Farah is a proud Bangladeshi-American Midwestern vegetarian liberal.  Growing up on the Mississippi River in Moline, Illinois under the care of two brilliant physics professor parents, and the guidance of doctor and chemist older siblings, she embraced her role as the family “free spirit” by engaging in the social sciences.  Through community activism and political campaigns she solidified her passion for organizing progressive causes and graduated from Cornell University in 2007.  Afterwards, she joined the labor movement working as a research analyst in Washington, DC fighting corporate subsidies for economic development projects that did not provide community benefits.  From 2008 until arriving at Princeton, she was drawn back to the Midwest to work on the Obama for President campaign and subsequently for universal health care and clean energy policy non-profit organizations.  For summer 2011, Farah was happy to return to Washington, DC where she worked at the World Wildlife Fund, focusing on securing money in the US budget negotiations for sustainable food/agriculture programs in attempts to feed the planet without destroying it. An avid reader, coffee-drinker, bicyclist, gardener, backpacker and lover of life, you will likely find Farah filling the silence with endless bouts of optimism for a more equitable world. Also, she loves pigeons.

When Ani graduated from high school in Baltimore, MD, he decided to move to Tallahassee, FL, to study engineering at Florida A&M University.  However, after completing nearly three years of mechanical and computer engineering study, and obtaining internships at General Motors (GM) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), he decided to shift his study focus to foreign languages and international affairs. Thus, he transferred to the University of Maryland at College Park and graduated with a BA in Spanish and International Business in 2004. Immediately after graduating, Ani joined the Peace Corps to lend his experience to the effort to develop increased capacity for information technology in rural Gambia.  Later, wanting to gain further international experience in a country of rising importance to global affairs, he took a teaching position in Shenzhen, China.  After spending four years in China learning its language and culture, he entered the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University where he is majoring in international relations and focusing his studies on East Asian affairs and development issues. Ani is also a Rangel International Affairs Fellow, and as part of his fellowship he spent the summer of 2010 working in the office of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on global affairs issues. In the subsequent summer, Ani returned to China to intern with the US Department of State at the Consulate General in Guangzhou, China. After completing his graduate studies, he will join the United States Foreign Service as a Foreign Service Officer, and will split his time between Washington, DC and various international posts.

Greg graduated from Bowdoin College with a double major in Government/Psychology and a minor in Economics. After college he spent a year traveling and working odd jobs while living with his now-wife Vanessa’s family in England and visiting his own family in Tanzania. Back in the United States, he settled down in New York City where he returned to the Northern Manhattan Improvement Corporation (NMIC), an organization he had interned with in college. During his five years with NMIC’s Legal Department, he focused on eviction prevention while he also helped expand their services in public benefits and consumer debt advocacy. He was able to broaden his experience in housing policy issues after being elected as a Board member of New York State Tenants & Neighbors and the Emergency Rent Coalition as well as through his volunteer efforts with TenantsPAC. This past summer, he worked with the New York City Human Resources Administration on housing issues. Upon graduation from WWS, Greg looks forward to returning to New York more permanently to put his new skills to good use.

Alex spent his childhood among the cows and forests of rural Bavaria, Germany. He changed cultural gears upon his arrival in a Southern Californian beach town for high school. Following college graduation in 2006 from UC Berkeley, he worked as a Herbert Scoville, Jr. Peace Fellow in DC at the Arms Control Association on chemical weapons and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, among others. He then moved to the Stimson Center for a project on the obstacles to nuclear disarmament and created an online simulation on the subject. When not running, Alex spends his free time talking and reading about the sport. For the summer, he returned to Washington to try his hand at the fusion of policy analysis and journalism.

Kerry’s passion for development economics began during an internship in the Andean city of Puno, Peru during her junior year of college.  After spending the following semester abroad in Argentina, she was hooked on Latin America.  In 2007, she moved to Mexico City to work with Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) on a randomized evaluation of the interest rates charged by Latin America’s largest microfinance institution (MFI), Compartamos Banco.  The next year took Kerry to northern Mexico.  While there, she managed another randomized evaluation, this time on the social and economic impact of microcredit, and got a firsthand view of the implications of current border policy.  After two years in the field, she returned to the United States to work on IPA’s communication strategy, spreading the gospel of randomized evaluations and evidence-based aid policy.  This past summer, Kerry worked with the World Bank country office in the Philippines as they provided technical assistance to the Philippine government’s conditional cash transfer program.

