Alumni Directory Display

Michelle graduated from Connecticut College majoring in International Relations with minors in French and Global Islamic Studies. While in college, she studied abroad in Kigali, Rwanda. She also interned with Fondation Artisans de la Paix et du Développement au Rwanda, a grassroots development organization, where she helped manage the distribution of 2,000 energy-saving stoves. Michelle concluded her college career by writing an honors thesis on the role of UN Peacekeeping Operations leadership in shaping organizational culture to prevent sexual exploitation and abuse. After college, Michelle worked as a program assistant at the Social Science Research Council where she helped administer international fellowships for PhD candidates, contributing to grants management, report writing, data analysis, and communications. Outside of work she takes Kiswahili lessons and completed Population Works Africa’s e-learning platform on decolonizing development. Michelle is excited to work with the Kupona Foundation and learn more about community-based healthcare programs in Tanzania.

Fellow Bio:

Callie is a history major from Philadelphia. At Princeton, she was co-coordinator of the Triangle Writer’s Workshop (she was a lyricist), class rep for the history department’s Undergraduate Academic Committee, and a director and actor in Sex on a Saturday Night sponsored by SHARE and Theater Intime Kids Initiative. Callie speaks French, Spanish, and Arabic, and spent summers abroad studying in Lebanon and Jordan. She is interested in journalism and public policy and spent last summer interning at Time magazine. While in Senegal next year, Callie looks forward to learning more about West Africa and the WFP, picking up some Wolof, listening to Afropop, and (of course) going to the beach!

Alumni Update:

Victoria lives in Dar es Salaam where she is completing her dissertation on fistula mental health in partnership with CCBRT, her PiAf host organization. She provides individual and group therapy to people with cancer and their loved ones. 

Fellow Bio:

Victoria is from Narragansett, Rhode Island. She received her B.A. from Brown University in Political Science and Religious Studies, where she graduated magna cum laude. At Brown, she concentrated on African-American religious strategies and women’s empowerment. Victoria also served as president of Partners in Health Engage at Brown, leading the group in organizing, advocating, and fundraising for health as a human right. She has conducted research on food security and import reliance in Senegal, worked with Ghanaian women to establish a sustainable water business as a Saha Global Field Representative, and traveled to South Africa to direct the Universal Promise Women’s Empowerment and Health Education Initiatives. Victoria is passionate about community-based health care and education as tools of empowerment. She loves practicing yoga, cooking, swimming, and singing along with Beyoncé. She is eager to explore Dar es Salaam and grateful for the opportunity to promote health equity alongside CCBRT.

Jeff graduated from the University of Southern California in 2017, with degrees in Environmental Studies and International Relations. As an undergraduate he has examining the interplay between the environment and a globalizing world. In pursuit of these interests, Jeff has traveled to Western China, the Philippines, Scandinavia, and South Africa, with various research projects and academic endeavors. His focus has been finding ways to increase the sustainability in agriculture and food systems. To this end, Jeff has explored the agriculture space from multiple vantage points. In Tel Aviv, he worked at a venture capital firm, analyzing their agriculture and food technology assets. In Los Angeles, he interned with a start-up incubator, leading their agriculture initiatives. This parlayed itself into a position interning with an agricultural technology start-up. Jeff is thrilled to be working with Imani development in Malawi, and hopes to gain a new perspective on agricultural development while there. He is also excited to learn some Chichewa and potentially climb Mount Mulanje.

Alumni Update:

Jordan is the research lead for Youth Development Labs (YLabs), a public health human-centered design studio that seeks to improve the health and financial futures of young people in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. She uses her background in epidemiology to develop the research, monitoring, and evaluation strategy for each individual project in their portfolio, as well as the general evidence-based framework through which they approach their work.

