The Research Team
University of California at Berkeley
Martin Sanchez-Jankowski, Director of the Institute of Societal Issues, Director of ISSI’s Center for Urban Ethnography, UC Berkeley
Martín Sánchez-Jankowski is Director of the Institute for the Study of Societal Issues and Professor of Sociology. He also Directs ISSI’s Center for Urban Ethnography. He received his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in political science and economics. His research focuses on inequality in advanced and developing societies and has been directed toward understanding the social arrangements and behavior of people living in poverty. He has studied urban gangs within U.S. low-income neighborhoods, resulting in the book Islands in the Street: Gangs and American Urban Society (1991). Subsequent studies have been directed at education, some of the results being reported in a book co-authored with five other Berkeley faculty entitled Inequality By Design: Cracking the Bell Curve Myth(1996); and the social order of neighborhoods, with those results being published in Cracks in the Pavement: Social Change and Resilience in Poor Neighborhoods(2008). He is in the process of finishing two books that report the findings from two studies analyzing poverty’s impact on academic achievement and school violence within the U.S. He is currently engaged in comparative field research on poverty among indigenous groups within the U.S. and Fiji.
Robin Marsh, Research Specialist, Institute for the Study of Societal Issues, UC Berkeley (Lead Researcher)
Robin Marsh is a socio-economist specializing in integrated approaches to rural sustainable livelihoods and environments. She received her PhD in Agricultural Economics from the Food Research Institute, Stanford University. Marsh is a lecturer at UC Berkeley in Environmental Economics and Policy, teaching in the field of Population, Environment & Development. She has expertise in creating and training the next generation of global environmental and sustainable development leaders, having co-directed the Beahrs Environmental Leadership Program (ELP) for 13 years with 460 alumni from 95 countries. Marsh has experience working in Central and South America, SE Asia and Eastern Africa.
On behalf of UC Berkeley, Robin Marsh led a collaborative team effort to partner with The MasterCard Foundation Scholars Program during 2012. Marsh continues with The MasterCard Foundation Scholars Program in several roles: member of core team, lead on graduate student component, liaison with external Advisory Committee, and advisor on Scholars Community. Marsh is the Project Coordinator and Research Specialist with the new multi-partner research project on the Career Trajectories of African Alumni of International Universities (African Alumni Study). Marsh is a senior resident researcher with Berkeley’s Institute for the Study of Societal Issues (ISSI).
Rami Arafah, Research Analyst and PhD Candidate (Social Welfare), UC Berkeley
Rami is a PhD Candidate in the UC Berkeley School of Social Welfare, and is currently working on a quantitatively focused dissertation aimed at identifying factors that predict economic success among newly-arrived refugees in the United States. His doctoral work is broadly centered on human service policy, practice and management, both in the nonprofit and public sectors. Rami is passionate about social change and development, and the application of research and evaluation methods towards those ends. Before coming to UC Berkeley Rami held multiple positions in nonprofit management and planning.
Andrew K. Smith, Assistant Dean for Research and Planning of the Graduate Division, UC Berkeley (Senior Data Analyst)
Andrew K. Smith, Ph.D., Assistant Dean for Research and Planning in the Graduate Division, UC Berkeley. Dr. Andrew K. Smith develops and coordinates the surveys of Berkeley’s population of approximately 10,000 graduate students and alumni. In the past, Dr. Smith staffed national evaluations of federally sponsored school reform programs at WestEd, and taught doctoral-level courses in multivariate statistics at the University of Southern California Rossier School of Education.
Benjamin Gebre-Medhin, Graduate Student Researcher and Doctoral Candidate (Sociology), UC Berkeley
Ben Gebre-Medhin is a PhD candidate in Sociology at UC Berkeley with an interest in the relationship between higher education and social structure. He is currently writing a dissertation on the professional politics of online higher education. His past work focused on the role of the university in post-colonial East Africa, and the unique role of students in protest movements (including fieldwork in Eritrea).
Prior to coming to Berkeley, Ben spent nearly a decade working around the world with young people engaged in building NGO’s and advancing local networks of community engagement. Ben served as a Prague based intern with DIA, a Hungarian NGO, to build a Central European network of student community service and activism. He later joined Idealist.org where he organized conferences for American university activists and volunteers, and assessed the organizations impact in Africa (which involved primary fieldwork in Tanzania and Kenya). Ben has also served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Jordan, where he designed a leadership development curriculum that is still in use by the Jordanian Ministry of Youth. Ben is GSR with the African Alumni Study since December 2013.
