Wendi Adelson, J.D. M.Phil., Class of 2002
Florida State University College of Law

Ten years later, I still have vibrant and fantastic memories of the 2002 International Achievement Summit in Dublin. After that incredible experience, I completed an M.Phil. degree in International Relations at the University of Cambridge on a Gates Cambridge Scholarship. I had the opportunity during my studies to work in Uganda on issues impacting asylum seekers and refugees. Fueled by my interest in human migration, I pursued a law degree to become an effective advocate for immigrants in the United States. After law school I worked as a staff attorney at the Children and Youth Law Clinic at the University of Miami School of Law, creating the State of Florida’s manual for representing unaccompanied immigrant children in juvenile and immigration court. For the following four years, I directed a Human Rights and Immigration Law Project at Florida State University College of Law, taught courses at the law school, and represented asylum seekers, immigrant victims of violent crimes, and victims of human trafficking.

After listening to my clients’ stories of abuse and triumph, immobility and moving on, I decided to write a novel about their experiences with human trafficking to share their stories with a larger audience. In 2011, I published This is Our Story. Below is some more information about the book.

See: This Is Our Story on Amazon.

See: This is Our Story on YouTube.

Currently, I am a clinical professor at Florida State College of Law where I direct a Medical Legal Partnership that equips law students with the skills to become effective advocates for the impoverished while securing access to disability benefits and immigration status for patients at a local neighborhood health clinic. In my free time, I try to keep up with my one and two year old sons, Benjamin and Lincoln Jonah. As far away as Dublin and sharing a toast with James Earl Jones feels at the moment, my gratitude to the Reynolds family endures, for making that incredible experience possible.

John Nagl, Ph.D., Class of 2002
Minerva Distinguished Research Professor, United States Naval Academy

“At the International Achievement Summit in London, I met a number of people who have since become friends — and served at the highest levels in the American government, in corporate America, and in the academy. Their friendship and service have been a source of continuing joy and inspiration.“

A Distinguished Graduate of the United States Military Academy Class of 1988, John Nagl served as an armor officer in the U.S. Army for 20 years. His last military assignment was as commander of the 1st Battalion, 34th Armor at Fort Riley, Kansas, training Transition Teams that embed with Iraqi and Afghan units. He led a tank platoon in Operation Desert Storm and served as the operations officer of a tank battalion task force in Operation Iraqi Freedom, earning the Combat Action Badge and the Bronze Star. Nagl taught national security studies at West Point’s Department of Social Sciences from 1997 until 2000, when he participated in the 2000 International Achievement Summit in London. He earned his Master of the Military Arts and Sciences Degree from the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, where he received the George C. Marshall Award as the top graduate, and his doctorate from Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar.

Dr. Nagl is currently the Minerva Distinguished Research Professor at the US Naval Academy and the past president of the Center for a New American Security. He is the author of Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam and was a member of the writing team that produced the U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual. His writings have also been published in The New York Times, Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and Foreign Policy, among others. He has been profiled in The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times Magazine and has appeared as a guest on National Public Radio, The PBS News Hour, 60 Minutes, and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

Séverine Autesserre, Class of 2000
Assistant Professor, Barnard College, Columbia University

It has now been almost 12 years since I attended the International Achievement Summit in London. At that time, I was working for a humanitarian organization in Kosovo. I vividly remember being asked unexpectedly at breakfast to participate in a panel on Kosovo that would take place a few hours later, with General Wesley Clark, the President of Latvia, and a few other dignitaries. I still can’t understand how, as a shy 20-something-year-old speaking in public for one of the first times in my life, I found the nerve to actually say a few things during this panel — and disagree with all the impressive people lined up on the stage. Little did I know that this pattern would characterize the next 12 years of my life. Since the day of this panel, I have had the chance to meet with a number of people I profoundly respect  — although few were as high-profile as those on the panel  — and have regularly ended up challenging their analyses.

I remained involved with aid organizations throughout my doctoral studies, traveling to Afghanistan and the Democratic Republic of Congo for Doctors Without Borders. I only left the humanitarian world for good a few years ago, when I started my post-doctoral studies at Yale University. I am now an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Barnard College, Columbia University. I specialize in international relations and African studies, and conduct research on civil wars, peacebuilding, peacekeeping, humanitarian aid, and African politics.

I recently finished a long research project focused on local violence and international intervention in the eastern Congo, where I have traveled regularly in the past ten years. This project resulted in a series of articles and culminated in a book, entitled The Trouble with the Congo: Local Violence and the Failure of International Peacebuilding. Academics and policy makers usually explain the conflict in Congo as the result of national and international tensions, and they attribute the failure of the international peacebuilding efforts to material constraints and vested interests. In my book, I suggest an alternate analysis of violence in Congo — one focused on grassroots rivalries over land, resources, and political power. I also develop a different analysis of the reasons behind the international failure to help Congo build peace and democracy: I argue that a dominant peacebuilding culture shaped the intervention strategy in a way that precluded action on local conflicts, ultimately dooming the international efforts. This argument won the 2012 Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order and the 2011 Chadwick Alger Prize, presented by the International Studies Association to the best book on international organizations and multilateralism.

My current research project examines how various shared cultures and practices influence peacebuilding interventions on the ground. I have conducted extensive fieldwork for this project in 2010-2011, with a primary case study on eastern Congo and comparative research on South Sudan, Burundi, and Cyprus; I am planning to carry out research in Timor-Leste and in Israel/Palestine in 2012. Findings from this project have appeared in Critique Internationale and African Affair. I am now at work on a book manuscript tentatively titled Peaceland: An Ethnography of International Intervention. I am still analyzing my data, but my hope is that the book will offer a new way to think about international peace interventions, and suggest more effective ways to build peace in conflict and post-conflict environments.

Xenia Dormandy, Class of 2000
Senior Fellow, Chatham House, the Royal Institute for International Affairs

“I was a member of the Academy’s Class of 2000; a decade later, my career has gone in directions I would never have thought possible.  Since then, I have crossed paths with other classmates from that year in ways that have been both professionally helpful and, often, enormously enjoyable.

After leaving Harvard’s Kennedy School, I joined the State Department as a Presidential Management Fellow.  Arriving just after 9/11, I soon found myself detailed to the Office of the Vice President, helping to set up his Homeland Security Office.  Over the next two years or so I rotated back to State to do a mix of nonproliferation, homeland security and South Asia work, and in 2004, I was detailed to the National Security Council as Director for South Asia.

Realizing that I now had, arguably, the best job in government, I knew that I would have to look elsewhere for the next challenge, and in late 2005 I became the Executive Director of Harvard’s Belfer Center and subsequently launched a new project there on India and the Subcontinent.  It was here that I started to cross paths with fellow Academy classmates with whom I had initially lost touch.  In 2009, I was given the enormous opportunity to launch a new peace-building foundation in Switzerland called PeaceNexus, where more old friends from the Class of 2000 appeared.  Last year, I returned to London to launch a new project at Chatham House on America’s international role in the world.

I came away from my Academy weekend in London with a number of good friends; people who are now peppered around the globe in jobs ranging from senior levels of the corporate sector (Bill Berrien, John Bartlett) to policy and politics (Neal Higgins, John Nagl).  While my classmates are perhaps the most memorable, other events also stand out: a black-tie late night discussion over cigars and brandy, speeches from Jeremy Irons and Salman Rushdie, and a bus journey in conversation with Zahi Hawass.  In the past ten years, I have crossed paths with many other Academy alumni, including those from other years.  If I have one regret, it is that I have not enjoyed the company of more.”

A graduate of Oxford University and the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, Xenia Dormandy worked for UNICEF in New York before joining the U.S. State Department. From 2005 to 2009, Ms. Dormandy was Director of the Project on India and the Subcontinent and the Executive Director for Research at the Kennedy School’s Belfer Center. In 2009, she became the first Executive Director of the PeaceNexus Foundation. Her articles and op ed pieces have appeared in The Washington Post, Boston Globe, Christian Science Monitor and International Herald Tribune; she has been interviewed on numerous radio and television programs, including those of NPR, CNN, Fox News, Al Jazeera and BBC World, as well as those of the PBS News Hour.

Samuel Sia, Ph.D., Class of 2002
Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Columbia University

Even though I didn’t realize it at the time, my participation at the International Achievement Summit in Dublin in 2002 was a life-changing event. It came at a time when I was finishing my Ph.D. in biophysics and reflecting on how I should use my skills as a scientist to try to improve the world. The career choices were typically binary: continue to do basic research, which could produce discoveries with immensely broad impact but might not trickle down to improving lives for decades; or leave research altogether and pursue an alternative career. Attending the Summit, combined with time I spent in West Africa a year before, crystallized for me the possibility to engage science in a creative manner in order to tackle some of the most pressing health issues of our time.

The Summit itself was spectacular — and wholly impossible to describe to those who were not present. I had a chance to talk (briefly) about the South African AIDS crisis with President Bill Clinton, the state of American politics with Ralph Nader, and the past and future of science (at considerable length) with Dr. James D. Watson. At the end of the meeting, I asked Marvin Minsky who his favorite speaker was, and he mentioned Bono, who poetically urged the student delegates to use their talents for the better good of the world. It became clear to me that while it was a less traveled path, there was no rule barring the mixing of academic research with a focus on producing immediate impact on society. In fact, there may be no more scaleable way to improve the world than development of transformative technologies.

After the Summit, I switched fields to biomedical engineering, an emerging and exciting field of research at the intersection of medicine and technology. I joined the faculty of Columbia University in New York City in 2005. Since that time, my lab has focused on developing low-cost, handheld diagnostic systems that can be used in sub-Saharan Africa as well as in Western countries. We are also developing new implantable devices with unprecedented functions. While the last decade in technology has been dominated by developments in the Internet and social media, my goal is to help bring that same level of excitement to medical devices and technologies.