After receiving her BA in Economics and Communications from Boston College, Chrissy sought out sunnier skies in San Francisco, where she served as an AmeriCorps VISTA member with Jumpstart, the national early education organization.  After her VISTA term, she became a Jumpstart Site Manager at Saint Mary’s College, mentoring college students to serve in low-income preschools in Oakland, CA.  Thereafter, she directed Jumpstart’s Early Literacy Initiative, which strives to raise awareness about the importance of early education through grass-roots community building.  While the return to New Jersey winters has been daunting, Chrissy is excited to be back in her home state to study at the Woodrow Wilson School, where she is focusing on social welfare policy and poverty alleviation in urban communities. She interned this past summer at the Workforce Investment Board in New York City.

Raquel was born in the midst of the Costa Rican rainforest (not really, but close). She spent her childhood climbing mango trees and stealing books from her father’s library. While studying law at the University of Costa Rica, a series of fortunate events brought her to the Presidential House where she spent four years working as an Adviser and Head Speechwriter to the President of the Republic. A Fulbright Scholar, Raquel comes to Princeton with the hope of learning the necessary tools to continue serving her country (and pursue her delusion of becoming a fiction writer). She worked at The Brookings Institution in Washington, DC for her summer internship.

Before arriving at Princeton, Lis worked in the Utah Governor’s office as the energy and climate policy coordinator.  She also taught Introduction to Meteorology and climate change courses at the University of Utah.  She earned her master’s degree in atmospheric science at the University of Utah and her bachelor’s degree at Cornell University.  Lis interned in the White House Council on Environmental Quality for the summer of 2011. After graduating from WWS, Lis would like to work on climate change issues.

A recipient of the WWS’ Scholars in the Nation’s Service graduate fellowship, Alex has spent two years at the US Treasury as an international economist for the Middle East and Western Hemisphere offices.  Highlights from this experience include: analyzing Gulf and Andean economies; coordinating US efforts in the G-20 on small and medium enterprise (SME) finance; and temporary tours in US Embassy Quito and the Inter-American Development Bank.  Previously, he served as an undergraduate researcher at the University of Miami’s Institute for Cuban Studies and Center for Hemispheric Policy.  This past summer he interned with the International Financial Corporation's Financial Advisory practice in Mumbai, India.  An avid fan of baseball and Cuban food, Alex looks forward to organizing Woo trips this year that include either.

Jen was raised in Wisconsin and attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she loved student government but decided that being a politician was not for her. After graduating in 2003 with an international studies focus in Africa, she headed to Kenya and taught English and science for two months while living on an ostrich farm. In 2005, while working as a paralegal in New York, Jen took the LSAT, decided not to go to law school, and promptly filled out her Peace Corps application. She spent two years in Guinea, West Africa, teaching English, organizing a conference for young girls, enjoying 17 hour taxi rides, and generally having a great time. After returning to the US she started working on the Africa team at Grameen Foundation, a DC-based non-profit helping the poor through microfinance and innovative technology. Jen spent her summer working with the Millennium Challenge Account team in Rabat, Morocco and studying Spanish in Colombia. She is excited to get back to the Woo for another year of memos, papers, problem sets and fun!

A Seattle native and Northwestern University graduate, Mark discovered his interest in politics and public service while interning in the Washington State legislature. He went on to live and work in Washington, DC for eight years, serving as legislative director and foreign policy adviser for Congressman Adam Smith (D-WA), among other roles, and most recently as a legislative affairs director at the US State Department. All that time in DC taught Mark how much good governance and democratic accountability matter, as well as the virtues and flaws of our political system in practice. At the Wilson School he is exploring both developing-country political development, as well as opportunities for improving democratic accountability here at home. For his summer internship he worked with the Tony Blair Africa Governance Initiative in Kigali, Rwanda and London. Mark’s loves include music, travel, making people laugh, and debating just about anything.

Héber was born in Mexico and was raised primarily in the United States. His experience living in both countries and witnessing first-hand the economic disparities between the two nations provoked in him a strong interest in economic development. After graduating from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University where he obtained a bachelor’s degree in International Political Economy, he worked for Millennium Challenge Corporation in the Development Policy and Monitoring & Evaluation divisions. Subsequently, Héber worked for ideas42 and Innovations for Poverty Action in the Dominican Republic and Colombia where he designed and implemented multiple microfinance and agribusiness interventions and evaluated their impact using randomized control trials. After his first year in Princeton, he spent the summer in Mexico City working for Embarq and CTS México where he conducted social evaluations of Bus Rapid Transit systems throughout the country. After Princeton, Héber would like to return to Latin America to work in the fields of urban planning and development while focusing on the implementation and evaluation of infrastructure and transportation projects in developing cities. Héber enjoys learning languages, playing musical instruments, biking, racquetball, traveling, and maps.