Fellow Bio:

Jordan hails from Los Angeles and graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, with degrees in public health and psychology. While in school, she served as a university health worker, a teaching assistant in the Department of Public Health, and a member of the Cal Dance Team. Jordan spent her senior year working in inner-city elementary schools through an urban gardening non-profit organization, which solidified her passion for community health outreach. After graduation, Jordan moved to New York City to pursue her Master’s of Public Health in Epidemiology at Columbia University. During this time, Jordan interned at the Population Council, where she wrote her thesis on access to family planning media campaigns in Liberia. Upon receiving her MPH, Jordan moved to San Diego and worked as an epidemiologist for the U.S. Department of Defense, where she conducted behavioral health research for the military. She also served as a monitoring and evaluation consultant for Project Concern International, supporting their US-Mexico border health initiatives. Jordan is thrilled to continue her career at PSI, where she hopes to use research to inform the development of successful public health programs and to bridge the gap between data and decision-making.

Alumni Update:

Having just graduated from Sciences Po’s Paris School of International Affairs with a Masters in International Public Management, Sylvana is currently working at UNESCO as the Communication and Outreach Consultant for a project on intercultural dialogue for peacebuilding. She is based in Paris. 

Fellow Bio:

Sylvana is from Orange, Connecticut and graduated from Vanderbilt University in 2016 with majors in Political Science (focusing on International Relations and Comparative Politics) and English Literature, and a minor in Anthropology. She has studied abroad in Argentina, England, Switzerland, Rwanda, and Uganda. While at Vanderbilt, Sylvana tutored with The After-School Program, wrote for the online magazine the Odyssey, did freelance photography for groups on campus, and was an officer of Alpha Delta Pi, amongst other things. During her summers at university, Sylvana travelled to Gulu, Uganda with Pros for Africa on a medical mission and interned in the Multimedia Division of the New York office of Human Rights Watch. All of these experiences led to her decision to focus on human rights advocacy and development in Africa. Sylvana is beyond excited to explore West Africa, as well as visit her homestay families in East Africa, and start work with the ACA! Some of her goals for the next year are to climb Kilimanjaro and get accepted to law school!

Anya is a recent Princeton University graduate. She majored in the Woodrow Wilson School for Public and International Affairs with a certificate in Creative Writing. She wrote two theses—one an analysis of the history of IMF activity in Grenada and Jamaica, and the other a short story collection of Caribbean folktales re-imagined in the present. Her interest in racial and ethnic identities took her to Italy and Poland, where she participated in a seminar that allowed her to study these identities in global and historical contexts. These interests later inspired her to study in South Africa in her Junior Spring, where she took classes at the University of Cape Town and participated in a task force along with other Princeton students. Her junior paper completed as part of that task force discussed the provision of extra-curricular activities by NGOs as alternatives to gang violence in township communities in South Africa. In her spare time at UCT, she was a Tutor at SHAWCO Education in Kensington Township, teaching weekly English lessons to sixth-graders. She spent the summer after her Junior Year as an intern at Jubilee USA in Washington DC, where she was able to explore her interest in the debt crisis in many African countries due to odious debt agreements, illicit financial flows, and Vulture Fund activity. She is looking forward to returning to Southern Africa and to teaching, and is beyond excited that Princeton-in-Africa is giving her the opportunity to do so. She’s especially excited to learn about Botswana’s History and Geography as part of her teaching post at Maru-a-Pula. She isn’t that familiar with it yet, but is certainly up for the challenge!

Jessica graduated from Colgate University with a degree in Geography and Chinese. She graduated with honors for her thesis on the efficacy of malaria policy in Kenya. Throughout her undergraduate career, she developed a passion for global heath and conducted global health-related research in Uganda and Kenya. She has co-authored two papers on malaria and HIV, published in the Malaria Journal and Nature. Prior to the Princeton in Africa fellowship, Jessica worked in both the government and the non-governmental sectors. She has worked as the assistant to the director of the DC Department of Human Services. Subsequently, she was a senior program assistant on the policy and advocacy team at PATH, an international non-profit that uses innovation to deliver health services to resource limited settings, where she gained a deeper understanding of data analytics and data visualization. In her free time, Jessica loves to cook and try new foods. She is looking forward to joining Healthy Kids/Brighter Future in Zambia as a member of the monitoring and evaluation team.