Friedrich Frischknecht, Ph.D., Class of 2000
University of Heidelberg Medical School

The 2000 Academy International Achievement Summit in London was an incredible experience for too many reasons to list. I shared a room with Sergey Brin, who enjoyed answering my now-embarrassing question as to the nature of Google, not quite as ubiquitous then as it is now. We took pictures of each other wearing tuxedos — a first for both of us — for the big evening event at an impressive royal castle.

Earlier in 2000 I graduated, after completing a research project at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, Germany on the biochemistry of how poxviruses spread from one cell to another. After the Summit, and an extended vacation in Peru, I moved to Paris for postdoctoral research at the Pasteur Institute on how malaria parasites move.

While Google was reinventing the use of the Internet, I spent my first year mainly producing work for the trash bin, but then I hit a lucky streak and found the right technologies to tackle this parasite. Using rather simple microscopy techniques, we showed how the malaria parasite is transmitted from the mosquito to the vertebrate host.

After three years, I won a prestigious German government grant to return to Heidelberg, this time in the University’s department of infectious diseases. There, after a number of more grants, including the prestigious European Research Council starting grant, my lab is still investigating how malaria parasites manage to move more rapidly than any cell can defend us from them.

Together with our colleagues from the chemistry and physics department, we enjoy conducting interdisciplinary research projects that combine our different fields of expertise, as well as training excellent young researchers for the challenges they will face in academia or industry.

My lab is also part of a large European network of malaria researchers who exchange new ideas and findings regularly. Together with friends from Paris, one of whom is now working in Pretoria, we organize regular microscopy workshops in South Africa with the aim of fostering frontier science and bringing African students in contact with state-of-the-art technology. The last of these courses brought us a visit from the African Leadership Academy, an institution that is training the next generation of Africa’s leaders. I look forward to more such interactions; it is my belief that by training the next generation we contribute to changing the world into a better place for all.

Sarel Fleishman, Ph.D., Class of 2002
Assistant Professor, Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel

The 2002 International Achievement Summit in Dublin, Ireland, was an extraordinary experience for me. At the time, I was starting my graduate work in Biochemistry and the opportunity to personally meet such accomplished people, as well as budding academics and public servants, was truly inspiring. I vividly remember how, at the close of the Summit, Catherine Reynolds encouraged each of the international students to “go back to their countries of origin, and make a difference.” Having met, listened, and interacted that week with people, who really have made a huge difference, such as Henry Kissinger, James Watson and David Trimble, as well as with gifted students, who have undoubtedly been incredibly successful since the Summit, endowed Mrs. Reynolds’s statement with profound meaning.

My graduate work centered on computational modeling of membrane proteins. The goal of my research was to model the molecular structures of membrane proteins using the limited available information and to explain how they function, most crucially in disease. Based on these molecular structures I suggested models for the activity of these proteins and for their involvement in diseases such as certain types of cancer. Exciting recent results by other labs have shown that some of the central aspects of these models are indeed validated by experiment. For these studies I had been awarded the Science Magazine and GE Healthcare Award for Young Life Scientists.

When I completed my graduate work I had become attracted to the field of de novo protein design. In de novo design new proteins that don’t exist in nature are generated with the aid of computational methods to carry out a desired molecular task. In principle, being able to design proteins for any required task could have huge implications for our ability to study the molecular aspects of a wide range of life processes, and crucially to control many forms of disease. During my postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Washington, I developed the first method to reproducibly generate proteins that bind a target molecular surface, and used this method to design proteins that bind an influenza surface protein at a site that is crucial for viral infectivity (see illustration). This site is so important that it is virtually fully conserved among viral strains as different as Spanish, avian, and Asian flu (H1N1, H5N1, and H2N2, respectively), some of the most virulent and threatening viruses known to man. These proteins are now being investigated as potential therapeutics and diagnostics against a wide range of flu strains.

I have very recently taken a position as Assistant Professor at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. One of the focuses of my newly formed research group is studying the features that endow immune system antibodies with the amazing ability to recognize and often disable a bewildering range of pathogens. We are hoping that by understanding the design principles that underpin these capabilities, we will be able to design new proteins that could one day be used to diagnose and fight disease.

At the end of the 2002 Summit, my girlfriend Dana joined me and we took the opportunity to hike in the beautiful Irish countryside at the exciting time when Ireland was playing in the World Cup. Dana and I have since married, and we now live in Rehovot, Israel, with our three young children, Ariel, Aviv, and Myron, and our dog Tuka.

Christopher B. Howard, Ph.D., Class of 2002
President, Hampden-Sydney College, Virginia

“The International Achievement Summit experience served as a springboard, catapulting me into the world of doers, makers, movers and shakers. I had never been surrounded by so many talented individuals at a single event in my life and was bowled over by the hospitable, generous and thoughtful nature of all the attendees, including my counterparts and the marquee attendees. I vividly recall conversations with actor Jeremy Irons at breakfast, followed by a word or two with Dr. Ben Carson. Then it was off to hear Benazir Bhutto, Mikhail Gorbachev, Henry Kissinger and Hamid Karzai while sitting next to author Frank McCourt. Did I mention my conversations with opera singer Kathleen Battle and activist Ralph Nader on the bus ride over? The individuals invited to participate did just that — they participated, they engaged, they connected, and they inspired the next generation of leaders to do great work and to serve others. I am no doubt a more competent, capable leader because I participated in the Summit.“

Christopher Howard is a 1991 graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy, where he was Class President and Group Commander. He earned his doctorate in politics as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford before serving for five years as an Intelligence Officer in the U.S. Air Force. He earned an MBA at Harvard before he was recalled to active duty; he was awarded the Bronze Star for combat service in Afghanistan. After several years as an executive with General Electric, he was recruited by former senator and governor, David L. Boren to serve as the Vice President for Strategic and Leadership Initiatives at the University of Oklahoma. In 2009, Dr. Howard was named the 24th President of Hampden-Sydney College; he is one of the youngest college presidents in the United States. Hampden-Sydney is a private liberal arts college for men and has been in continuous operation since classes began in 1775 on its historic campus 60 miles southwest of Richmond, Virginia (www.hsc.edu). In 2011-12, Hampden-Sydney improved 17 spots in the US News & World Report rankings, the largest such jump of any of the top 100 liberal arts colleges. He is a Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Air Force Reserves.

“I had a fantastic time at the American Academy of Achievement. In one weekend I met people from more walks of life than I have before or since — Ray Charles, Colonel Sanders, Caspar Weinberger. But my favorite was Isaac Asimov, who loved hanging out with the kids!“

Lea Cosmides is best known for her work pioneering the new field of evolutionary psychology. This multidisciplinary new approach weaves together evolutionary biology, cognitive science, human evolution, hunter-gatherer studies, neuroscience, and psychology to discover the mechanisms of the human mind and brain. By understanding the adaptive problems our hunter-gatherer ancestors faced during their evolution, Dr. Cosmides and her colleagues can uncover the detailed functional designs of the emotions, reasoning “instincts” and motivations produced by human evolution.

Dr. Cosmides is Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where she and her husband, Dr. John Tooby, co-direct the Center for Evolutionary Psychology. She was educated at Harvard (Ph.D.) and Stanford (postdoctoral), and was a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. Awards for her research include the NIH Director’s Pioneer Award, the American Association for the Advancement of Science Prize for Behavioral Science Research, the American Psychological Association’s Early Career Award, and a J. S. Guggenheim Fellowship.

Born in Courtrai, Belgium in 1974, Hélène De Beir earned her master’s degree in international law at the Free University of Brussels, with a concentration in international law and international economics. She served as a graduate assistant to the democracy program of the Carter Center in Liberia, where she participated in the writing of a new democratic constitution. As President of the Oliviant Conference in Belgium, she organized and led a study tour of Poland, and later participated in development projects in India, Venezuela, Hungary and Kenya.

She earned a second master’s degree in international relations from the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University and was a student delegate at the 1999 International Achievement Summit in Budapest, Hungary.

After a short career as a banker in Amsterdam, Hélène decided to commit herself to a humanitarian career. She joined Médecins du Monde on a mission to Herat, Afghanistan, where she served in a refugee camp. In Herat, she enrolled more than 60 girls to the UNICEF school, overcoming the objections of their tradition-minded fathers. She then joined Doctors Without Borders, serving as a Humanitarian Affairs Officer in Iraq, Ivory Coast, and once again in Afghanistan.

In Afghanistan, she was director of the hospital at Khair Khana, a remote post in the Badgis province. On June 2, 2004, she and four colleagues were caught in an ambush and savagely murdered. The perpetrators have never been brought to justice.

Hélène De Beir is remembered by all who knew her for her intelligence, her humor, and her dedication to the cause of the less fortunate. She was particularly concerned with the condition of women in poor countries. Let Hélène’s life and work stand as an inspiration for all who work to make this world a better place.

In memory of Hélène, her father, Francis De Beir, has created two institutions:

- The Hélène De Beir Scholarship at Johns Hopkins University, a grant for young women for young women from Islamic cultures to study International Relations at SAIS.
- The Hélène De Beir Foundation, to advocate for access to basic health care for the 2.5 billion people who are denied this fundamental human right.

International figures including Senator Emma Bonino (Italy) and former Presidents Jimmy Carter (U.S.) and Mary Robinson (Ireland), among others, now serve on the Honorary Committee of the Hélène De Beir Foundation.

Mary Elise Sarotte, Ph.D., Class of 2002
Professor of History and Professor of International Relations,
University of Southern California

“The 2002 summit was a once-in-a-lifetime experience!”

