IDCE Fellows

IDCE Fellows are an important circle of scholars within the IDCE community. Fellows are outstanding in their search for thoughtful, realistic, and innovative approaches to international development, advancing social change, building community, and promoting environmental sustainability.

Meg Barritt (2007) received a B.A. in Religion from the University of Rochester in New York. She then taught English and learned Czech in the Czech Republic. Her next endeavor was helping to create a non-profit organization, Alianza, which were both a Spanish language school and a community alliance which used Spanish interpreters to facilitate the monolingual community’s access to social services in the Boulder, Colorado area. Since joining the IDSC program, Meg has worked at Lutheran Social Services of New England in the division of Refugee and Immigrant Services. She has worked in case management and is currently co-leading a 1-year qualitative research study on the psychosocial needs of refugee families in Worcester. While her interests are many, Meg is planning to complete her master’s paper research on the use of paraprofessionals in refugee resettlement, and to understand their roles within the larger contexts of forced migration and the systems in place which “manage” these issues.

Contact: mbarritt@clarku.edu

Ratna Bahadur Bagchand (2008) received his B.A. in law from Tribhuvan University in Kathmandu in 1993. Ratna also received a Diploma in Human Rights in 2001 from the Danish Centre for Human Rights in Copenhagen. He has served as a member of the Supreme Court Bar Association of Nepal from 2005 onward, and is the Founder and President of the Lawyers National Campaign against Untouchability (LANCAU). In 2002, he received the award for Outstanding Lawyer of the Kingdom of Nepal, 2003, conferred by the National Dalit Commission, His Majesty’s Government of Nepal for promoting social justice, equality, and human rights throughout the country.

Contact: rbagchand@clarku.edu

Melissa “Tyanne” Benallie-Stewart (2008) earned her B.A. in Political Science with a minor in Spanish from Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado. Prior to attending IDCE, Tyanne was working at the United States Environmental Protection Agency for the American Indian Environmental Office. Tyanne has previous experiences working within the non-profit sector. Her past experiences include Native American and Latino outreach. She is interested in comparative studies of Native American Society and developing countries: politically, socially, and culturally. Tyanne also has had the opportunity to live in both England and Spain.

Contact: mbenalliestewart@clarku.edu

Brandon Cohen (2008) is a 2004 graduate of the University of Pittsburgh. While studying political science and history, he began extensively traveling and experimenting with social entrepreneurship. He soon combined his passions by helping to create a student-initiated NGO which empowers African refugee youth. In the summer of 2004, Brandon safely coordinated a series of development projects in the Dukwi Refugee Camp in Botswana. The next year he returned to Africa as Associate Director of the organization, and coordinated three new development projects in the Kala Refugee Camp in Zambia. After returning to the United States, Brandon worked as the Development Associate for the Tahirih Justice Center in Falls Church, VA, which assists women and girls who are fleeing gender-based human rights abuses. To date, he has traveled, studied, or worked in over 40 countries on five continents.

Contact: brcohen@clarku.edu

Loa Niumeitolu (2007) has a master’s degree from Simmons College in English. Together with Charleen Richards, she founded the Social Change Fellow’s Reel Change Film Series. Her master’s paper examines how social movements, particularly the Tongan Pro-Democracy Movement, developed as a response to western development and economic globalization in the Pacific. She is a legal advocate at Legal Assistance Corporation of Central Massachusetts and the coordinator of Worcester’s grassroots Community Women’s Group. Poetry is also one of her many passions.

Contact: lniumeitolu@clarku.edu

Sarah Pack (2007) is a second year graduate student in the IDSC program. She is currently conducting her research on the transmission of values in informal educational settings, especially in regards to HIV/AIDS prevention programs for youth. She has significant grant writing experience and two years work experience in urban youth development.