Originally from rural Maine, Ellen studied Sociology and French as an undergraduate at Wesleyan University. During her time there, she also spent a year at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques (“Sciences Po”) in Paris. After college, Ellen worked in the Research & Evaluations Department at Common Ground, a NYC-based supportive housing non-profit. This past summer, Ellen interned in Dakar, Senegal at UN Women’s West Africa Regional Office. Ellen is currently writing grants as an intern with the Seeds of Africa Foundation, a community development organization that provides educational support services to low-income children based in Nazret, Ethiopia.

Katie enjoys attending the Woodrow Wilson School, and developing skills and insights to bring to the community level action and social analysis she values.  Katie is a student in the Urban Policy and Planning certificate program.  She is one of the school's Community Service Co-chairs (alongside the great Kim Bonner!). After studying contemporary religion at Harvard University, she has worked with wonderful people in: conducting ethnographic research on congregational social action in New York City; running adult education programs in a NYC settlement house, particularly enjoying coordinating English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) classes; and most recently, teaching and running a school improvement effort in a Dominican Republic batey.  She anticipates working on city/state level organizing after graduation.  Katie loves the outdoors, live music, literature and ethnography, Italian food, Spanish, and people in general.  Last spring she was a work-study intern at Newark’s Sustainability Office.  This past summer she worked as a community organizer with PATH, People Acting Together in Howard, an IAF affiliate in Howard county Maryland.

A native of New Jersey, Dan is excited to be back in the Garden State after spending two years living in Washington, DC.  He graduated from Colgate University in 2008 with a degree in political science and economics.  In addition to miraculously surviving four central New York winters, he spent his time at Colgate performing improv comedy and working with a non-profit devoted to assisting local high school students with the college application process.  In the following years, he studied environmental economics and energy policy at a DC think tank.  He has also written about the proliferation of think tanks and other policy research organizations in the United States.  Since coming to the Woodrow Wilson School, he has rediscovered his love of both econometrics and intramural sports.  At WWS, Dan is pursuing coursework and research in urban economics and domestic-focused poverty reduction strategies. He spent the summer of 2011 as an intern at the Office of Management and Budget.

Kari’s career in foreign affairs began modestly at age 17, when she financed a trip to Kenya by holding a high school dance - her first act of international diplomacy.  She later cut her teeth on international development by working in a maternity ward in a rural health clinic in Senegal.  Most recently, she served as a Legislative Assistant for Congressman Earl Pomeroy, covering international affairs as well as education, immigration, judiciary, and Native American issues.  In that capacity, Kari assisted with diplomatic efforts to secure the release of a political prisoner in Iran.  She was a 2009 Congressional Fellow with the Partnership for a Secure America working on national security and foreign policy, and was named an honorary Hope Fellow for her work with women leaders in the Balkans. This past summer, she worked in the monitoring and evaluation unit of Apne Aap, an Indian NGO that works with victims of sex trafficking. After graduating, Kari looks forward to using her degree to continue her work on the global fight for women's rights.

Morgan earned his commission from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 2002, earning a BS in both Math and Physics.  Upon completion of standard Infantry officer training, he was assigned to 1st Battalion, 187th Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division as an Anti-Tank Platoon Leader.  Following his first deployment in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom, he was reassigned to 3rd Ranger Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment where he served as both a Rifle Platoon Leader and Company Executive Officer while deploying three more times in support of the Global War on Terror.  After graduation from the Maneuver Captains Career Course in February 2007, Morgan was assigned to 5th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division in Fort Lewis, Washington where he commanded Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion, 1st Infantry Regiment from May 2007 until April 2009.  Major Greene was then selected to serve as a Captains Assignment Officer at Infantry Branch, Human Resources Command in Alexandria, Virginia until his selection as a 2010 General Wayne A. Downing Scholar landed him at Princeton University where he is focusing upon International Relations and Development.  This past summer Morgan studied policing and extending services to insecure areas in conjunction with Princeton's Innovations for Successful Societies and traveled to Japan as a fellow of the Association of Professional Schools of International Affairs Japan Travel Program for US Future Leaders. Morgan has been happily married to Becca Rae Greene since August 2006.  Together, they have a beautiful daughter, Emmylou, who was born here at Princeton in October 2010.