Among other works, Mary Elise Sarotte is the author of 1989: The Struggle to Create Post-Cold War Europe. Her book was selected by The Financial Times as one of its “Books of the Year,” while Foreign Affairs called it “the new classic” on the end of the division of Europe. It is the first book to win both the prize for best book on US foreign policy the Ferrell Prize of the Society of Historians of American Foreign Relations for Best Book on U.S. Foreign Policy, and Shulman Prize the for Best Book on Communist Foreign Policy from the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies. It is the first book ever to receive both of these awards. Professor Sarotte’s book has also received the German government’s Academic Exchange Service Prize for Distinguished Scholarship on German and European Studies. Professor Sarotte, who received her AB from Harvard University and her Ph.D. in History from Yale University, holds a joint appointment as Professor of History and Professor of International Relations at the University of Southern California. Prior to her appointment at USC, Professor Sarotte was a White House Fellow and a member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a book reviewer for The Economist.

That book, It Happened on the Way to War, recently released globally by Bloomsbury
Publishing, tells the story of two forms of service that may strike some as contradictory. View the book’s trailer (produced by Beth-Ann Kutchma and her husband J, who wrote the song “Arms Around the World”) below.  Proceeds from the book go to Carolina for Kibera, the non-profit Rye co-founded ten years ago to prevent violence and spark change from within one of the world’s largest slums.

It Happened on the Way to War from Center for Global Initiatives on Vimeo.

Director, Paul Simon Public Policy Institute, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale

David A. Yepsen is director of the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale.

Before assuming that position in 2009, he had a 34-year career with the Des Moines Register, serving as the paper’s chief political writer, political editor and political columnist. In addition to his thrice-weekly column, he also blogged about politics for the paper’s website DesMoinesRegister.com. He was also a regular panelist on Iowa Public Television’s weekly “Iowa Press” news interview program for over 30 years. Mr. Yepsen has also appeared on a variety of national radio and television programs commenting on Iowa politics and the presidential caucus campaigns in the state.

In November, 1994, the American Political Hotline named Mr. Yepsen one of “America’s best political reporters outside the Beltway.” In 1997, Washingtonian Magazine named him one of the “best Washington reporters who doesn’t live in Washington,” and in 2000 Brill’s Content magazine named him to their list of “all-star” political writers.

In 1999, veteran political reporter Jack Germond wrote Mr. Yepsen “is one of the premier political writers in the country.” Mr. Yepsen served on the national advisory board for the start of “stateline.org,” an Internet publication started by the Pew Foundation to improve coverage of state governments.

In his book about his 1988 presidential race, the late Illinois Senator Paul Simon praised Yepsen’s objectivity. “Every four years the chief political reporter for the Des Moines Register becomes the most important reporter in the nation,” he said. “It is a position that could cause vanity and abuse. To his credit, David Yepsen handled this position with sensitivity and balance. And he worked hard.”

A native of Jefferson, Iowa Yepsen is a 1972 graduate of the University of Iowa. He has also done graduate work in journalism and mass communication at Iowa State University and in 1985 earned a Masters in Public Administration (MPA) degree from Drake University. In 1989 he was a fellow at the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. In 2008, he was a fellow at the Institute of Politics at Harvard where he led a study group on the nation’s presidential selection processes.

Yepsen recalls his experience attending the Academy of Achievement’s 1968 program as a student delegate. “That event was a big deal to a kid from small town Iowa. I felt very special. I remember riding on an elevator alone with Senator Daniel Inouye. It was just a few minutes of small talk, but he seemed genuinely interested in me, and I was inspired by his personal story and courage. He remains an inspiration today.”

Bryan A. Stevenson, Class of 1976

Founder, Equal Justice Initiative

Bryan Stevenson is the Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) in Montgomery, Alabama and also a Professor of Law at the New York University School of Law.  He is widely acclaimed as one of the most effective public service lawyers in America. A graduate of both the Harvard Law School, where he was awarded the Harvard Fellowship in Public Interest Law, and of the Harvard School of Government, where he was awarded the Kennedy Fellowship in Criminal Justice, Mr. Stevenson has devoted his life to helping disadvantaged people in the deep south.  He and his staff have been largely responsible for reversals or reduced sentences in over 65 death penalty cases.

In 1985 Mr. Stevenson joined the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta, Georgia as a staff attorney.  From 1989-1995, he represented capital defendants as the Executive Director of the Alabama Capital Representation Resource Center.  As Executive Director of EJI, Mr. Stevenson represents indigent defendants, death row prisoners and juveniles who have been denied fair and just treatment in the legal system.  Mr. Stevenson is committed to informing policymakers in the critically important work of reforming the administration of criminal justice, and he assists counsel representing death row inmates by providing training materials and consultation.

Mr. Stevenson’s work on behalf of condemned prisoners has attracted national
recognition and acclaim from the Washington Post, the New York Times, People Magazine, LIFE Magazine and several national television programs including Nightline and 60 Minutes, which featured a case where he and his staff achieved the release of a death row prisoner who spent six years on death row for a crime he did not commit.

 In 1995, Mr. Stevenson was awarded the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship Award for his work.  He has also received many other national honors.  In 1989, he received the Reebok Human Rights Award along with the Chinese student leaders at the Tiananmen Square.  In 1991, he received the National Medal of Liberty from the American Civil Liberties Union after he was nominated by United States Supreme Court Justice John Stevens.  Mr.Stevenson was named the 1996 Public Interest Lawyer of the Year by the National Association of Public Interest Lawyers. In 1999, he was awarded the Gleitsman Foundation’s National Citizen Activist Award and in 2000, he received the Olaf Palme Prize in Stockholm, Sweden for international human rights.  The American Bar Association has honored Mr. Stevenson with its John Minor Public Service and Professionalism Award.  In 2002, he received the Alabama State Bar Commissioners Award.  In 2003, the SALT Human Rights Award was presented to Mr. Stevenson by The Society of American Law Teachers.  In 2004, he received the Award for Courageous Advocacy from the American College of Trial Lawyers of American Law Teachers and also the Lawyer for the People Award from the National Lawyers Guild.  In 2006, New York University presented Mr. Stevenson with its Distinguished Teaching Award.  In 2008, Mr. Stevenson received the Katharine & George Alexander Law Prize from Santa Clara University School of Law.  In 2009, Mr. Stevenson won the Gruber Foundation International Justice Prize.  In 2010, Mr. Stevenson was presented with the NAACP William Robert Ming Advocacy Award and the National Public Service Award from Stanford University Law School. In 2011, Mr. Stevenson was awarded the National Legal Aid & Defender Association Lifetime Achievement Award and also the Ford Foundation Visionaries Award. 

Mr. Stevenson has additionally received honorary degrees from Yale University, the University of Pennsylvania, Georgetown University, Washington University, Eastern University, City University of New York School of Law, Metropolitan College of New York, The Bank Street College of Education, Bard College, Villanova University, Santa Clara University School of Law, Fairfield University. the University of San Francisco and Loyola University.

Darin McKeever

Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation Fellow 2008

Harvard University MPA

The Reynolds Foundation Fellowship not only enabled me financially to pursue my masters degree in the mid-career program at the Kennedy School, it enriched it in truly significant ways.  I left Cambridge with fond memories of my time with various entrepreneurs and intellectual leaders, the rebuilders of New Orleans, the Center for Public Leadership’s staff, and of course, my colleagues in the fellowship.  I left campus in 2008 inspired and energized, and I have the fellowship to thank for much of that sense of renewal.

I have committed my career to advancing social change through philanthropy, politics, and social entrepreneurship.  Prior to my fellowship year, I co-founded and led for more than a decade Heads-Up—a non-profit dedicated to providing young people from kindergarten through college with learning and service opportunities after school and during the summer.  With this background and experience, when I entered Harvard, I sought to reposition my career-swinging to the sphere of foundations or government, where I thought I could work to improve the effectiveness of philanthropy and the relationship between the public, private, and non-profit sectors.  At Harvard, I studied the structure of industries, the economics of competitiveness, the design of public-private partnerships, and a wide range of case studies on entrepreneurs (social and otherwise).  I also used the year to enhance my negotiation and communication skills.  This new knowledge and training gave me the confidence, connections, and –as one who had dedicated much of my life to the Washington, D.C. community-a certain worldliness and wider cultural competence that helps me every day in my current role.  Today, I serve as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s chief ambassador in the philanthropic sector-managing our relationships with the leading charitable associations around the world, tracking policy developments impacting foundations with the leading charitable associations around the world, tracking policy developments impacting foundations and charities, leading our grant-making to strengthen the effectiveness of the sector, and supporting our CEO and other leadership in their sector-related learning and engagements.

I have launched or helped to launch numerous non-profit organizations, social enterprises, and advocacy groups.  The launch of Heads Up is perhaps my most notable accomplishment in this respect, but I have also been involved in the start of the DC Alliance of Youth Advocates, EdAction DC (in 2000 with DC’s current education chancellor Kaya Henderson and others), and America Forward.  I thrive on organization building, on setting and executing smart, strategic courses during chaotic times, and on marshalling resources outside one’s immediate control (which I still consider the classic and one of the best definitions of entrepreneurship).  While today I work inside and organization of someone else’s making, I see the role of guiding and supporting the institution in its approach to the charitable sector during a formative period of philanthropy a classic case of social entrepreneurship.

I simply want to thank Mr. and Mrs. Reynolds again for the substantial investment they made in me and my colleagues.  Their generosity and support played a key role in getting me to where I am today.

Julian Jane Atim 

Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation Fellow 2008

Harvard University, MPH

The Reynolds Foundation Fellowship gave me an opportunity not only to further my education, but also build my personal leadership and entrepreneurial skills.  I learned so much from the Fellowship curriculum-guest lecturers gave me an opportunity to learn from great leaders who had made it in the field of social entrepreneurship, while workshops taught me essential skills in leadership such as teamwork and conflict resolution.