David Sung, Computer Science/Cognitive Science B.A., UC Berkeley (Website/Researcher Assistant)
David Sung is currently a 4th year student at Berkeley studying Computer Science with a minor in Cognitive Science, specializing in Web Development. David has worked as a software engineer at a tech start-up as a Front-End Web Development Intern, dealing with data storage solutions for local elementary/middle schools. David has been part of the study by revamping the website and updating news/stories about how our African Alumni Project university partners are staying connected to the African Continent and all throughout the African Diaspora. David will be graduating on May 2016 and has been with the African Alumni Study since November 2014.
Sidee Dlamini, Graduate Student Researcher, Masters in Development Practice and MCF Scholar, UC Berkeley
Sidee Dlamini studied International Economics at Texas Christian University. While she was at TCU, Sidee worked at the recreation center and also had an internship with Technoserve in Swaziland. She helped farmers be more productive with their cotton farming. After graduation she worked for UBS Wealth Management then returned to Swaziland. While she was in Swaziland, Sidee worked on a self-assigned project to help students apply to be MasterCard Foundation Scholars. Sidee is a MasterCard Foundation Scholar and a second year graduate student at UC Berkeley’s Masters in Development Practice program. Sidee has been a Graduate Student Researcher with the African Alumni Study since November 2013.
Martha Saavedra, Associate Director, Center for African Studies, UC Berkeley
Martha Saavedra has been with the Center for African Studies since 1993. Trained as a Political Scientist, she has taught at St. Mary’s College of California, UC Berkeley, Ohio University and the Escuela de Estudios Universitarios Real Madrid. Her research has ranged from agrarian politics, development and ethnic conflict in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan to gender and sport in Africa to a collaborative project on representations of Africa in Chinese popular culture. At the Center, she co-coordinates the UnderstandingSudan.org curriculum project, oversees public programs and fellowships, and works closely with the African languages program among other things. She has been on the editorial boards of Soccer and Society; Sport in Society; and Impumelelo: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Sports in Africa.
Kevin Audi, Research Associate, Center for Effective Global Action, UC Berkeley
Kevin supports CEGA’s research programs and initiatives. He manages the Kenya Life Panel Survey (KLPS), a long-term follow up of participants from three prior randomized evaluations, and the Rural Electric Power Project (REPP), a study evaluating electrification programs in Kenya and India. Prior to joining CEGA, he worked with Innovations for Poverty Action in Kenya coordinating field activities for KLPS. Kevin holds a BA in Economics from UC Berkeley.
Nii Sai Sai, Data Visualization Manger, Aspire Public Schools, UC Berkeley Alumnus
Nii Sai Sai is a business and technology leader with more than 15 years of experience providing strategic solutions to the education and information technology sectors. He recently started a new role as Data Visualization Manager at Aspire Public Schools, focused on growing the organization’s capacity to use data as a key lever for bringing excellent K-12 education to under-served communities. Nii Sai spent the prior 4 years delivering technology solutions Aspire’s 38 schools and over 14000 students. Before getting his MBA from the Haas School of Business, Nii Sai was a Senior IT Consultant with IBM Global Services. His areas of expertise include project management, business and systems analysis, building and maintaining relationships with diverse stakeholders, negotiating with vendors to save on licenses and service contracts. Nii Sai is equally passionate about music, managing his recording artist wife’s career.
Aisha Kigongo, IT Data Architect, my Agro Org., UC Berkeley
Aisha Kigongo is a Graduate of the School of Information and a MasterCard Foundation Scholar. She is from Kampala, Uganda. Before Cal, She worked as a software engineer at Image Access Corporation and IBM implementing enterprise content and business process management solutions. A chance meeting with Brooke Stern (CEO SOUL Foundation) at an AllforAfrica.org charity event sparked her interest in development issues faced in Uganda. She now volunteers with SOUL Foundation which is a not-for-profit organization that builds sustainable income generating solutions by partnering with women in rural communities in Uganda. She came to Cal to learn how to apply her technical expertise to create innovative solutions to challenges hindering socio-economic development in East Africa. She chose the I-School because of its interdisciplinary program that spans technology, humanities, sociology and cognitive science. She is passionate about information & communication technologies for development, Girls Education, football (Soccer) and fashion. Since graduation from UC Berkeley in May 2014, Aisha has accepted a position with an international agricultural NGO and is based in Mali, West Africa.
