Alumni Updates
Michelle Abbs received a Master’s degree from Florida International University in the field of International Education. She is currently working as an administrator at Miami Northwestern Senior High as an Instructional Dean and hopes to use her experience creating teacher leaders and excellent instruction to launch a non-profit that would provide students with international exposure through experiential learning.The exchange program would be targeted at students of low income communities who are not able to access study abroad opportunities as readily as their more affluent peers.
Sarah Maryam Al-Zoubi has started a Master’s program in Social Services Administration at the University of Chicago.
Tanesha (Cutler) Bodin hosted a government delegation from Johannesburg as a favor to the Washington, D.C. South African embassy. Additionally, she attended several days of recognition at the Embassy of Saudi Arabia and the embassy of South Africa. She has created a Global STEM program that will be in a pilot phase between a school in Pretoria, South Africa and The Crossroad’s School in Baltimore, Maryland. The pilot begins February 2012.
Gerry Chapman ’73 is now the proud grandfather of Benjamin David Bertin, who was born on October, 5th, 2010.
Win Chesson ’07 is still working at Immigration Equality in New York City, fighting for gay, lesbian, trans and HIV-positive immigrants.
Vivek Chilukuri ’09 spent a summer studying Arabic at the American University of Cairo and then spent two years working at a Quaker high school on the occupied West Bank teaching International Baccalaureate English and leading their Model United Nations program. Chilukuri, who interned for the House Committee on Foreign Relations while at UNC, is now pursuing a Master’s in Public Policy with a concentration in International and Global Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
Shepard Daniel ’08 began law school this year at UC Berkeley School of Law and will graduate in 2014.
Valaida Fullwood is author of the new hardcover book Giving Back: A Tribute to Generations of African American Philanthropists, published October 2011. Giving Back features original black and white photography and illuminating narratives from interviews and engagement with over 200 black donors. For more information on the book, please visit http://valaida.com.
Charles Humphrey III ’99, Graham Sharp ’99 and Woody Platt ’00 with their bluegrass band, Steep Canyon Rangers, have been touring extensively in 2011. During the past year, the Steep Canyon Rangers and actor-comedian-banjoist Steve Martin have played all over the U.S. and also in England in support of their new bluegrass record “Rare Bird Alert” out on Rounder Records. They had the honor of performing for the President of the United States at the White House and also performed at the Fourth of July concert on the Capitol Lawn for a live audience of over half a million people with another ten million watching on T.V. They have been nominated by the International Bluegrass Music Association as Entertainers of the Year. They are proud to be representing UNC and also to be bringing bluegrass music to new audiences. Follow them at steepcanyon.com.
Greg Ingram ’80 has been in Afghanistan over the last year, serving as the Information Operations Adviser in the Helmand Province for COMISAF (Commander International Security & Assistance Forces) Advisory & Assistance Team (CAAT). Over the last thirty years, he has worked in Latin America, Asia, and more recently in the Middle East. Prior to his work in Afghanistan, he worked in Oman, Syria, and Jordan on a Human Language Technology project for DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency).
Kristal Jones ’05 is a Ph.D student at Pennsylvania State University and is conducting research in conjunction with the McKnight Foundation and the International Crop Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) in West Africa. She is working with farmers who are accessing seeds of improved varieties of sorghum and millet that have been created through participatory plant breeding projects. The seeds are now being sold in the marketplace for the first time.
Phaedra Leigh Mangan ’10 recently returned from a year abroad working as a teaching assistant for a bilingual school in Torre de Benagalbon, Malaga, Spain trhough the North American Language and Culture Assistants with the Ministerio de Educacion of Spain. She is now interning for the World Trade Center of New Orleans in New Orleans, LA.
Rachel (Chamberlain) Manley ’95 is an artist and a partner with Save the Cord Foundation, a non-profit organization that educates parents about the benefits of saving their child’s umbilical cord blood. The foundation is featuring her painting “Birth” as the flagship image for their national education campaign and touring 22 of her works as part of the Birth Art Exhibit. Manley is also starting a new artistic collaboration on key issues in Tunisia, where she lives.
Dan Riegler ’08 joined Cambodia Capital as an associate based in Phnom Penh. Cambodia Capital focuses on corporate finance, brokerage and private equity, including the listing of the first companies on the newly launched Cambodian Stock Exchange. Prior to this, he spent one year working for Kamworks, a Cambodian startup focusing on solar energy solutions for rural electrification.
Taylor Steelman is in his final year of an MA program in International Relations at Yale University. He recently returned from a summer in Port-au-Prince, where he researched aid-funded construction projects and their relationship to the Haitian construction market for the NGO Peace Dividend Trust.
Holly Taylor ’98 is one of three partners involved in opening Pullen Place, a unique cafe committed to providing fresh, delicious food in the heart of Raleigh’s newly renovated Pullen Park. The cafe is scheduled to open on November 19 and will serve traditional comfort foods as well as some exciting dishes from around the world, featuring local and organic ingredients.
Anish Thakkar is a proud and active member of Charlotte’s international community. Anish has taught bhangra, a traditional South Asian dance form, through Queen City Bhangra Academy, and is also a volunteer at the International House in Charlotte.
Shefa Sikder ’08 completed a Master’s of Health Science at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health in 2010 and is currently pursuing a Ph.D in Global Disease Control and Epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. Sikder’s research has primarily focused on care seeking for maternal complications in rural Bangladesh.
Jessica Lambert Ward ’06 is in her final year of the Master’s in Social Work program at UNC. She was recently awarded the competitive national Consuelo Gosnell Memorial scholarship for MSW students who are committed to working with American Indian/Alaskan Native or Latino communities from the National Association of Social Workers.