I see myself as a growing leader in social entrepreneurship in my career.  Innovation, quality and empowerment are the principles that guide me in my work towards meeting the health needs of the people I serve.  These principles have enabled me to apply all my best in whatever work I do.

Since being a Reynolds Fellow, I have partnered with Dr. Michael Westerhaus and Amy Finnegan to design and instruct an elective course on social medicine in Gulu, Uganda.  For the past two years, this course has brought together a diverse group of medical students from different parts of the world to learn about current clinical care and global health problems and discuss innovative strategies for solving these problems.

Through my work at Uganda Health Marketing Group, a USAID-funded indigenous non-governmental organization (NGO), I have implemented innovative public health interventions to meet the needs of specific target populations. For instance, through funding from the Presidential Malaria Initiative, I was able to apply the clinical audit strategy of training health care workers in the private health sector.  This training strategy involves on-the-job training during off-peak times of service delivery.  Trainees who also have a business mindset have their technical capacity built, which helps to improve the quality of health services delivered without interfering with health service delivery.

A number of young professionals, especially women, have been inspired by my having gone to graduate school at Harvard and have also explored the same opportunities.  This is not surprising, especially in a society where young women think such opportunities are for older men.  Through this, I see a ripple effect where more young people are motivated to attend graduate school and further their skill-set.

Thank you, Mr. and Mrs. Reynolds, for making it possible for me, a young female medical doctor from a low-income country, to have an opportunity to graduate with a Master of Public Health from Harvard and learn key principles in leadership and social entrepreneurship through the Reynolds Foundation Fellowship.  The impact of this experience has exponentially translated in my daily work to benefit the most vulnerable people in a magnitude beyond my imagination.  I not only touch the lives of individuals as I did before graduate school but now have a positive impact on large populations at a given time.

Shad White, Class of 2008

Truman Scholar and Rhodes Scholar

Harvard Law School

In 2008, I was honored to attend the Achievement Summit in Hawaii. At the time, I had just graduated from the University of Mississippi as a Truman Scholar and had never been further west than Texas. Life has been a whirlwind since then, to be sure. After that summer I started to work at the Pew Charitable Trusts with a remarkable and talented group focusing on early education policy in the various states around the country.

Midway through that year in DC, I was fortunate enough to interview for and receive the Rhodes Scholarship. I finished my year at Pew, packed my things, took a last-minute college tour road trip with my little sister who was finishing high school, and then left for England. Oxford was a beautiful, life-changing experience. I learned by leaps and bounds, and made real, meaningful connections to other people that will last my whole life.

These days I am back home in Mississippi. While I was putting the finishing touches on my dissertation for Oxford, I moved back home to work as policy director for a successful Congressional campaign and then later in the Office of the Lieutenant Governor of my state. When my boss made the decision to run for Governor, I moved over to his campaign and am serving as Deputy Campaign Manager. This fall I’ll leave the campaign after the primary to start at Harvard Law School. The days on the campaign are long, but I still frequently look down at my cell phone background to see a picture of the Hawaii horizon that I took while at the Summit. It brings back some fond memories. Most of my friends here still don’t believe I met Taylor Swift there!

Zach Leverenz

Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation Fellow 2009

CEO, Middle East Education through Technology

After my Reynolds fellowship and an additional year as a Harvard Management Fellow, I moved to Jerusalem full-time to serve as CEO of MEET – Middle East Education through Technology. In partnership with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MEET harnesses the power of technology to create an active network of young Palestinian and Israeli youth who share a common professional language and the capacity to work together to achieve positive social, economic and political impact in their communities.

Despite some prior experience, including 7+ years of managing nonprofits in four conflict/post-conflict zones, my strongest credential for the MEET job has probably been my simple non-affiliation with the region. I am neither Israeli nor Palestinian, neither Jewish nor Muslim, which had afforded me an important level of neutrality and reciprocity in introducing MEET to Palestinian and Israeli communities. We are now recruiting from over 5 cities in Israel and the West Bank with plans to double our participants through expansions to two new hubs by 2014.
While much of both populations suffer from “conflict fatigue,” and have retreated into the dangerous places of apathy and indifference, something new is growing within our small computer lab on the East/West seam in Jerusalem. MEET students, 50% Israeli, 50% Palestinian, are meeting every week to learn new technologies, business approaches, and leadership skills. Through the intensive, three-year technology education program, these students are developing real relationships that withstand and transcend the constant stress tests of regional politics, perceptions, and violence. They are forming bi-national, entrepreneurial teams and jointly launching real-world projects.

The key is the competitive excellence model that focuses on pragmatic skills and attracts the most high capacity students based not on the prospect of meeting the “other,” but on the value of the education itself. This year we received over 600 applications for 44 open spots. Over the course of three years, while entrenched in the reality of the Middle East (as opposed to the many once-off coexistence programs abroad), our student organically build the relationships and mutual respect that leads to lasting impact.

We are now entering an exciting period as a critical mass of MEET alumni begins to form in the region. We believe that these alumni will be the next generation of decision makers in the region and that they will bring the skills and perspectives they’ve gained at MEET to bear in creating positive social, economic and political change.  In my role, I often draw on my experiences and network as a Reynolds fellow, which has been instrumental in preparing me to lead sustainable, high impact organizations like MEET.

Check out Lina Kara’in, our most recent MEET student accepted to MIT and our first MEET woman: http://tinyurl.com/6b7fejz

Emily Weigel

2011 Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation Teach for America Fellow

Yale Law School

Princeton University

For the past two years, I have had the life-changing opportunity to teach seventh grade at a public middle school in Prince George’s County through Teach For America.  Each day, I teach two regular classes, one honors class, and one special education class—a total of over 100 students. Last year, I co-founded and led our school’s first National Junior Honor Society. We have taken our children on official tours of the Capitol, the Pentagon, the Holocaust Museum, several universities in Washington, DC, the Supreme Court, and the White House.  I am immensely proud to say that my classroom was the one chosen by TFA for Maryland Congresswoman Donna Edwards to visit, and by our county’s Language Arts Department for frequent visits of new teachers. To the delight of my students, we were also selected by Apple for their iPad pilot program, and—after a visit from DJ Flexx of a popular DC Hip-Hop and R&B station—featured on his evening radio show. My children deserve this attention—entering the seventh grade, almost half of my students scored below proficient in reading; by October of last year, 82% scored proficient, and through June, over 95% of my students regularly achieved proficiency. My current students are on the same potentially life-changing trajectory.

This fall, I will attend Yale Law School. Through my experiences teaching, motivating, and investing fully—blood, sweat, and tears—in the lives of my students, I have learned that change is made deepest and most lasting through motivating those who will be impacted by that change to seek it themselves, and helping them to facilitate that process. I intend to pursue a career in this type of facilitation—through practicing and teaching law in the public service. I wish to give my clients and students the knowledge and the leverage necessary to control the trajectory of their lives, and the agency to meaningfully impact their communities.

Wookie Kim

2011 Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation Teach for America Fellow

Harvard Law School

Yale University

I have difficulty summarizing my Teach For America experience. But, if I had to describe what teaching has been like, I’d compare it to riding an invisible rollercoaster: as with anything in life, it has a sequence of ups and downs; what makes teaching more challenging than anything I’ve ever done is that I never know when, or for how long, these climbs and falls occur.

Throughout my time as a high school English teacher here in DC Public Schools, I’ve learned just as much as I hope my students have learned from me. I’ve learned about the influence that a teacher can have on changing not only a student’s classroom achievement, but also his or her attitude towards life. Indeed, an education is more than an understanding of facts and equations; it provides one with the self-belief that, in turn, empowers one to realize his or her full potential. In a way, then, an education is the greatest gift one can receive.

But, I’ve also learned about an essential nuance of the American Dream: it doesn’t apply to everyone. In America, supposedly, prosperity is a function of effort and ability. Yet, I’ve learned that this is not the case for too many students, who face challenges—racial discrimination, abject poverty, broken families, gang violence—that become barriers to the pursuit of this dream.

Some examples of bright, talented and hard-working students with unjust challenges: M., who aspired to be her family’s first college graduate, dropped out of college to support her family after her only parent and mother lost her job; both of J.’s parents have been in incarceration for essentially her entire life because of serious drug addictions; and nothing can help P., who was shot dead as a result of a petty gang beef.

Ultimately, it was my discomfort with what my students’ situations revealed about America that led to my next big step: after the 2010-2011 school year, I’ll be dismounting the invisible rollercoaster and beginning my studies at Harvard Law School. While there—and beyond—I intend to jump right into the community and do whatever I can to make the equality of opportunity promised by America a reality for all. In this pursuit, I’ll always have students like M., J. and P. in mind.

Of course, if not for amazing Teach For America supporters like Catherine and Wayne Reynolds, I would not be where I am today. In particular, the knowledge that I had behind-the-scenes fans pushed me to work harder for my students than I’d ever worked before. For this, I am forever grateful. Thank you.

Dory Gannes

2011 Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation Fellow

Harvard Graduate School of Education

The Fletcher School of International Affairs at Tufts University

When I was first applying to graduate school at Tufts’ Fletcher School of International Affairs, I wrote about feeling like a tug toy between the mouths of two Labrador retrievers.  I wasn’t sure how I would combine my interests in working both domestically and abroad as well as in education and the non-profit sectors.  This year at Harvard has been pivotal in helping me realize I do not need to choose.  As a Reynolds Fellow at Harvard’s Center for Public Leadership where I am constantly surrounded with interdisciplinary peers, I have been able to think more strategically and pragmatically about leveraging my interests.

