Mariestella is a 2001 psychology graduate of Fordham University and earned a Master’s degree in urban education from Temple University in 2004.  As a VISTA Volunteer in a Philadelphia inner city high school, she worked with the Urban Nutrition Initiative educating low-income communities about healthy eating while supporting locally-grown produce … Read more

Shireen graduated with distinction from Yale in 2004 with a degree in economics.  She served as a freshman counselor, coordinated an elementary school tutoring program, and volunteered as a community health educator. She was also a leader in the South Asian Students and Persian Students Associations, worked on health education, … Read more

Before the Fellowship, Almas worked with the Kansas State Legislature and the state’s Child Protective Services agency developing state policy and legislation on the intersection between child maltreatment and domestic violence.  In 2003, she was a Fulbright Fellow at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, where she worked with the European Commission … Read more

Beth graduated cum laude from Harvard College in 2005 with a degree in Social Studies and a certificate in Health Policy.  Her senior thesis examined how personal responsibility affects obesity policy in the United States. While interning at the Institute of Medicine, Beth collaborated on a paper published in the … Read more

Sindri graduated from Saint Mary’s College of Maryland in 2006 with a degree in Political Science and a minor in Women, Gender, and Sexuality studies.  Prior to attending college Sindri received Amnesty International’s 2001 Patrick Stewart Human Rights Scholarship and spent six months working on issues of hunger and poverty … Read more

Eliberty earned a BS in Policy and Management in 2006 from Carnegie Mellon University where she was a leader in the Spanish and Latin American Student Association.  She also worked at an immigration law firm while completing the Public Law Program semester at American University.  Eliberty served as a policy … Read more

Girmay is a 2009 graduate of Stanford University, where he earned a degree in biological sciences. On campus, he served as the president of the Black Student Union, the president of his Sophomore Class, a member of the Spoken Word Collective, a mentor in the East Palo Alto Boys & … Read more

Born in Singapore and raised in Indonesia, Italy, and Illinois, Sarah graduated summa cum laude from the University of Notre Dame with a degree in anthropology and peace studies and a minor in gender studies. She fought for workers’ rights with the Campus Labor Action Project, helped lead a campus … Read more