Born and raised just outside Boston, Larry attended Bates College in Lewiston, Maine where he procured a degree in Modern American History and a newfound interest in political movements. After graduation he joined AmeriCorps and spent several months assisting Gulf Coast communities affected by Hurricane Katrina. Heeding Horace Greeley’s advice to “Go West, young man,” he moved to San Francisco where he cut his political teeth working for Mayor Gavin Newsom and the California Democratic Party. He also served on the board of a local Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Democratic Club, and established a LGBT Alumni Network for his undergraduate alma mater. Before coming to WWS, Larry worked at the US Department of Housing and Urban Development in Washington DC, where he helped launch the Office for International and Philanthropic Innovation. For his summer internship he worked with the US Department of Housing and Urban Development in Washington, DC. When not over-consuming political news, Larry enjoys watching baseball and incorporating the merits of smart growth into casual conversation.

Jacob grew up in Madison, Wisconsin, catching bugs, reading too much science fiction, programming really slow computers, and doing other nerdy things. He studied Biology at Swarthmore College (where he fooled some mockingbirds into attacking a tape recorder) and Science Education at Bank Street College of Education and Brooklyn College (where he learned that crayfish like bubble wrap). He was a middle and high school science teacher for an entire decade, in the South Bronx, the Lower East Side, and suburban New Jersey, and was a corps member in CityYear and Teach for America. For his summer internship Jacob worked with the New Jersey Charter Schools Association, helping them to redesign their web presence and make school performance and demographic data more easily available. He is interested in helping school districts collaborate with science oriented corporations, research universities, and non-profits to improve science education. Jacob lives in Hopewell Township, New Jersey, with his wife and two children.

A native Coloradan, Drew was able to pry himself from the ski slopes and rock-climbing pitches of the Rockies long enough to graduate in 2007 from CSU.  After graduation, Drew moved to Los Angeles to become a high school science teacher with Teach For America.  During his time at Dorsey High School, he co-founded the Dorsey Net Generation of Youth Program to engage inner-city students in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM).  This led to a 2010 summer fellowship studying STEM-oriented education systems in China, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Vietnam. He spent the summer of 2011 as an Urban Leaders Fellow in Denver, working with the Denver School of Science and Technology and ­­­the Office of State Senator Michael Johnston. In his free time, Drew enjoys the ocean and being outdoors, making music, and playing sports.

A Brooklyn-born, Southern-raised army brat, Christina has always had a healthy obsession with politics. A cum laude graduate of Furman University, Christina received her bachelor’s degree in Political Science with a concentration in Women & Gender Studies in 2008. While at Furman, she was elected the first African-American student body president in the University’s 185-year history. When not engaged in campus politics, Christina was on the campaign trail working on national, state and local races. After a fourteen-month stint with the Hillary Clinton’s campaign (and graduation) her senior year, she finished up the 2008 cycle with EMILY’s List, a fundraising PAC for pro-choice Democratic women, as the Assistant Finance Director for a top-tier congressional candidate. After the election, she moved to Washington, DC where she worked for US Senator Kay R. Hagan on a range of domestic policy issues, including the federal budget, agriculture, and housing. This past summer, Christina worked as an Education Pioneers Fellow at the New York City Department of Education in their Charter Schools Office.

Renee was raised in eclectic immigrant California.  After graduating from UC Berkeley with a little too much critical theory, she ran off to Turkey with the US State Department Critical Language Scholarship and worked with the Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV) on democracy and internally displaced persons (IDP)/migration issues.  In 2008, she joined the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Global Development team to assist with agricultural development and food security in Sub-Saharan Africa.  Just before coming to the Woo, she traveled to Senegal where she focused on human rights-based non-formal education with Tostan International, investigated the possibilities of solid waste, and contemplated feminism in the context of polygamy. This past summer Renee interned in Chennai, India with the Center for Development Finance at the Institute for Financial Management and Research (IFMR).  With the project, Transparent Chennai, Renee worked to create an evidence-base to promote local participation in government urban planning. She researched Indian government policies for the upgrading and rehabilitation of slums, looked at distributional differences in municipal water supply and analyzed community mapping methodologies. Renee likes saffron, farmers’ markets, and cycling to wear spandex.

A Tarheel born and bred, Wes grew up in rural Western North Carolina and lived there until he matriculated at UNC-Chapel Hill.  As much as he loved Chapel Hill, he tore himself away to participate in two semester-long UNC-sponsored Burch Field Research Seminars (one examining domestic policy-making in Washington, DC; the other in Vienna, Austria and the Balkans to investigate conflict resolution and democracy building activities).  He graduated with honors and as a UNC Public Service Scholar, completing requirements for a double major in Public Policy Analysis and Business Administration.  After graduating, Wes moved to Washington, DC to begin work with The Lewin Group, a health and human services research and consulting firm, where he worked for five years until returning to graduate school.  While living in the DC Metro area, he volunteered with both the Fairfax County Health Care Advisory Board’s Community Advisory Committee and Special Planning Study for Community Mental Health.  At the Woodrow Wilson School, he is completing the Certificate in Health and Health Policy (HHP).  During summer 2011, Wes interned in the Medicare Branch of the US Office of Management and Budget.