In a few months, I will move down to Washington, D.C. to join the United Nations Foundation and the Girl Up campaign.  The campaign aims to harness the energy and compassion of American adolescent girls and use it to benefit the 600 million adolescent girls worldwide.  My work will be focused on creating an educational curriculum to incorporate into schools around our country so that we can help students better understand a) issues facing girls around the world and b) their own potential and ability to tackle such social problems and promote the common good.

In addition to my work at Girl Up, I will continue to serve as the Executive Director of The Olevolos Project, a non-profit organization I founded back in 2005 in order to provide educational opportunities and develop young leaders in the Olevolos Village of Tanzania.  The organization is run by 10 Tanzanian staff members and serves more than 150 marginalized members of the community on a weekly basis.  While our primary program is centered around meeting the educational needs of nursery school students, a gap unfulfilled by the Tanzanian government, we also run initiatives to complement the existing government programs.  Within the next year, we hope to build a library to better serve our students and the greater Olevolos community.

Pardis Sabeti, Class of 2000

Rhodes Scholar, Oxford University

It has been over a decade since the Academy of Achievement Summit in 2000 in London, when I was just starting medical school, and trying to finish my PhD at Oxford.

Years later, and I am an Assistant Professor at Harvard University in Systems Biology and Organismic and Evolutionary Biology. My work is at the intersection of medicine and research, and gives me opportunities to collaborate with great scientists from around the world.

If I had to summarize my work I would say we are a genomics and infectious disease lab with 3 main goals: (1) Developing analytical methods to detect and characterize evolutionary adaptations in humans; (2) Examining host and viral genetic factors driving disease susceptibility to the devastating and deadly disease widespread in West Africa, Lassa hemorrhagic fever virus; (3) Investigating the genomes of microbes, including Lassa virus, Ebola virus, and Plasmodium falciparum malaria to help in the development of intervention strategies.

My work on Lassa fever connects me to my wonderful collaborators in Nigeria. As this picture shows, they are not only great researchers but great friends. Here we all are singing a song written by my band; they gave the song a whole new life with their beautiful voices.

I am inspired each day by my great collaborators abroad and my amazing students. My lab is like my family, and we are working together through many obstacles driven by a shared goal of bring research to bear on the world’s deadliest diseases. And while our work is serious, it is also a lot of fun. Here is a snapshot of this wonderful family from our 2010 lab holiday card.

Kevin S. Schwartz, Class of 2002

Rockefeller Fellow, Partnership for NYC

Associate, Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz

I can hardly believe it’s been nearly a decade since my incredible experience in Dublin at the Academy’s Achievement Summit. At the time, I was completing my MBA and PhD at Oxford as a Marshall Scholar, and soon returning to the U.S. to attend Yale Law. After grad school, I enjoyed another year in New Haven working as a law clerk for Judge Guido Calabresi on the U.S. Court of Appeals, and as a lecturer on Yale’s political science department faculty. The clerkship was fantastic, and the chance to teach at the same time was wonderful. A year later, I moved to D.C. to serve as a law clerk for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the U.S. Supreme Court. The experience was amazing. Outside of work, it was exciting to be in D.C. in 2008 during the big election, especially to be able to attend the Inauguration.

After my clerkship was complete, I returned to NYC and the law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, where I have been able to work on fascinating matters in both the corporate and civic communities of New York. Most recently, as a Rockefeller Fellow in the Partnership for NYC, I have been learning so much about the city and the ways I can combine my interests in law, business, and government to make a difference for others.
Over the years since attending the Achievement Summit, I have remained deeply grateful for many friendships that began in Dublin and for the wonderful support of Catherine and Wayne Reynolds. I look forward to keeping in touch with you all.

Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation Fellow, NYU

Program Development Director – Sudan Development Foundation SUDEF

Since 2005, I have worked closely with Abraham Awolich, the Director of SUDEF to plan and implement projects in the Southern Sudan village he was born in. We work with the local people on programs that they have identified as fulfilling their most immediate needs. We have established a small medical clinic, which serves 11 surrounding villages and is the only medical center within a hundred mile radius. We are currently building a maternal child health center to address Southern Sudan’s maternal and child mortality rates – the highest in the world. We are working to help reverse the mal-affects of war. Our larger goals are to build a community center where adults can access training with which they can use to regain livelihoods that have been lost. Because of over two decades of civil war, people living in southern Sudan have little to no access to basic services and generations have grown up with no education.
I first met Abraham in college. He would tell me horrific stories of his childhood. He is a part of a group known as the ‘Lost Boys’ of Southern Sudan and he ran from his village as the Northern Army was committing genocide against his people. He grew up in a refugee camp and was brought to the US in 2001. After hearing what he went through as a child, I wanted to do what I could to help him and his people have a better life. We decided to work together to create change in his country in 2005, after a peace agreement was signed between the north and the south. In 2006, I traveled to Southern Sudan and spent the next three years traveling back and forth between Southern Sudan and the US working on education and agricultural/entrepreneurial projects in the region. In 2008, I served as project manager for the development of a secondary school in Lainya County, Southern Sudan. We opened the school with 75 students and a 15-acre farm. I will continue to work with Abraham on programs in his village and am excited to work in the soon to be independent country of Southern Sudan.

I recently finished a short film about the Sudan Development Foundation’s work. (SUDEF). Visit www.sudef.org to watch, and to read more about SUDEF’s progress.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npOMvJUgcPQ&feature=player_embedded

H. Diputado Chile. District 51

Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation Fellow, Harvard Kennedy School

After working for two years at the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington D.C., I became the second youngest representative at the Chilean Congress.  I currently represent the poorest and only minority-majority district of the country. Fifty eight (58%) percent of the population of my district belong to the indigenous Mapuche.

No doubt that one of the most important steps to what I have accomplished began in 2005, while pursuing my Masters in Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School of Government on the Catherine B. Reynolds scholarship for Social Entrepreneurship.

Before attending HKS in 1997, I co-founded what is now called Un Techo para Chile Foundation.  I volunteered building emergency houses for many years.  Once graduated from college, as a professional I led all construction at a rate of 5000 homes a year.  Our dream is to eradicate all squatter camps in Chile.  The organization I founded, together with 7 more students, became the third largest non-profit of the country, with offices in 9 Latin American countries.

As part of this job, I traveled to many parts of my country, and fell in love with one very special region… The Araucanía.  The majority of its population belongs to the Mapuche, an indigenous society, which is concentrated mainly in the towns of CholChol, Saavedra, Carahue, Teodoro Schmidt, Nueva Imperial, Freire and Pitrufquén, which make up our 51^stpolitical District.  Unfortunately the region bears our country´s highest levels of poverty and indigence. Today, we are working towards reversing the situation, which is an enormous challenge. I proudly became their representative at the Chilean congress.

I owe everything I am and I have to God, to my family, my friends, my country, to those who have supported me and the determination that characterizes me.   I want to especially thank Catherine and Wayne Reynolds for the opportunity they gave me, by handing me the tools I needed to dare to take on such an important responsibility.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmfAU6g0Ru8

Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation Fellow, Harvard Kennedy School

I work with Acumen Fund, a non-profit venture fund that invests patient capital in businesses that provide basic goods and services like health care, housing, water, energy and agriculture to low income consumers in East Africa, India and Pakistan. At Acumen Fund we believe in the power of business to build solutions that create choice and dignity for the poor, rather than dependence. We have invested about $50 million to date in companies like Ecotact, a pay-per-use toilet company in Nairobi, Kenya; D.Light, which makes low-cost solar lanterns for sale in India and Tanzania; and Lifespring, a chain of low-cost maternity hospitals in India.

I’m currently leading Acumen Fund’s exploration of expansion to West Africa, including fundraising, building a local team, and developing a pipeline of investment opportunities in the region. I originally joined Acumen through the Fellows Program in 2007, and worked for a year to strengthen and grow a franchise network of health clinics in Kenya (you can learn more in the short video I made).

I continue to work closely with alumni from the Reynolds Fellowship and the Academy, and remain deeply grateful for the opportunity to be a part of such a strong community of changemakers.

Founder, Braille Without Borders

It’s been a crazy, busy life for Sabriye since attending the Academy of Achievement Summit in 2006. The good kind of crazy busy, however.

Sabriye completed work on the documentary ‘BLINDSIGHT’ about the mountain climbing project she undertook with her blind students from Braille Without Borders. The group, along with Erik Weihenmayer (first blind mountaineer to climb Mount Everest), documented their mountain climbing experience in the Himalayas.

After establishing the preparatory school, the vocational training farm, the Braille book printing press and the self-integration project of Braille Without Borders in Tibet, China, Sabriye, along with BWB’s co-founder, partner and soul mate, Paul Kronenberg, started to realize their dream institute, the International Institute for Social Entrepreneurs (IISE).

The IISE focuses on leadership training in order to create social change. The participants, all over 22 years of age, are inspiring visionaries who mainly come from developing nations. All of them have overcome significant life challenges ranging from vision impairment, disability, poverty, war discrimination and exploitation. They have a passion to make the world a better place and the strength to be forces of good rather than victims of circumstance.

Workshops and hands-on practice in the areas of management, public speaking, communication, leadership, fund raising, budgeting, bookkeeping, project proposal writing, marketing, public relations, computing with open software technology and others give IISE’s participants all the necessary tools to start their own social projects. All selected participants receive a full scholarship, including travel costs, accommodation and a high-end course by international experts.

Speaking in ecological terms, construction on one of the greenest campuses in India was completed and the first batch of 20 future social entrepreneurs from 13 different countries all over the world were welcomed in 2009. They have graduated and are already sending back news of project success stories.

For, example, one participant from Sierra Leone, whose objective was to create a micro-credit bank for war widows, is up and running. Recently, the first 100 war widows received a micro credit. The new batch of 29 participants from 18 countries was welcomed to IISE in 2010.