Arizona State University
Aryn Baxter, Director, The MasterCard Foundation Scholars Program, Arizona State University
As Director of The MasterCard Foundation Scholars Program at ASU, Aryn oversees the daily operations and coordinates program activities to ensure that the goals and objectives are met. She plans, implements and evaluates activities designed to integrate scholars within the broader ASU community and equip them to lead change and make a positive social impact in their home regions. Aryn comes to ASU from the University of Minnesota, where she completed a doctoral degree in Comparative and International Development Education. She previously coordinated a study abroad program in Rwanda and has led a variety of research and evaluation efforts on the impact of education initiatives in African countries. Her dissertation research focuses on the transformative potential and limitations of higher education scholarship initiatives as a solution to a host of complex development challenges.
EARTH University
Nico Evers, Director of Int’l Academic Relations and Professor of Internships, Earth University (Principal Investigator)
Nico Evers is Director of International Academic Relations and Professor of Internships at EARTH University, Costa Rica. His office is responsible for coordinating for-credit study abroad programs, short courses and internships, as well as the global internship program for full-time EARTH University students. Evers, who is from The Netherlands, was most recently a senior policy officer for the Netherlands National Commission for UNESCO and came to EARTH with more than 17 years of experience in international higher education and cooperation.
Nico, who holds a Master of Science in Public Administration/International Relations, started his career at the University of Amsterdam, where he held the positions of manager of international study programs, policy advisor for international affairs at central university administration level, interim director of a language institute and resident director of the CIEE Study Center in the Netherlands. He also worked for the Netherlands Organization for International Cooperation in Higher Education (Nuffic), where he worked on capacity building projects in Guatemala and Tanzania and on various studies, consultancies, training courses and international projects.
Bret Shaw, Associate Professor, Dept. of Life Sciences Communication, University of Wisconsin (sabbatical at EARTH University)
Bret Shaw is an Associate Professor in the Department of Life Sciences Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Environmental Communication Specialist for University of Wisconsin Extension. He focuses on planning and evaluating social marketing campaigns dealing with natural resource management issues such as water quality, land use and environmental conservation and assessing the impact of these social marketing campaigns. He has published broadly in the areas of environmental and health communication. HIs current interests include how to empower ‘opinion leaders’ to influence behavior change in their communities. Previously, he has worked in journalism, marketing, advertising, media relations and market research. He also serves as the liaison for UW-Madison’s partnership with Earth University.
The MasterCard Foundation Scholars Program
Barry Burciul, Mastercard Foundation
Barry manages evaluation and learning activities and partnerships for the Foundation’s Scholars Program. He has over 12 years of experience conducting and managing research, M&E and knowledge translation programming in international development. Barry comes to the Foundation from Dignitas International, where he was Associate Director of Research and Knowledge Translation. He has consulted for organizations including Médecins Sans Frontières, Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative, and the Africa Initiative at the Centre for International Governance Innovation. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from McMaster University and a Master’s in Political Science from Dalhousie University.
McGill University
Lina Di Genova, Manager of Student Assessment, McGill University (Co-Principal Investigator)
As the Manager of Student Assessment at McGill University, Lina Di Genova is responsible for implementing a comprehensive student engagement assessment and co-curricular tracking program across the Student Life & Learning division. Prior to joining Student Services, Lina worked in Institutional Planning on university and national assessment initiatives, such as, the National Survey of Student Engagement benchmarking program for the Canadian U15 Data Exchange. While part of the Institutional Planning team, she served as the McGill University representative for the Association of American Universities Data Exchange. Lina is also a licensed organizational psychologist and completing her doctorate in psychology. Lina’s role within The MasterCard Scholars Program is to work with the McGill assessment team and the MCF to establish a methodology for monitoring and evaluating program success. Lina received her doctoral degree in September 2014.
