Alumni Directory Display

Alumni Update:

After completing her PiAf fellowship in 2014, Sarah stayed on the African continent for another 4 years working in the social enterprise sector, and she had the opportunity to live in Burundi, Rwanda, Ghana, and Senegal. Two years ago she relocated to Boston and is currently managing the Implementation Team for the education technology startup, Ellevation, which develops software and instructional strategies to help school districts better support their English Language Learners.

Fellow Bio:

Sarah is originally from Massachusetts but spent part of her childhood in France. She graduated in 2013 with a degree in Public Policy Studies and a certificate in Child Policy Research. While at Duke she helped run Duke Basketball’s undergraduate operations, captained the Women’s Club Soccer team, and served as Vice President of the Public Policy Majors Union. She combined her interests in sports and international development by researching the expansion of sports based youth development programs in African countries. Sarah then spent a summer in Lusaka, Zambia working with the NGO Sport In Action, coaching, teaching and conducting research on HIV/AIDS education. She also studied abroad in Florence, Italy and interned in Washington D.C. doing education policy research. Sarah is very excited to go back to Zambia and looks forward to exploring many other countries!

Rachel graduated from American University with a BA in International Studies and focused her studies on sustainable international development and African regional studies. While studying abroad in Nairobi, she interned with SAVO, where she worked on project design, grant-writing, survey administration, and site visits in Kibera. Rachel also studied in Morocco and interned at Transparence, Maroc. Upon her return to the United States, Rachel interned with Roots of Development, an NGO that empowers people in Lagonave, Haiti, to direct their own development, then worked with the organization as the monitoring and evaluation coordinator, where she developed project’s M&E and impact assessment strategies. Prior to the Princeton in Africa fellowship, she worked with the Tahrir Institute of Middle East Policy as the projects and communications assistant. Rachel looks forward to learning about social and economic development in West Africa and supporting the capacity-building of aspiring Beninese thinkers as a Projects Coordinator at the African School of Economics.

Sarah Rooney is a 24-year-old from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania who studied Culture and Politics and African Studies at Georgetown University. She took her study of African issues to Tanzania, where she studied Community Development and Women’s Studies for a semester at Ruaha Catholic University in Iringa, and conducted a research project on women’s views towards sexual health education in Ikaning’ombe, Mufindi District. While at Georgetown, she created and managed a Sexual Assault Prevention Education (SAPE) program for the on-campus student-run nonprofit of 400 employees, served as a communications and outreach intern for the Correspondence Department of the Obama Administration, and worked on curricula development and database management while interning for Human Rights Campaign. She received a Community Service Award in 2017 for her work on the SAPE program. Following her graduation in 2017, Sarah became an AmeriCorps VISTA volunteer with a small nonprofit called Fair Chance, which provides free capacity building for community-based youth organizations in Washington, DC. At Fair Chance, Sarah conducted outreach and organized workshops for nonprofit Executive Directors. Meanwhile, she volunteered with the community organizing nonprofit, ONE DC, where she organized low-income tenants around a right to decent housing and planned a local artist-focused fundraising event that brought in $125,000 to the organization for the creation of a new community center. In her spare time, Sarah loves to play soccer, paint, listen to music, meditate, and garden. Sarah is a passionate individual who plans to dedicate her life supporting organizations and movements working towards equality and justice.

Alumni Update:

Gracie Rosenbach is the Rwanda Country Program Manager at the International Food Policy Research Institute, where she collaborates on the start-up and management of the Rwanda Strategy Support Program which supports the Government of Rwanda’s vision for accelerating agricultural transformation and rural development. She is based in Kigali, Rwanda.

Fellow Bio:

Gracie graduated from the University of Virginia in 2015, majoring in Psychology and minoring in French. She then continued for an additional year at UVA to obtain her Master of Public Policy in 2016. Gracie studied abroad for a Summer in Paris, and she traveled on her Spring Breaks on mission and research trips to Haiti and Turkey.  She recently completed an internship and consultancy with the USAID Africa Bureau and Water Office, with whom she partnered to complete her thesis on Water Programming in Rwanda, and traveled to Ghana, Rwanda, and South Africa to facilitate budget trainings. Gracie has also worked to manage and evaluate many USAID programs in Africa and around the world through her internship and consultancy with USAID implementing partners, DevTech Systems and Millennium Partners. She is excited to expand her international development experience by spending the coming year learning about the agriculture development sector and gaining field experience working for Olam International in Kampala, Uganda.

