Alumni Directory Display

Alumni Update:

Mgbechi is currently a 3rd year medical student at the University of Iowa’s Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine. Since her fellowship year, she has been working hard to finish medical school in hopes that she might return to the continent very soon! Mgbechi’s first published short story titled “Rabid Morula Seed” was conceived during her time in Botswana and is one of the stories that gained her an acceptance to the Iowa Writer’s Workshop for an MFA in fiction in the fall of 2014.

Fellow Bio:

Mgbechi completed her senior year in 2010 at Princeton University as a pre-medical student and Anthropology major with certificates in Creative Writing and African Studies. She is the eldest daughter of Nigerian parents and lives in Millstone, NJ.  Mgbechi is also the former president of Akwaaba, the Princeton African Student Association and received the Ward Prize for an internship with the New Yorker Magazine’s Function Department. While in Botswana next year, Mgbechi looks forward to finally connecting her dreams for Africa and global health with on-the-ground experience, and to forming new friendships with wonderful people (kids and grown-ups!).

Hailing from Buenos Aires, Argentina, Sol majored in International Relations and French studies at the University of Pennsylvania. While at Penn, Sol devoted her time to learning about South America’s geopolitical dynamics and the relationship between France and its former African colonies. Throughout her four years, Sol was also a member and co-captain her senior year of Penn’s Varsity Tennis Team. In the summer of 2013, Sol was a research assistant at an Argentine think tank where she conducted evaluative research on a yearlong project that sought to influence the policy agendas of the 2011 presidential candidates. The following year, as an intern at a political consulting firm in D.C., Sol worked on a number of projects focusing on social justice and progressive issues. Before coming to college, she traveled to more than 25 countries in Latin America, North America, Europe and Asia due to her tennis career. Sol looks forward to travelling around the continent, experiencing the Beninese culture, and gaining a deeper understanding of education policy and research in Africa.

Alumni Update:

Since her fellowship year Vicki has gotten her master’s at LSE in Human Rights and returned to Uganda, where she worked as human rights researcher with the Ugandan NGO the Justice and Reconciliation Project in Gulu. She spent a brief period in New York working for the Polyphony Foundation on a classical music and peace-building program in Israel, and is now in Washington, DC working for the Justice, Rights and Public Safety unit of the World Bank’s Governance Global Practice..

Fellow Bio:

Vicki graduated Harvard in ’07, and was a government concentrator. She is from Tustin, CA and spent the past three years working in New York City for the Human Right Institute at Columbia Law School. While at Harvard, Vicki also pursued a secondary field in anthropology of human rights and was an avid Mode UNer. She traveled to Rwanda in the summer of 2006 where she conducted research on post-genocide reconciliation measures of youth. While in Uganda next year, she looks forward to learning and writing about the work of the International Rescue Committee, and traveling around the country.

Charnelle is from Yaounde, Cameroon and graduated from Macalester College in May 2015 with degrees in International Studies and Political Science. Charnelle’s key interests are in African development, women’s issues and youth affairs. She left Cameroon at the age of ten and has lived in Zimbabwe, Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania. As the recipient of Macalester’s Chuck Green Fellowship, she partnered with Lutheran Social Service where she developed and implemented a new refugee resettlement program, providing extended case management for new Congolese arrivals to Minnesota. During her junior year she studied abroad in Rwanda where she conducted research on sustainable poverty reduction within female coffee farmers. Charnelle has also worked with Akina Mama wa Afrika (AMwA) in Uganda, focusing on women leadership initiatives. While in Uganda, Charnelle looks forward to returning to her favorite restaurants in Kampala and discovering other parts of East Africa.

Alumni Update:

Sarah took a few months off after her fellowship ended in September to see family at home in the States and travel in South America and Europe. She then started at Vera Solutions (a social impact consulting company) in Mumbai; she’s happily enjoying working there alongside PiAf alum Josh Wunderlich.

Fellow Bio:

Sarah studied International Relations and African studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Though she grew up in the suburbs of New York City, while at Penn she came to appreciate Philadelphia and became heavily involved with the Philly-based NGO Power Up Gambia. Additionally as an undergrad she spent a summer and semester abroad in Botswana working on HIV/AIDS and TB studies with the Botswana-UPenn partnership, and a summer in DC interning for Save the Children. While in Tanzania, Sarah hopes to become more involved with HIV/AIDS programming while putting the Swahili she has studied for two years to good use!

Alumni Update:

Katie is finishing her first year of a joint MBA-MA in International Studies at Wharton and the Lauder Institute in Philadelphia. This past year she helped organize the Wharton Africa Business Forum that brought in hundreds of participants and speakers from all over both the US and Africa to engage in the question of “The Inflection Point — What is Africa’s Onward Growth Model?” She will be interning this summer at Morgan Stanley in New York.

Fellow Bio:

Katie ’10 is a French major from the San Francisco Bay Area in California. She is also earning a certificate in African Studies from Georgetown University. At Georgetown, Katie enjoyed being a tour guide, a peer advisor, an orientation ambassador for international students, and a tutor in a local elementary school. She also was a WAGE fellow (Women Advancing Gender Equity) and interned at several women’s development NGOs in DC. Katie’s studied abroad in Paris,      France and spent a summer working in Peru at a girl’s orphanage. While in Benin next year, Katie looks forward to experiencing life in West Africa, exploring its amazing music and meeting tons of new people.

Alumni Update:

Post-fellowship, Joe completed his MPP at Harvard, and he spent a summer in Malawi and 4 years in Retail Banking Strategy in NYC. He recently began a role as a public sector consultant for Censeo Consulting in Washington, DC.

Fellow Bio:

Joseph Falit ‘07 is a Woodrow Wilson School major from Cheshire, CT. During his fellowship year, Joe will serve as an emergency preparedness coordinator and development consultant for Jacana, a non-profit organization based in Maputo, Mozambique. He has a particular interest in issues pertaining to human rights and has interned for the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinic in Boston. He also taught third-grade summer school in New Haven, CT. At Princeton, Joe played club lacrosse, taught SAT verbal and writing through the “Let’s Get Ready” program, and was president of the Humanity Project—a human rights fund raising and awareness group. In addition, Joe loves to write satire and exercise in his free time, and he is a member of the Tiger Inn Club. He is looking forward to going to the beach in Maputo, as well as learning how to surf and speak Portuguese.

Alumni Update:

Molly is currently in NYC, finishing medical school at Mount Sinai – she will be starting residency at Cornell in NYC for pediatrics this summer. After her time in Kenya, Molly decided she wanted to become a doctor. Molly spent a few years working/post bac before she entered medical school, and now she can say she is almost finished! In the meantime, Molly has also gotten married and had two beautiful sons – Jack who is almost 19 months and Charlie who was born in March 2014! So overall, busy but great times! She is still so happy for her fellowship that has given her the direction to go to medical school and find her passion!