nigerian-American, seeking to advocate and serve underserved populations through artistic activism, community engagement, and implementation of evidence-based research. He graduated from Amherst College with a double major in Interdisciplinary Global Public health and Middle Eastern Studies. While at Amherst, Biafra completed a study abroad year in Cairo, Egypt at the American University of Cairo. There he conducted research for his seniors honors thesis “Cardiovascular Disease: Exploring Cultural and Economic Conditions to Inform Intervention”. Which provided him the opportunity to interview a range of health professionals in both Arabic and English for potential reform policies. At The UT School of Public Health, he’s delved into innovative approaches to tackle HIV/AIDS. At The Kennedy Krieger Institute (KKI) he researched Suicidality in the Intellectual and Developmental disabilities population. He is a CDC Undergraduate Public Health Scholar and received a certificate of public health training in Maternity Child Health/Research at KKI. Most recently, he worked at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in the Genitourinary Oncology department doing clinical research as a program coordinator. Additionally, he served as an ambassador for the Baltimore Health Dept. working in community outreach alongside health clinicians, to increase Covid-19 literacy, conduct needs assessments, and increase vaccination rates in Baltimore. Following the Piaf fellowship, Biafra seeks to further his experience working in global public health while obtaining a Master’s degree. A lover of the arts, he is a co-host for the podcast Shapes of Love, a dance choreographer, and a spoken word artist.

JingKai, a native of Malaysia, graduated from UC Berkeley with a B.A. in Economics. He speaks professional Bahasa and Mandarin Chinese. At UC Berkeley, he had several student leadership positions as the External Vice President of Delta Phi Epsilon (UC Berkeley Professional International Relations Fraternity) and the External Events Chair of the International Student Association. JingKai has earned the Outstanding Delegate at the World Youth Economic Forum. He also has extensive research experience including as a research assistant for the Center for African Studies at UC Berkeley, analyzing the rotation in the ministerial cabinet in 36 African countries. In addition, he was a research assistant on an Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) study regarding social incentives for prenatal care and safe delivery in Sierra Leone and for Berkeley Initiative for Transparency in the Social Sciences (BITSS). He was an international development intern with the Uganda Village Project (UVP) in rural Uganda. JingKai is really excited for the opportunity to return to the continent as a Princeton in Africa fellow and looks forward to working with Imani Development in Malawi as a junior consultant.

Anthony was born in raised in Chandler, Arizona. He graduated Magna cum Laude from The University of Arizona with a double-major Bachelor’s Degree in East Asian Studies and Economics. His studies took him to China, where he lived in both giant metropolises and rural villages and grew fluent in Mandarin Chinese. One of his trips was sponsored by the U.S. Department of State’s Critical Language Scholarship. Anthony interned with the Congressional Office of Gabrielle Giffords and Arizona Students’ Association in Tucson and International Rescue Committee in Phoenix. He managed to pay the rent and have a lot of fun by working all across the U of A and serving as an Arizona Ambassador campus tour guide. After graduating he spent a year studying in Nanjing, China and completed an internship with the DoS’s Greening Diplomacy Initiative. Anthony then moved to Washington, DC to work with the DoS’s Office of Intellectual Property Enforcement and later USAID’s Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance. Anthony is excited to dive head on into learning about private sector development practices while working as a Junior Consultant with Imani Development in Malawi. He is especially interested to learn how responsible trade contributes to economic development.

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.

Gilles is from Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso; he studied and worked in Minnesota for the past eight years. He majored in International Development at the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs for his Master’s Degree and in International Management and Peace Studies for his undergraduate degree at Gustavus Adolphus College. Gilles completed two monitoring and evaluation consultancies in Niger and Uganda, as part of his capstone project and field experience for his Master’s degree. He interned at the American Refugee Committee headquarters in Minneapolis and as an Intern Research Analyst for the Improve Group, an international research, evaluation and planning firm. Gilles enjoys travelling, film, and working with people to find sustainable solutions to world issues. Gilles is thrilled to begin a new adventure in Burundi with Lutheran World Federation.

Fellow Bio:

Carl Owens ’08 is a sociology major from Huntsville, AL. At Princeton, he served as treasurer of the Princeton University Gospel Ensemble, head moderator of Sustained Dialogue, and co-founded the National Black Law Students Association at Princeton. Carl spent his summers working for the Poverty and Race Research Action Council, Princeton University Preparatory Program, and Wits University in Johannesburg. Carl looks forward to returning to Johannesburg for an extended and more substantive stay through his fellowship year.

Alumni Update:

Ibilola is working as a Senior Associate in the West & Central Africa and Haiti region at Chemonics International. Her work focuses on project management of activities across West Africa & the Caribbean. She works primarily in DC, with travel to Nigeria, Mauritania, and Haiti.

Fellow Bio:

A Nigerian raised in California, Ibilola graduated from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, with a BSFS in Culture and Politics and a minor in African Studies. Passionate about the continent, Ibilola has integrated her love for African affairs into her personal and professional life. During her junior year, she spent a semester abroad in Lomé, Togo, where she interned for the Political-Economic bureau at the US Embassy and led English conversation classes at the local university. On return, she interned for the US Chamber of Commerce’s Africa Business Center, as well as the State Department’s Africa Regional Media Hub. At Georgetown, she served as President of the African Society of Georgetown, and helped plan and conduct Georgetown’s second annual Africa Business Conference. She also wrote articles on business, democracy, and diplomacy in West Africa as a reporter for The Caravel, Georgetown’s only international affairs newspaper. Ibilola is excited about the opportunity to work with ASE in Benin, and looks forward to improving her French and learning more about Beninese life!