Masa was born in Kyoto, Japan, and spent part of his childhood days in Memphis, Tennessee.  After receiving an MPP from Kyoto University, he entered the Japanese Foreign Ministry and spent two hectic years at the Japan-US Security Treaty Division working on all sorts of issues regarding alliance management including the realignment of US forces in Japan.  There, he was able to experience firsthand the historical change in government from the virtually continuous rule of Liberal Democratic Party for more than half a century.  His summer plans included exploring America this past summer with the ultimate goal of visiting all fifty states. After graduation from WWS, he plans on going back to the Ministry and hopes to specialize in security issues.  In his free time, Masa enjoys reading, traveling, playing basketball, and cooking.

Brian grew up in Croton-on-Hudson, NY. His undergraduate experiences working at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, the FBI, and the State Department instilled in him a deep passion for public service, clearing briefing papers, and answering Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. As a 2008 Scholars in the Nations Service (SINSI) graduate scholar, Brian spent his two year fellowship at the State Department working on sanctions in the Office of Iranian Affairs, monitoring the 2009 elections from the Iran Regional Presence Office in Dubai, reporting on the 64th General Assembly from the US Mission to the UN, and supporting the Darfur peace process in the Office of the US Special Envoy to Sudan. While at WWS, he is planning on pursuing a concurrent JD at Harvard Law. Before shipping off to Princeton, Brian studied Arabic in Beirut. When not brutalizing fusha, he spends his time trying to get on Cash Cab and encouraging people he meets throughout the world to visit the Croton Dam.

Raised just outside of Rochester, NY, Leslie fell in love with public transportation and quaint New England neighborhoods when she started college at MIT in Cambridge, MA.  There she studied biology and focused her research on understanding the molecular mechanisms of cancer. Following MIT, Leslie worked on drug development for cancer programs at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston and University of California, San Francisco.  In addition to the biotech and health care sectors, she spent summers as a consultant on HIV/AIDS education at The World Bank and a volunteer English teacher in Beijing, China. Leslie recently completed a work-study internship with the Health Section at UNICEF in New York and interned in the Economics section of the US Embassy in Jakarta this past summer.

Born in Canada to a German mother and an American father, Julian’s identity has always been a bit confused. After growing up in Germany, and attending the United World College (UWC) of the Atlantic in Wales, he graduated from the University of Toronto in 2004 with a degree in International Development Studies. This included a year with the International Finance Corporation (IFC) in the Balkans developing the small and medium enterprises (SME) sector, and was followed by work for a Swiss NGO training diplomats from developing countries and a year spent with United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Rwanda on economic governance and rural development projects. Since following his wife back to Canada, he has helped launch Planetair, a Montreal-based purveyor of high-quality carbon offsets, and has advised Fortune 500 companies on their corporate responsibility for Ayrlie Partners. At WWS, Julian is broadening his understanding of environmental policy. Over the summer, Julian worked with the Ecologic Institute in Berlin, Germany, conducting economic analysis of water policy instruments and climate change adaptation.

Prior to coming to the Woodrow Wilson School, Carol worked for five years at Cornerstone Research, an economic and litigation consulting firm located in the San Francisco bay area.  Looking to make an impact in the public sector, she volunteered on pro-bono consulting projects for the Taproot Foundation, an organization that connects nonprofits with professionals.  This past summer, she interned at the Environmental Protection Agency's San Francisco office, where she worked on issues in environmental finance and technology commercialization.  Carol enjoys yoga, hiking, and cooking.

After graduating from Wesleyan University in 2007, Katherine spent two stints on the Atlantic Ocean, working in the galley of a student sailing vessel. She also lived in Kampala, Uganda for two years, where she worked with Mvule Trust, a scholarship organization for underprivileged young women from rural areas. Mvule Trust was chosen Charity of the Year in 2009 by the UK newspaper The Guardian. While in Uganda, she also produced three issues of an environmental newsletter for schoolchildren and teachers, which were distributed across the country. During her first year at WWS, Katherine interned in the Sustainability Office for the City of Newark, NJ, researching municipal urban forestry programs. She spent the summer of 2011 interning for the Natural Resources Defense Council in Washington DC, blogging and helping the organization prepare for the 2012 “Earth Summit” in Rio de Janeiro.