Andre Costopoulos, Dean of Students, McGill University (Co-Principal Investigator)
Andre Costopoulos is Dean of Students and Associate Professor of Archaeology at McGill University. He has been working with International Students in various capacities for over ten years. He completed a B.A. in Anthropology at McGill in 1992 and went on to graduate work in Canada and Finland. After teaching in the U.S. and conducting research in the U.K., he came back to McGill as an Assistant Professor in 2003. He served as Chair of the Undergraduate Committee of the Anthropology Department and then as Associate Dean (Student Affairs) in the Faculty of Arts. Andre led a major international collaborative research project during the International Polar Year, has co-edited a collection on the state of the art of computer simulation in Archaeology, and has published articles and book chapters on northern prehistory, cultural evolution and environmental change, among other subjects. His office will be leading The MasterCard Foundation Scholars program at McGill.
Michigan State University (MSU)
Amy Jamison, Assistant Director of the Center for Gender and Global Context, MSU (Principal Investigator)
Dr. Jamison is an education, gender, and research specialist. She received her PhD from MSU in Educational Policy in August 2010 and has been with MSU’s Center for Gender in Global Context since that time. Her research interests focus on African higher education development, gender issues in higher education, and gender in international development. In 2008, she spent one year on a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad fellowship conducting a qualitative study of academics’ experiences with research at the University of Dar es Salaam. Dr. Jamison has also been involved with several grant and research projects in a number of African countries, including Malawi, Rwanda, Tanzania, South Africa, Senegal, Burkina Faso, and Mali. She is currently the MSU Principle Investigator on The MasterCard Foundation-funded “African Alumni Study.”
David Wiley, Professor of Sociology and African Studies, MSU
David Wiley is Professor of Sociology and African Studies at Michigan State University. His research has focused on Zambia (urban housing and development, religion and class), Zimbabwe (race relations, religious movements), Kenya (socio-economics of Lake Victoria fisheries and participatory management), South Africa (urban environmental issues and social movements as a Fulbright-Hays Senior Fellow at the University of KwaZulu-Natal), internationalization and less commonly taught languages in U.S. universities, and, currently, militarization in Africa. His courses concern Africa in Global Perspective and International Social Science Research.
He served as director of the African Studies Centers at Michigan State University (1978-2008) and University of Wisconsin-Madison (1972-77) and Interim Chair of Sociology 2010-11. His graduate degrees are from Yale and Princeton. His most recent publication is International and Language Education for a Global Future: Fifty Years of the U.S. Title VI and Fulbright-Hays Programs, co-ed, MSU Press, 2010.
Pamela Roy, Educational Consultant, MSU
Pamela Roy has six years of experience working on issues of international and comparative higher education, with regional foci in Sub-Saharan Africa and twelve years of experience working as a student affairs practitioner and higher education professional. Dr. Roy’s research expertise includes the global professoriate, gender and economic empowerment, and educational success of learners in international contexts. She has served as a consultant for The MasterCard Foundation in Toronto, Canada and for the Global Center for Food Systems Innovation at Michigan State University, USA, providing analyses and thought leadership to both organizations. She has also served as Research and Scholarship Associate for Michigan State University’s Office of Study Abroad where she provided leadership in advancing and implementing the education abroad research agenda. In conjunction with university capacity-building work, she has received numerous fellowships and grants to conduct qualitative and mixed-method studies, including her dissertation research which examined the factors that contribute to the lives and careers of Black/African, Colored, and Indian women academics in post-apartheid South Africa.
Yeukai A. Mlambo, Doctoral Student, Educational Administration, MSU
Yeukai Mlambo is a doctoral student Educational Administration at Michigan State University. Originally from Zimbabwe, Yeukai attended university for her bachelor’s and master’s in Psychology at University of Pretoria in South Africa. After completing her master’s, Yeukai worked as a research manager for a social science research firm, as a consultant for the Institute for Women and Gender Studies, and was a contributing writer for an online research company focusing on issues related to the African continent. In 2012, Yeukai moved to the US and worked as a survey supervisor for Arbitron (now Nielsen). Yeukai is interested in issues of gender and women faculty in the academy as well as issues of diversity and race in higher education and women in STEM in South Africa.