Additionally, Sabriye and Braille Without Borders were honored as Laureates of the Mother Teresa Award in 2006. Apart from receiving a great honour of being counted among the 15 most influential overseas experts in China in the last 30 years in 2008, Sabriye was chosen among 13 others for the ‘You Bring Charm to China Award’ in 2009.

Her three books, “ My Path Leads to Tibet” (2000), “Tashis neue Welt” (2000), and “The Seventh Year – From Tibet to India” (2007), document her life experience and learning till now.

Tufts University-The Fletcher School

I grew up poor in the slums of Nairobi. I remember desperately trying to cover up being sick so I would not be sent home from school – my one refuge of hope and promise. I suppose my journey to become a humanitarian relief worker started then, as an impoverished teenager, when a few teachers and NGO workers opened doors for me to excel in school and go on to University.

A few years later, I became friends with three Rwandese boys who had fled the genocide. One of the boys in particular relived the genocide by day – through telling stories of his murdered family- and by night – through violent nightmares. His torment soon become mine – and it was then that I decided to be personally involved in assisting victims of humanitarian crisis.

Soon thereafter, I was privileged to work in South Sudan during the civil war. Working in the midst of such a complicated conflict was enormously challenging, but also deeply satisfying. In July of 2002, the government suddenly announced a flight ban which left us stranded in a conflict zone. We endured many days of strafing through the night, and occasional bombardment by the infamous Antonov aircraft. Noise from heavy machine gun fire and strafing by artillery became a routine of the night, and it was then I decided to quit humanitarian work.

Thereafter I visited the Rwanda Genocide memorial center in Kigali. At the entrance bold letters proclaimed “plus jamais” (never again). I had witnessed almost unendurable human suffering and death in Sudan a few weeks before, and the irony of “plus jamais” profoundly saddened me. I reversed my decision to quit and instead decided to work in public health in emergencies. In 2004, I was very lucky to begin my masters studies in international law and diplomacy and nutrition at Tufts University.

Today I work for UNICEF as a nutrition specialist. My assignments have included addressing the nutrition of children in humanitarian emergencies, as well as the more ignored situations of extreme, chronic poverty and food insecurity in otherwise peaceful situations.  The latter work is more  “upstream” than my work years ago in South Sudan, and sometimes I miss the immediacy of direct community engagement. In working with the UN, however, I feel I am serving vulnerable children in a way that could lead to more lasting, structural change. Having the opportunity to align my work with my personal ideals and to work with others who share in this commitment is enormously rewarding.

Saul Garlick, Class of 2007

Johns Hopkins SAIS

Founder and Executive Director, ThinkImpact (www.thinkimpact.org)

In 2001 I was a junior in High School with a desire to make some impact in the world. Aimless in terms of how I could do that, I undertook to establish a club with some friends called Student Movement for Real Change. I had no idea that this small club would one day become ThinkImpact, an international non-profit organization that would be at the bleeding edge of development and social entrepreneurship – promoting social innovation in some of the poorest communities in the world.

Today, ThinkImpact connects college students and young adults with rural communities in Africa where they catalyze social enterprise by leveraging local resources and capacity. We call this People Powered Global Development, and it is resonating among this generation of leaders. In 2010 we have received 170 applications for only 23 spots in our program to work in Kenya and South Africa. We were featured at the Clinton Global Initiative University and have been leading workshops at the Global Engagement Summit, Social Enterprise Alliance World Forum, Opportunity Collaboration and numerous other gatherings of social entrepreneurs.

My work with ThinkImpact has proven to be an example of what can happen when one young leader opens their mind to new ways to approach old problems. Since 2007, when I attended the Academy of Achievement and had just graduated from Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies as a Truman Scholar, I have led over 100 people to Africa and with communities we have completed 50 development projects ranging from schools, sports fields, community centers, scholarships, microfinance projects, latrines and the creation of social businesses. I continue this work, often in partnership with individuals that I met at the Academy of Achievement;  an experience that continues to inspire me to this day. Watch a brief video about our program here.

Chief Operating Officer, TAMTAM (Together Against Malaria)

Consultant, Bain and Company

Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation Fellow, Harvard

I have had the true privilege of attending two Summits in the past year and can still clearly recall the shock of dancing with Desmond Tutu in Cape Town and seeing Fmr. Secretary Colin Powell walk into the room in Washington DC.

After three years of grad school (and two years as a Reynolds Fellow), I am graduating from the joint MBA and MPA program at Harvard Business School and Kennedy School. I am headed first to Ghana to spend more time on the NGO which I co-manage, TAMTAM, before heading  to Bain & Company consulting in Boston.

It’s been wonderful to be a part of the Center for Public Leadership via the Reynolds fellowship- an honor to be surrounded by inspiring peers who will really make a difference in the world. I will take their stories with me wherever I go.

Recently, the CPL hosted Harvard’s inaugural Gleitsman Social Change Film Forum. This event sought to expore the ways in which the art and craft of filmmaking can be a source of motivation for social change. The Forum featured two documentaries: Countdown to Zero and A Small Act. Filmmakers, producers, area experts, and the documentary protaganists themselves were on hand at the event for panels and film discussions. A series of short films were also produced to spotlight social entrepreneurship among students at Harvard. It was a great opportunity to share my story and an honor to be featured.
Link to video:  www.youtube.com/harvardcpl

Jessica Mason, Class of 2010

Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation Fellow, NYU

In May I will be graduating from NYU’s Silver School of Social Work, with a double major in Social Work and History. As the President of the Silver School Undergraduate Student Government, I create opportunities for NYU students to give back to the NYC community.

In 2008, as a sophomore, I co-founded Powerhouse (formerly Baby’s First Home), a supportive housing program for teen mothers in New York City. Powerhouse was awarded the grand prize of $10,000 in capital by the 2008 NYU Reynolds/Youth Venture “Be a Changemaker Challenge.” We will be opening a new 6-unit apartment this year that will provide traditional social services and entrepreneurial training to young mothers ages 17-21.

In 2009, I used my Reynolds Summer Internship Stipend to work at the Reciprocity Foundation. Reciprocity is a grassroots nonprofit that serves homeless and at-risk youth by connecting them to educational and career opportunities in creative industries like fashion, music, film, photography, and more. My summer at Reciprocity included making a 30 minute documentary about homeless youth co-produced by my students and PIX/Channel 11 News. After my exhilarating Reynolds summer internship ended, I continued working for the Reciprocity Foundation for the 2009-2010 academic year.

I just found out I was chosen to give the 2010 Commencement Speech on behalf of the graduating class. Addressing a crowd of 50,000 at the new Yankee Stadium will be a remarkable way to end a wonderful undergraduate experience and share many of the opportunities the Reynolds Program has afforded me.

Immediately after graduation, I will be moving to Jacmel, Haiti for a year to create income generating opportunities for women living in the Pinchinat and Kay Wolf camps for displaced persons.

White House Fellow, Department of Defense

After attending the Academy of Achievement Summit in 2007, Mark Vlasic returned to work for Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.  Mark describes Secretary Gates as an “outstanding public servant,” and he noted that the highlights of his time in the SECDEF’s office included helping to get agricultural advisers to serve with Provincial Reconstruction Teams, assisting with bilateral and multilateral meetings throughout the world, including in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as having the opportunity to fly an F-16 fighter jet, his “childhood dream job.”   Mark’s service as a White House Fellow also included providing assistance to the President’s Special Envoy to Sudan, where he worked on Darfur-related issues while on mission with the Special Envoy in Africa and Europe.

After completing his appointment at the White House and the Pentagon, Mark took time to backpack through Patagonia and Colombia, before transitioning to serve as the head of operations of the joint UN-World Bank Stolen Asset Recovery (StAR) Initiative.  Established by President Robert Zoellick as his first initiative at the Bank, StAR serves to assist developing countries in recovering stolen assets from past grand corruption cases.  While helping manage the StAR Secretariat’s casework, Mark worked with “dedicated and hard working” officials in Haiti and Switzerland, as well as with colleagues at the UN and the Bank, to help obtain a Swiss order to return millions of dollars plundered by Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier to Haiti.

Mark recently left the World Bank in order to split time between a Washington, DC law firm practice (www.wardlawdc.com), where he is focused on international law, international trade, asset recovery, and business diplomacy issues, and Georgetown University, where he serves as a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Law, Science and Global Security.  In addition to his teaching, writing and legal practice, Mark is looking forward to reading “The Other Wes Moore,” written by his White House Fellow classmate, Wes Moore.

Wes Moore, Class of 2007

White House Fellow, Department of State

In late April of 2010, Random House will publish my first book, entitled “The Other Wes Moore.”

In December of 2000. The Baltimore Sun ran a feature article about me, Wes Moore, a university student, who, despite a troubled childhood, received one of the most prestigious academic awards in the world — The Rhodes Scholarship. That same year, The Baltimore Sun logged more than 200 articles about four young men who were arrested for the murder of an off-duty Baltimore police officer during a botched armed robbery. The latter story was disturbing for many reasons, but for me, there was something hauntingly personal about it: One of the young criminals was just two years my senior, hailed from the same neighborhood, and in an uncanny and eerie turn, was also named Wes Moore.

Two boys from Baltimore with similar histories and an identical name.  Through support and guidance, I escaped challenges and have lived what some have called a blessed life.  The other will spend each day until his death behind bars.  The chilling truth is that my story could have been his.  The tragedy is that his story could have been mine.  Later, as I pursued my career in the military, in the banking world, and in the White House, I would often think about the other Wes Moore.  Years ago, I reached out to him and began visiting him, and learning his story. It was while visiting Wes in prison that the concept for this book crystallized.

Thus far, the book has received significant media interest and Random House has announced this book will be one of its lead titles this year.  I look forward to staying in touch with all of you.