Mike was born in Wuhan, China but grew up in San Francisco, California. After college, he joined Peace Corps Bolivia as a microenterprise volunteer spending his service in a small village nestled at 10,000 feet in the Andes. While he spent much of his time lost in the mountains, he also helped to build the first store in the village’s history, and he has been back several times since the end of his service to visit old friends. Mike stayed in Bolivia for four years, moving to La Paz to work as a Project Associate with Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA), where he strove to improve socially oriented credit and savings programs at a number of local financial institutions. He then completed his first year at WWS, but quickly disappeared to the Fiji Islands where he worked for the United Nations’ Pacific Financial Inclusion Programme (PFIP). During his two years there, Mike focused on extending financial services to low income and rural people in seven different nations, from Papua New Guinea to Timor Leste. While he loved his work in the Pacific, Mike is also excited to be returning to finally graduate with the class of 2012.

Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, David learned early the importance of earthquake preparedness. He was at the 1989 World Series game interrupted by the Loma Prieta earthquake, and his high school was deemed seismically unsafe and condemned his junior year. After attending college at Tufts University – and working on a failed gubernatorial campaign in Massachusetts – he moved to Washington, DC, where he has lived ever since. He has interned with Salon.com, the New Democrat Network, and the National Association of Community Health Centers. Before coming to Princeton, he served as a Legislative Assistant dealing with health care and social security issues for US Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH). David is focusing his studies on public finance, health care, and education issues. He spent the summer interning in the Health Division of the US Office of Management and Budget.

While an undergrad at the University of Chicago, Ben escaped the frigid Chicago winters by studying abroad in Havana, Cuba and interning in the Office of the Undersecretary for Human Rights and Democracy in the Mexican Foreign Ministry.  During that time, he developed a love of dancing and enchiladas suizas.  After graduating from the U of C with a degree in International Studies, he spent three years managing human rights-based criminal justice reform projects in new democracies such as South Africa, Mexico, Georgia, and Nigeria for the Open Society Justice Initiative.  For the three years prior to starting at the Woodrow Wilson School he co-directed 24 Hours for Darfur, a NGO specializing in research on conflict in Darfur, Sudan.  In that capacity, Ben developed and led the first public opinion survey of Darfurian refugees on issues of peace, justice and reconciliation.  For the past five years Ben has also served as the founding director of the Seevak Human Rights and Social Justice Fellowship program. His studies focus on the nexus between transitional justice, national security, and US foreign policy. He split his summer internship between Washington DC and Egypt working with former Congressman Tom Perriello and Avaaz dot org to undertake reporting and analysis of the political context there in the lead up to parliamentary elections scheduled for fall 2011. Ben was born and raised in Boston.  And when he’s not working, traveling or hanging out with friends, you might find him swimming, biking, running, or practicing Bikram Yoga somewhere in the tri-state area.

Hailing from Long Island, NY, Laura attended Duke University, where she graduated with a degree in Economics.  Following graduation, she began her career with Marakon Associates, a management consulting firm in New York. After two and half years, she followed her interest in social justice issues by working as a consultant for The Bridgespan Group, working with nonprofits and foundations to address their most pressing strategic and operational issues.  In between, she spent three months in Kigali, Rwanda working on a TechnoServe project to increase the incomes of small-scale coffee farmers.  Since graduating, Laura has also twice ridden a bicycle across the country to support affordable housing organizations.  At Princeton, she focuses on domestic poverty and inequality, and is especially interested in the disproportionate effects on women and their families.  Most recently, she worked for the City of New York with the Center for Economic Opportunity (CEO) for her summer internship.  In her spare time, Laura enjoys competing in triathlons, dancing, hiking, camping, board games, and cooking.

Emily grew up in Perth, Australia harboring dreams of becoming a scientist.  However, to her surprise, during her undergraduate degree in Science/Economics she found she had a much stronger chemistry with economics than with chemistry itself.  This saw her leave the world’s most geographically isolated city behind, to move to Sydney to work at Australia's central bank for five years.  Emily spent her summer in Malawi, Africa helping Innovations for Poverty Action with a randomized control trial on improving the effectiveness of communication about farming techniques to subsistence farmers. Upon completing her MPA, Emily plans to return to Australia and the central bank.