Monterey Institute of International Studies
Meggan Madden, Assistant Professor of Int’l Education Management, Monterey Institute of International Studies
Meggan Madden is an Assistant Professor in the International Education Management program at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. Her Ph.D. is from the University of Toronto where she studied comparative, international and development education. Prior to joining the Monterey Institute in August 2013, Meggan spent several years working as an international educator in Canada and the US. Her responsibilities included working as the Director of The MasterCard Foundation Scholars Program at Arizona State University; as a researcher, instructor, and program coordinator in the Comparative, International and Development Education Centre at the University of Toronto; as a faculty-led program coordinator and international credentials specialist at Washington State University; and as an international and domestic admissions counselor at Principia College.
With research interests in the regionalization and internationalization of higher education, quality assurance, and international student experiences, Meggan is currently examining ways in which non-state actors, such as international organizations or philanthropic institutions, influence higher education internationalization and regionalization activities. Meggan teaches courses on comparative and international education, international education policy, international recruiting and marketing, higher education administration, and international program design and assessment.
Simon Fraser University (SFU)
Nancy Johnston, Executive Director of Student Affairs, SFU
Dr. Nancy Johnston is the Executive Director of Student Affairs at Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, Canada where she is responsible for Student Recruitment, Retention and Success programs (both Domestic and International), Health and Counseling, Residence and Housing, Work Integrated Learning (co-op, careers, service learning and volunteer), Indigenous Student Services, Interfaith, and the Centre for Students with Disabilities. Nancy was a leading contributor to the implementation of Strategic Enrollment Management (SEM) at SFU and also holds an adjunct professorship in the Faculty of Education.
She is a member of the World Association for work integrated learning (WACE) Board of Governors, and founding member of the WACE, CAFCE and ACE Research Committees. She is published in many co-op related journals and books in the areas of best practice, and co-op curriculum design and development. She is currently completing a large study investigating barriers to and supports for, student success for international and new immigrant students at SFU, and has recently published a chapter in The World is My Classroom: International Learning and Canadian Higher Education (2013). Through her volunteer work and community service Nancy has also participated in several provincial, national, and international committees, and is a frequent conference speaker and workshop presenter.
Shaheen Nanji, Director, International Development, SFU
Shaheen has worked in international development in the areas of education, diaspora, public health and environment policy, as well as in community and public engagement. She has managed development projects in several countries in Africa and Asia. She holds an MA in International Studies with a focus on the role of host countries in supporting the international development efforts undertaken by those in the diaspora. Having been born and raised in Kenya, she is interested in the ways in which diaspora can give back to their home countries. At SFU, her role is to enable universities and faculty to apply their research and expertise in development settings. Shaheen is a Board Member for Burnaby Family Life and a mentor for professional newcomers to Canada through MOSAIC.
University of Toronto
Suying Hugh, Program Manager, The MasterCard Foundation Scholars Program, University of Toronto (Principal Investigator)
Suying Hugh is the Program Manager for The MasterCard Foundation Scholars Program at the University of Toronto. The program is overseen at the University of Toronto by the Centre for International Experience, New College and Woodsworth College. Suying has a bachelor’s degree in international development studies and economics from the University of Toronto and a Masters Degree in Diplomacy and International Relations from Seton Hall University. Suying served as Editor?in?Chief of the Seton Hall Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations and worked as a research assistant at the Inter?American Development Bank on targeted social programs in Latin America. Suying was a CUSO Cooperant in St. Lucia, West Indies, working at the Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture on small and medium enterprise development. During her time in St. Lucia, Suying traveled to Georgetown, Guyana where at the CARICOM secretariat she was able to study Caribbean integration and the Single Market and Economy.
Suying has worked at the University of Toronto with international students for the last ten years. During this time, she obtained a Students for Development Grant to enable her to study internationalization of higher education in Latin America at the Instituto Tecnológico de Santo Domingo (INTEC) in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. She is currently pursuing her PhD in higher education at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto.
Dickson Eyoh, Associate Professor of African Studies, New College, University of Toronto (Co-Principal Investigator)
Dickson Eyoh is Associate Professor of Political Science and African Studies and director of African Studies Program at the University of Toronto. His publications include Ethnicity and Democracy in Africa (edited with Bruce Berman and Will Kymlicka), Decentralization and the Politics of Urban Development in West Africa (with Richard Stren), and Encyclopedia of 20th Century African History (with Paul Zeleza). He is the Co-Principal Investigator, together with Suying Hugh, for the African Alumni/”PARIS” Study.