Corine graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in Social Theory and Practice, focusing on arts activism, racial and economic justice, education, and the criminal justice system, and minored in Intergroup Relations Education and Community Action and Social Change. As a facilitator for intergroup dialogue, the Prison Creative Arts Project (PCAP), bystander intervention programs, and a low-and-high ropes team building and leadership course, Corine worked extensively with groups to cultivate dialogue, empower youth, and engage in justice work. At UofM, Corine was a Ginsberg Community Engagement Fellow, working to connect programs across campus in the work towards positive allyhood practices. They also participated in Semester in Detroit, interning with Alternatives for Girls in Southwest Detroit, spent 5 weeks working in Liberia in Agriculture and Engineering, interned in Izmir, Turkey teaching ESL, and were a student leader for the Center for Educational Outreach. After graduation, Corine worked for the Michigan College Advising Corps for a year as a College Adviser at Ypsilanti Community High School in Ypsilanti Michigan. Their passion for educational access and justice work took them to Porto-Novo Benin for 2017-18 as a Fulbright Scholar/ English Teaching Assistant, working in education, arts activism, and culture in the capital of Benin. Their work with the African School of Economics is both a continuation in the work for creative, welcoming, inclusive and just educational environments and a love of their community in Benin.

Alumni Update:

Jill is currently working at Hanover Research in their education research department. Though she has only been here for a short time, Jill is already excited by the exposure she is getting to the most pressing challenges facing higher and K12 educators. She won’t lie and say that she never thinks about returning to Africa-focused development work, but right now Jill is having a great time exploring education from a slightly different vantage point.

Fellow Bio:

Jill graduated with a degree in History, concentrating on Empires and Colonialism. She is originally from Chappaqua, NY but for the past five years has traded suburbia in for life in the big city. During college she helped found the Pre-Veterinary Society and was an avid member of Columbia’s Equestrian Club. Her interest in Africa was ignited when she studied abroad in Uganda and Rwanda, and developed during the spring of her junior year spent in Cape Town. Since graduating, Jill has devoted herself to tutoring, finishing up her Pre-Vet requirements, and exploring the New York City she never got to see while sequestered up in Morningside Heights. She can’t wait to begin working with the Kucetekela Foundation and delving into Lusaka’s hip-hop and Sunday brunch scenes.

Fellow Bio:

Jennifer is from Victoria, BC, Canada, and will always be an ocean girl. She was an ecology and evolutionary biology major at Princeton but—illogically—spent the year after graduation teaching art (and music, and computers, and ESL) at an international school on a misty mountaintop in South India, through Princeton in Asia. She is wildly excited to be returning to Africa, having done her senior thesis research on hybrid zebras in Kenya. A “Jill of all trades,” Jennifer looks forward to doing anything and everything for the Komku Trust, while pursuing her interests in art, writing, music and exploring.

Emma graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa in May 2018 from Barnard College with a B.A. in Molecular and Cellular Biology. Emma’s interest in community activism began in high school when she was inspired to do something about littering in the empty lot next to the site of her fellowship at the Children’s Aid Society. She founded Project Flower Street, an environmental education and visual arts initiative designed to build self-esteem and foster neighborhood pride in children. By her sophomore year of college, Emma worked with over 500 children to create seven public outdoor art installations, made entirely of recycled materials. In college, Emma developed the initiative to focus on teaching hygiene through the visual arts. She implemented workshops in New York and Nicaragua using microscopes, growing bacteria, and fostering cross cultural communication between children from both countries. Some of the grants that have supported Emma’s initiatives include: ABC Summer of Service Awards, Davis Projects for Peace, Laura Bush Traveling Fellowship, and Tamer Center for Social Entrepreneurship. Emma is on the premed track and is thrilled to combine her interest in public health with environmental sustainability through her work with Princeton in Africa as a Fellow at The Kasiisi Project in Uganda.

Alumni Update:

Stuart is pursuing a PhD in political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research focuses on the bureaucracy of public services in Senegal. Though he is currently based in Boston, Stuart returns to Dakar and Senegal often.

Fellow Bio:

Originally from Ellicott City, Maryland, Stuart graduated from Swarthmore College in June 2014 with high honors in economics and political science. He also studied for a semester at the Institut d’études politiques de Bordeaux in Bordeaux, France through a Middlebury College program. While at Swarthmore, Stuart worked as a research assistant in the political science department and a teaching assistant in the economics department. He also ran on Swarthmore’s varsity cross country and track teams. Prior to his PiAf fellowship, Stuart worked for two years at the Center for International Development at Harvard University. He has also worked with the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in Washington, D.C. and the U.S. State Department in Paris, France.

Alumni Update:

Sarah currently works as a Senior Project Manager at Dimagi, focusing on digital health engagement and strategy throughout West Africa. After three wonderful years working for Dimagi in Senegal, she has spent the past three+ years working at their HQ in Cambridge, MA.

Fellow Bio:

Sarah graduated with a double major in History and Political Science and a minor in French. Originally from Newton, Massachusetts, Sarah has spent the year since graduation working in Washington, DC at Americans for Peace Now. While at Vanderbilt, she studied abroad in Dakar, Senegal, and served as Secretary-General for the 2011 Vanderbilt University Model United Nations Conference. Sarah has completed internships with Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, the U.S. Fund for UNICEF, and the Institute of International Education. During her year in Cotonou, Sarah looks forward to riding zémidjans, sharing stories with friends at home and abroad, and learning more about food security in Benin through the World Food Programme.