Before matriculating at the Woodrow Wilson School, Andrew served within the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, where he was responsible for analyzing and developing policy options for the Defense Department’s conduct of economic stabilization initiatives in complex environments. Prior to that, he served in Iraq with a small task force established by the Deputy Secretary of Defense to quell insurgency and sectarian strife through revitalization of the country’s economy; there, he was responsible for formulating and facilitating efforts to help deploy various Fortune 500 firms throughout the country. Andrew has lived for over four years throughout the Middle East and Europe and is fluent in several dialects of Arabic and proficient in Castilian Spanish. He is a recipient of the Secretary of Defense’s Civilian Service Medal for the Global War on Terror, the National Security Education Program David L. Boren Scholarship, and the US Intelligence Community’s Pat Roberts Scholarship, and is a summa cum laude graduate of Westminster College in Salt Lake City, Utah. As an undergraduate, he interned for the US Embassy in Kuwait, US Senator Hatch and later the Joint Economic Committee of Congress, the Commerce Department’s Iraq Investment and Reconstruction Task Force, and a Lebanese human-rights organization. Andrew served this past summer as an independent researcher for the National Defense University’s Institute for National Strategic Studies, and he currently serves as a foreign policy consultant to Governor Jon Huntsman’s presidential campaign.

Christen Marie completed her undergraduate studies in public health and economics at Clemson University.  After graduating in 2007, she spent two years in Ethiopia with the US Peace Corps, working on an HIV&AIDS prevention, care, and support project.  She previously served as a community health promoter in Oaxaca, Mexico, and an intern with USAID’s Africa Bureau in Washington, DC. As a participant in Duke University’s Program on Global Policy and Governance, she completed a summer internship in Geneva, Switzerland, at the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria.

Born in Eastern Kentucky, near where Daniel Boone crossed to open up westward expansion, Kevin has set out on a lifelong mission to pioneer Appalachia’s growth and development. Following his passion for public service and leadership, Kevin’s quest led him to our nation’s Capital where he served in the highest levels of government and politics, first as Legislative Correspondent to the US Senate Republican Leader, and later as Special Assistant to the Chairman of the Republican National Committee. After two years in Washington, he returned home to Kentucky to serve as Director of Strategic Initiatives for Inez Deposit Bank and to launch a non-profit organization to bring young professionals together to impact Eastern Kentucky. In his free time, Kevin enjoys outdoor activities, trips with friends, and University of Kentucky basketball! For his summer 2011 internship he served in the Office of the Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell in Washington, DC.

Sarah is pursuing her MPA at Woodrow Wilson School and a JD at Georgetown University.  She is exploring how law and public policy can intersect to bolster the livelihood of women and girls, with a focus on domestic issues.  This past summer, Sarah served as a Liman Public Interest Law Fellow at the Center for Health, Economic and Family Security at Berkeley Law School.  Her public service activities have included representing the interests of employees through employment discrimination lawsuits and of shareholders through securities fraud class actions, working as a domestic violence and sexual assault law clerk at the Domestic Violence Clerk’s Office at the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, and clerking for Senator Ted Kennedy on the Heath, Education, Labor and Pension committee.  Prior to graduate school, Sarah was the Policy and Communications Associate at the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy, where she directed a program attempting to ensure that the voices of people most affected by policy were included in policy debates.

Ishani received her undergraduate degree in chemical engineering with certificates in public policy, engineering biology, neuroscience, and materials science. As an undergraduate, through her work with the Global Development Network, she led a group in designing a low-cost solar oven and in studying ceramic water filtration. She traveled to Kenya, Tanzania, Nigeria, and Brazil to implement these projects and share her results. Ishani is currently a technology analyst and plans to continue working for the federal government when she graduates. She is planning on pursuing a Masters in Engineering in addition to a Masters in Public Affairs.

Feker (Fiqir) has a BA in International Relations from Mount Holyoke College. She joined Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP) shortly after graduating and worked there for two years. Prior to that, she worked on short term assignments with the Ethiopian Community Mutual Assistance Association, Concern Uganda, and the United Nations Population Fund in Addis Ababa. After Woody Woo, Feker hopes to get field experience, preferably in Sub-Saharan Africa. For her summer internship she worked with the Relief Society of Tigray (REST) in Ethiopia.

Born in the Soviet Union and raised in Brooklyn and the suburbs of New Jersey, Asya is excited to be close to home again and attending the Woody Woo. In her seven year hiatus from New Jersey, Asya attended Harvard University, where, after indulging two related whims to enroll in a Spanish class and volunteer in Costa Rica, discovered her passions for development work and Latin America. After graduating, she moved to Mexico and worked with the Mexican Ministry of Social Development (SEDESOL) on planning and dissemination of federal poverty alleviation programs. Afterwards, she spent two years with Innovations for Poverty Action as a coordinator for a randomized control trial evaluating the social and economic impacts of offering micro loans to women entrepreneurs, first in Mexico City and then in Nogales on the US/Mexico border. At Princeton, Asya is focusing on building her quantitative toolkit and gaining a deeper economic understanding of development issues. This past summer, she was in Mongolia interning at the Millennium Challenge Corporation in their Vocational Education and Monitoring & Evaluation units.