Following the 2009 Summit in South Africa, I started my new position working at PepsiCola as a Senior Franchise Development Manager. Below is a very exciting opportunity that Pepsi is offering.

In 2010, Pepsi is giving away $20 million to fund YOUR ideas that move the world forward. Watch and learn more here:

http://www.refresheverything.com

* Throughout 2010, Pepsi will devote its attention and resources to helping move peoples’ ideas forward. People across the country have ideas that can make our communities a better place and Pepsi will be the catalyst to bring those ideas to life.

Pepsi Refresh Grant recipients will be selected through a democratic process. The public will vote online for the ideas they want to see taken from concept to reality.

The Pepsi Refresh Project will be a catalyst for: Ideas that make us think; Ideas that inspire us; Ideas that ignite participation; Ideas that make good things better; Ideas that improve situations; Ideas that refresh… Pepsi has been at the center of great cultural shifts for many generations. The Pepsi Refresh Project represents a shift towards a culture of participation, spurred on by the belief in and resiliency of the actions of people and their ideas.

Learn more, and apply for a Pepsi Refresh Grant today at http://www.refresheverything.com

Kirsten Lodal, Class of 2004
CEO and Co-Founder, LIFT Communities

“Since attending the International Achievement Summit in 2007 as a panelist for the social entrepreneurship conversation, I have been incredibly busy.  Probably the most important update is that National Student Partnerships has changed its name to LIFT.  We officially launched our new name and visual identity in July 2009, and I am thrilled to now have an organizational identity that truly embodies LIFT’s work and mission as a growing national movement to combat poverty and expand opportunity for all families in the United States.

Our rebranding occurred at a pivotal time for our country, as the global economic crisis continued to plunge thousands of families into poverty.  I feel more urgency than ever to expand LIFT’s work and we have embarked on an ambitious five-year plan to expand LIFT’s services to another 100,000 families in our current five cities—Boston, New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC— while also offering LIFT’s model as a best practice that can be adopted by other communities and policymakers.  We have already received recognition in the past three years as a model of “what works” in poverty alleviation by entities as diverse as Robin Hood, New Profit, the Clinton Global Initiative, the Aspen Institute, and AmeriCorps.

Personally, I have committed myself to bringing increased national attention to issues of multigenerational poverty and opportunity in the United States, with a focus on women, children, and families.  I am excited to continue to play a leadership role in numerous poverty policy initiatives, and I am participating on several boards, including my current role as the President of the Homeless Children’s Playtime Project.  I was honored to be interviewed when LIFT’s work was featured on The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer and CNN, and I have also represented LIFT at the 2008 and 2009 National Conference on Service and Volunteering, the 2009 (and 2010) Clinton Global Initiative University, and the Aspen Institute’s Ideas Festival in 2009.

I currently live in Washington, D.C. with my husband, Jeff Himmelman, who is an author and musician.”

Since attending the Achievement Summit as a student delegate in Kona in 2008, Jessica Ashooh has been appointed to an advising team with Dunia Frontier Consultants, providing strategic and management consulting services to the Ministry of Planning of the Kurdistan Regional Government in Northern Iraq. While still completing work on her doctorate in international relations at Oxford, Jessica travels frequently to Iraq to assist the ministry with its organizational and development strategy. Of the experience, Jessica says, “It is extremely rewarding and impactful work. The people of Northern Iraq have been so hospitable and friendly to us and they are lovely to work with. It is great to see our recommendations making a difference in the region’s development, and I love the time that I spend there.

Jan Godown Annino, Class of 1970

An honoree in journalism at the summer conference in 1970, Jan Godown Annino is recently published by National Geographic Society, after her career as a newspaper feature writer for Gannett and Knight-Ridder newspapers.  Her special research interests include women’s studies, minorities, and literacy.

She is married to a public interest attorney who leads a law clinic and their daughter is the best teen in the universe.

Family trips anchored the research for her geotourism guides such as Family Fun in Florida and Scenic Driving Florida (3^rd edition, January 2010 The Globe Pequot Press).

For NGS Jan wrote She Sang Promise: The Story of Betty Mae Jumper, Seminole Tribal Leader. Of that experience, Jan advises: “Keep track of others’ accomplishments that strike you as significant when you are young, as you may become the person who later presents their story to young readers, and not necessarily, as I have, in a book. My mother clipped a newspaper article for me about the historic 1967 election in the Seminole Tribe of Florida and I feel that brought me, more than 40 years later, to introduce elementary age children to an amazing woman, Betty Mae Tiger Jumper.”   She Sang Promise also features the work of award-winning artist Lisa Desimini, with an afterword letter from Moses Jumper, Jr.  Release month is March 2010.

As for Academy experience, it brought Jan her first airplane trip alone, her first visit to Texas and her first meeting with celebrities: H. Ross Perot and Shirley Temple Black.  “I found my politics differed from theirs, but they were each fascinating to observe up close. Mr. Perot’s intensity bristled from him like sparks as he walked through the packed aisles of students, stopping to shake hands and answer a question. Making the same journey, Mrs. Black exuded a calm presence that for me, as one who grew up watching her frenetic tap-dancing in old movie musicals, made me relieved that she moved in a much different world than had been proscribed for her as a child.”

Among her assignments for daily newspaper features, Jan has ridden a horse to find buffalo grazing on a Florida prairie and helped count bald eagle nests from a helicopter. Walking is part of her creative process and her longest walks have been up and down Mt. LeConte in Tennessee and Mt. Katahdin in Maine.  Jan is completing work toward a masters degree in children’s literature and she is revising a historical fiction novel for young readers, set in the 1960s.

The Summit in 2008 was a wonderful close to an extraordinary year of my life, which spurred me on to continue striving in my work as a doctor and postgraduate medical training, and my research efforts in Neuroscience.

Research interests
While an undergraduate in 2006 I worked voluntarily at the Robert Steiner MR Unit at Imperial College analysing white matter microstructure in preterm infants. Using neuroinformatics I found a correlation between apparent diffusion coefficients and developmental outcome at 2 years. This earned me the Steven Carstairs Prize from the Royal College of Radiologists. I presented the findings at the Neonatal Society international meeting and am first author on the paper in Pediatrics.

In 2007 I was awarded a Kennedy Scholarship, and I used this opportunity to pursue research at the Computational Radiology Laboratory at Harvard Medical School. There I conceptualised and implemented two projects applying quantitative MR imaging and probabilistic tractography. I am first author of a resultant paper which made the cover of the journal Pediatric Neurology in February 2010, demonstrating differences in microstucture of visual pathways in patients with Tuberous Sclerosis Complex. A control subject is illustrated in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Visual pathways in the brain rendered by tractography of diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

Work in progress
This includes a second paper characterising development of white matter in preterm infants with fetal growth restriction. In the coming few months I will start a research fellowship investigating the genotype-phenotype relationship in epilepsy. To prepare for this project I was awarded a place on the Cardiff University Brain Research Summer School, which provided an introduction to clinical and translational research methods in Neuropsychiatry. In order to gain the necessary technical abilities I attended a course in Bioinformatics at the European Bioinformatics Institute during which I familiarised myself with genome browsing, text mining and exploring human variations.

Paediatrics is at the centre of debates around the implications of access to the genome, as the focus shifts from largely technical challenges to the ethical dimensions of the application of emerging technologies. In September 2010 I will be starting a combined clinical and PhD programme at Imperial College, which will allow me to develop my clinical and research interest in Paediatric brain science and progress towards being a fully fledged Paediatrician and lead researcher.

Publications

Diffusion Features of White Matter in Tuberous Sclerosis With Tractography.
Michelle L. Krishnan, Olivier Commowick, Shafali S. Jeste, Neil Weisenfeld, Arne Hans, Matthew C. Gregas, Mustafa Sahin and Simon K. Warfield
Pediatric Neurology, Vol. 42, Issue 2, February 2010, pp. 101-106

Relationship Between White Matter Apparent Diffusion Coefficients in Preterm Infants at Term-Equivalent Age and Developmental Outcome at 2 Years.
Michelle L. Krishnan, Leigh E. Dyet, James P. Boardman, Olga Kapellou, Joanna M. Allsop, Frances Cowan, A. David Edwards, Mary A. Rutherford, Serena J. Counsell.
Pediatrics, Vol. 120 No. 3 September 2007, pp. e604-e609

Heat shock protein 27 rescues motor neurons following nerve injury and preserves muscle function.
Paul Sharp, Michelle Krishnan, Oliver Pullar, Roberto Navarrete, Dominic Wells, Jacqueline de Belleroche.
Experimental Neurology, Vol.198, Issue 2, April 2006, pp. 511-8. Epub 2006 Feb 23.

David Russell, Class of 2007
Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation Fellow
New York University

Since January 2009, I have been directing the work of Survivors Fund (SURF), which represents and supports survivors of the Rwandan genocide. The 400,000 survivors of the genocide in Rwanda, many orphans and widows, still face incredible challenges. Our work is focused on responding to the needs of the most vulnerable, advocating and raising funds for programmes delivered by survivors themselves. This ranges from a £4.25m care and treatment project for 2,500 HIV+ women survivors to a £1m shelter project providing housing for 1,800 survivors. However, the need is still great, but the day is too short, and thus the work continues – in particular to help bring justice for survivors.

http://www.youtube.com/user/survivorsfund

Alice Yang, Class of 2009
Soros Fellow and Zuckerman Fellow
Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Business School

Over the summer, I interned at Millennium Challenge Corporation, a U.S. government agency whose mission is to reduce global poverty through the promotion of sustainable economic growth in emerging markets. I worked in the Monitoring, Evaluation, and Economic Analysis division on performance metrics for health, education, and private sector development projects in 18 countries.

At Harvard Business School, where I am a second year student, I was invited to join the HBS Social Enterprise Initiative’s inaugural Student Advisory Group. I also serve as the Social Chair of the Social Enterprise Club and sit on the Advisory Board of the 2010 Social Enterprise Conference.

Most recently, over the holiday break, I traveled to Turkey and Ethiopia with a group of classmates from HBS and the Kennedy School. In Ethiopia, we spent a week doing a baseline assessment of several impoverished rural villages where development projects are planned or already underway. Under the aegis of American and Ethiopian NGOs (A Glimmer of Hope, based in Austin, TX and the Organization for Rehabilitation and Development in Amhara, based in Bahir Dar, Ethiopia), and working with local university students and professors as translators, we conducted structured interviews with more than 130 subsistence farmers.

Below is a photo of me with my University of Gonder translator, Bayoush, and some of the Burbax village residents we were interviewing.

The summer of 2009 was an amazing time.  I was home, in South Africa, sharing the country of my birth and land of my inspiration with friends.  I can still smell the singed taste of winter grassland that lit us on fire in the highveld.  I came back to New York charged with life and a renewed zeal for the work I’d only just begun.  Earlier in the summer, I co-Founded Zenzele Circle, a placement agent linking job-creating African start-ups with global angel capital.  Since then, Zenzele Circle has added a stable of high-potential entrepreneurs and secured pro-bono legal representation from Weil Gotshal. We are semi-finalists for the Echoing Green Fellowship, along with 2008 Reynolds NYU Fellows Martha Diaz and Ben Cockelet. Go Team! We are all blazing forward and I remain intrigued with where the road will lead.

Circling back to the summer of 2009, you may be curious what I first dived into following such a whirlwind summit?  Another summit–the 2009 Clinton Global Initiative Meeting.  I attended the gathering as a blogger for Skoll Foundation’s Social Edge.  Two highlights standout.  First, I was invited to a private news conference for a handful bloggers with President Bill Clinton.  The irony of this is still not lost on me–I had not launched my blog yet!  My first Africa’s Moment blog post chronicles that meeting with the former President.  The next day, when CGI2009 officially opened, I started a conversation with a pleasant woman sitting next to me.  Turns out, she is also a Reynolds Fellow–Diane Geng, who is a Harvard KSG alum.  Of everyone in a room of 300+ people who I could have randomly sat next to, how telling that I sit beside another Reynolds Fellow who has made it into this chair all the way from rural Shanxi China?

Attending CGI was enlightening, but I remember zooming between sessions to make class with Professor Bill Easterly and then (joy of joys) work some last minute magic for the Africa Social Enterprise Forum)–the first gathering of its scale in the US focusing exclusively on African social entrepreneurship.  ASEF launched the day after CGI closed.  We opened the conference to a standing room-only morning keynote by Craigslist Founder Craig Newmark, who humored us with jokes peppered by tech-savvy ideas for African development.  Celebrated Pop!Tech Curator and Executive Director Andrew Zolli delivered the afternoon keynote, highlighting an innovative and successful HIV/AIDS outreach and education program launched in South Africa.  Pop!Tech’s Project M reminds patients which anti-retroviral drug to take when and blasts educational messages and useful information–such as where to get tested–for free and in African languages, all through mobile SMS.  Talk about a cell phone service worth celebrating.

There have been many moments filled with celebration in the New Year already.  A fantastic friend and 2008 Reynolds NYU Scholar, Cesar Francia, began an internship this spring in the office of Justice Sotomayor.  Last week Friday, I reconnected with a living South African legend whom I first met during that amazing Academy summit of 2009–Justice Albie Sachs.  Justice Sachs spoke beautifully at NYU Law about how he often came to an epiphany on a landmark case while meditating in the bathtub, rushing with drips of water raining down as he committed a thought to paper.  I am most moved by his humanistic approach to the law, acknowledging that most matters of the court are decisions between right and right.  Reminds me of an eloquent Talmudic quote a friend passed onto me, “These and these are the truths”.
This year will surely unfold many layers of truth about who we are and what we ought be.  I hope to celebrate the best of both in myself and others with unwavering compassion and a throw-away ease and humor about it all.

Kate Otto, Class of 2009
Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation Scholar
New York University

Kate Otto graduated from New York University’s Wagner School of Public Service as a Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation Scholar. Kate is currently living and working in Indonesia.

I imagine Mr. and Mrs. Reynolds may not be excited to hear that since I arrived in Indonesia, I’m in prison at least once a month, in and out of the hospital every other week, and in my free time, rubbing elbows with stoned, Skinhead-styled teenagers at punk-metal concerts.

Yet this is my life as a Program Consultant at Rumah Cemara, a grassroots community-based organization dedicated to empowering drug users and people living with HIV in West Java Province to lead health lives within a positive community environment.  Here in Bandung, the provincial capital, over 80% of injecting drug users are living with HIV and 60% of people living with HIV are also drug users.  Although my prior work in the world of HIV/AIDS has spanned many countries and cultures in Africa, I had yet to encounter the AIDS pandemic manifested in this way – nor have I ever had to become fluent in another language in order to contribute!

Many of my days are spent in our humble headquarters facility, advising Administration on funding strategy development, human resources management, and other organizational sustainability factors.  However it is a crucial part of my work as well to regularly join our outreach staff and case managers in ‘the field’, where our services are offered and community is built.  This means enabling HIV+ prisoners to host support group meetings as well as monthly football matches to boost their morale and CD4 counts, visiting patients in the hospital and in their homes so they know they are not alone, even in the midst of a health care system and society that still discriminates against people living with HIV.  And for the many people in Bandung who do not yet seek our services, we show up at any and all places where people at risk of becoming injecting drug users or infected with HIV may be: drug users at rock concerts, sex workers at train stations and truck stops, or troubled teenagers hanging out on street corners.

The grassroots has opened my eyes, my mind, and my heart, as I gain a new perspective from my coworkers – and my new best friends -  as nearly every one is a recovered addict and living with HIV.  I have spent years researching and discussing ‘about’ HIV, as a problem that although I am passionate about, is not part of my personal life.  Now it is, or at least now I understand what it means to live with HIV, and considering there are millions of people living with HIV worldwide, this is a perspective that will be crucial to shaping health, education, and foreign aid policies in the future.  I am thinking more creatively now about the solutions and interventions that will work best, from the level of global policy down to community-based strategies.

And perhaps one main take away is about involvement and integration.  One, rather than make programs “for” people living with HIV, as is still practiced by major international donors even under the guise of ‘local empowerment’, allow people living with HIV to design programs and dictate to the donors what will work best. Secondly, hold the local powers-that-be accountable for supporting  the grassroots energy in a systematic way — incorporate HIV/AIDS into the national budget, eliminate stigma from the health systems and create a national AIDS curriculum for all Indonesian students to become part of the solution.

My year as a Luce Scholar wraps up in July 2010, though I am so happy working here I wish I could continue longer!  As of now I have not yet made work plans post-Luce, but am eager to put my experiences – including the new language! – to use in the realm of health policy, specifically related to HIV/AIDS.

For more detailed accounts of my experiences and lessons learned from Indonesia, I write weekly essays onwww.CitizenKate.ning.com and I love to hear feedback!

Seth Moulton, Class of 2009
John F. Kennedy School of Government
Harvard University

Seth Moulton is currently pursuing a Masters of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and a Masters of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. Prior to this, Seth served two tours of duty in Iraq as a marine and as a special assistant to General David Patraeus.

After leaving the 2009 Summit in South Africa, Seth traveled to Afghanistan as a correspondent for Dan Rather’s HD Network program.  Below is the interview that Seth conducted with Mr. Rather at Harvard’s Center for Public Leadership.

Brian Levine, Class of 2009
Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation Fellow
New York University

Hello fellow Alumni of the Academy of Achievement!

It’s hard to believe that it has been nearly 3 years since we last met.  So much has gone on, I don’t even know where to begin!

Since we were last at the Summit, I have graduated from New York Unviersity School of Medicine and the inaugural class of the highly selective Catherine B. Reynolds Graduate Fellowship in Social Entrepreneurship.  During my Fellowship at NYU, and still now, I serve as the Chief Medical Officer of AfricaAid where I co-founded the Mobile Doctors Network or MDNet—an innovative program that creates free mobile phone networks for all physicians and health administrators within African nations.

This healthcare initiative—the first of its kind—not only allows all physicians within each national network to communicate for free, it also gives each physician access to a countrywide directory of physicians and the ability to manage bulk SMS messaging free of charge. MDNet Ghana, now supported by Vodafone, has a 95% doctor participation rate with over 1,900 physicians linked in its free communication network, while MDNet Liberia, supported by MTN, has a 100% doctor participation rate with more than 140 physicians on the network.

Since the program’s inception in January 2008, Ghanaian doctors have logged more than a million calls, averaging a total of 2,300 hours of medical discussion per month. I’m hoping to expand this program from Ghana and Liberia to Kenya, Uganda, and Rwanda by the end of 2011.

This project as been an eye-opening experience and has given me the opportunity to speak to diverse audiences about the importance of the allocation and development of healthcare communication.  This project has been featured on MobileActive.org, Voice of America News, PRI’s The World (a co-production of WGBH/Boston, PRI, and the BBC World Service) and, Microsoft Health and Well-Being.

I am completely committed to bringing empowering healthcare technologies to developing nations. Please let me know if you have any interest, as we’re always looking for help!

Best wishes and looking forward to hearing about all the other exciting projects being done by this amazing cohort of world scholars and leaders!

Sincerely,
Brian A. Levine, M.D. M.S.

Hello Academy Alumni-

This is your site– a way for you to share your accomplishments and endeavors with your peers.   Please add updates, photos and information about what you have been up to.  As well, if you have any events, announcements or job listings that people may be interested in, feel free to share those as well.