Atsuko was born in Tokushima, a small city in Japan. She lived in Pittsburgh from July 1990 to March 1992. She studied law, politics and economics at the University of Tokyo and earned two Bachelor degrees. She studied development economics for two years under Yasuyuki Sawada, Associate Professor at the University of Tokyo. Since April 2008 when she joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, she has been working as a Japanese diplomat. She worked at the International Cooperation Bureau for two years and was in charge of Official Development Assistance. She worked for UNICEF Sudan Country Office for three months as a summer intern from May to August 2011. Atsuko has visited more than ten developing countries as a volunteer, an intern, a field researcher, and a diplomat.

A native (upstate) New Yorker, Vanessa has a particular interest in domestic policy at the intersection of environmental, health and urban issues. From 2007 to 2010, Vanessa coordinated policy and advocacy for Tulane University’s Prevention Research Center in New Orleans. There she worked with community partners and policymakers to promote rebuilding healthy neighborhoods, especially through policies that increase access to healthy food. Previously, Vanessa spent several years working in Washington, DC on international trade and development issues. She also lived in Ocotal, Nicaragua while managing a cultural exchange program, and studied Geography and Environmental Policy at the University of Oxford as a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar. Vanessa enjoys walkable cities, parks, yoga, soccer, live music, and spending time with friends, family, and her husband Michael. For her summer internship she worked with the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene in the Division of Policy and External Affairs.

Rachel was born and raised in Oklahoma, but shares loyalties with the great state of Alabama which her family now calls home.  She completed her undergraduate degree at Auburn University majoring in economics in 2008 prior to being selected as a Graduate Scholar in the Nation's Service at the Woodrow Wilson School.  Rachel interned for the US Department of State at the Embassies in London and Dublin, worked in the International Affairs Division at the US Department of the Army as a foreign affairs political-military specialist for Europe and Eurasia, and studied Turkish in Ankara, Turkey as a recipient of the US Department of State's Critical Language Scholarship.  Over the summer she worked as an intelligence research analyst for Booz Allen Hamilton.  In her free time, she enjoys traveling, cycling, running, cooking, Stieg Larsson novels, and episodes of Wait Wait Don't Tell Me.  After graduating from Princeton, Rachel intends to continue her government service in the national security arena.

Ezra was born in Guadalajara, Mexico and grew up in the US and Ecuador. Most recently an Associate at Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, he worked on grant-making programs supporting music in NY state, movement building in the Gulf Coast, and community philanthropy within communities of color. Prior to joining RPA, he worked as a consultant connecting US non-profits to government, NGO, civil society, and indigenous actors in Bolivia. He received his BA in Ethnicity, Race & Migration and Music from Yale University in 2003 and was a PPIA JSI fellow. Ezra enjoys meeting good people, living well, and has traveled through all but four countries of South and Central Americas by bus. He plans apply his MPA towards a career in international development.

Despite an alarming susceptibility to tropical diseases and zero farming experience, Jake spent the years before coming to WWS working with a small, innovative agricultural NGO in sub-Saharan Africa called One Acre Fund.  Originally hailing from outside of Philadelphia, he spent his undergraduate years pursuing a major in History and International Studies at Yale University and worked briefly with the US Department of State in Rabat, Morocco.  This past summer, he joined Innovations for Poverty Action in Tamale, Ghana, to assist in a study of the various economic constraints preventing smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa from increasing their levels of investment and diversification.  While not engaged in work, Jake loves reading--although not as much as he loves collecting books simply for their own sake--favorite authors include V.S. Naipaul, Graham Greene, and Vladimir Nabokov.  On weekends, he can generally be found supporting his favorite adopted English football club, Chelsea, wherever satellite TV can be found.

After graduation, Keqin worked as a policy analyst at the Policy Research Office of the Chinese Democratic League (CDL), one of the eight minor political parties in China. Her responsibility was to conduct research on CDL leadership and to assist the “Two Conference” (the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and the National People’s Congress). After almost two years of experience in government, Keqin moved to CA and worked with the Plowshares Institute to develop workshops on peace skills. The summer before coming to WWS, she was translating Professor David. S. Nivison’s publication on Chinese archeology. She is exploring the relationship between economic transition and democratization at WWS, and her goal is to go back China and contribute to Chinese political reform. In her spare time, Keqin enjoys cooking, hiking, swimming, painting, and writing poetry. For her summer internship she worked with the International Labour Organization in Geneva.