Contact: spack@clarku.edu

Allison Petrozziello (2008) has a B.A. in Women’s Studies and Spanish from Smith College. After graduating, she traveled the world as a volunteer Spanish teacher aboard a Japanese NGO cruise ship called Peace Boat. Eventually the currents brought her to Honduras, where she was a municipal development Peace Corps volunteer. There she focused primarily on women’s community and political participation, as well as training local development practitioners on the incorporation of a gender-equitable approach in their programming. She spent the last year working on a gender training and technical assistance project for USAID’s Office of Women in Development in Washington, DC, as well as pursuing her research interests around gender and remittance practices of Central American transnational families.

Contact: apetrozziello@clarku.edu

Sheela Pradhan (2007) received her M.A. in Rural Development and Sociology and Anthropology from Tribhuvan University in Nepal. She has also received her Post-Graduate diploma in Women’s Studies from the same university. She has more than 10 years of experience in development fields, working with various international NGOs such as IUCN, OXFAM GB, PLAN International and CIDA projects in Nepal. Her major expertise includes planning, monitoring, program evaluations, gender and social inclusion and gender analysis. She is proficient in Participatory Monitoring & Evaluation (PME), Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) trainings and women’s capacity building at the local level. Currently she is doing her research on gender, poverty and social inclusion in a community forest in Nepal. This past summer, she worked as a Research Intern with OXFAM America on new forms of organizing for women workers’ rights.

Contact: spradhan@clarku.edu

Charleen Richards (2007) is a second year IDSC student. She earned an Associates Degree from the College of the Bahamas in Psychology; a B.A. in International Relations with a minor in Business from Florida International University.  Prior to earning her undergraduate degree, she was an entrepreneur for several years in a craft business and later a retail scarf and hat shop. During her time at FIU she served as a peer advisor with Campus Life and Orientation and later taught English as a second language with Inlingua School of Language upon completion of her studies.  She also completed the Substitute Teacher Certification with Broward Public Schools in FL.  Charleen spent summer 2007 as an intern with CARE Bangladesh and focused on vulnerable groups in vulnerable communities. Her current course work and masters focus is on education and empowerment.

Contact: chrichards@clarku.edu

Sona Shah (2008) has a B.A. in Asian Studies and a minor in Business from the University of Texas at Austin. After college she joined the Peace Corps and taught English at Three Gorges College in China. She then returned to the states and was an AmeriCorps*VISTA at SAHELI, a nonprofit organization in Austin, TX that assist victims/survivors of domestic violence within the Asian/Asian American community. She coordinated the organization’s outreach, fundraising and volunteer activities. After her VISTA term, she served on SAHELI’s board and chaired the board development committee to help with the transition of SAHELI being an all-volunteer based organization for twelve years to one with a full-time staff. She was also a trained domestic violence advocate that assisted survivors. Sona has continued working in the nonprofit sector as a membership director, executive coordinator and most recently a development associate for Austin’s local PBS station.

Contact: sshah@clarku.edu

Sarah Stewart (2008) received an M.A. in Latin American Studies from the University of Texas at Austin and a B.A. in Spanish from Middlebury College, Vermont. She was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship in 1996 to conduct research on ecotourism management practices in Venezuela. She created an ecotourism development plan for a biosphere reserve in Chiapas, Mexico. Sarah worked for two years as a community development planner for a local NGO in the Peruvian Andes. While in the U.S., she taught middle and high school Spanish and ESL to Latin American immigrants. Most recently she served in the Peace Corps as an ecotourism volunteer in Guatemala and a protected areas management volunteer in Honduras.

Contact: sastewart@clarku.edu

Laya Zayer (2008) graduated from the University of Southern California in 2005 with a degree in International Relations – Global Business. Soon after she relocated to Washington, DC to intern on Capitol Hill, and eventually moved on to serving as a research intern for a prominent think-tank in the city. After realizing that politics was not her calling, she followed her intuition and joined a development-based NGO in Nicaragua called Manna Project International. There she was given the opportunity to work with a local community inside the Managua City dump in leading health education and crafts classes for women and children. Through her profound experience she was able to witness the positive impact that was made in their community – and her passion for international development was thereafter ignited. She has also served a Washington DC based Non-Profit involved with Genocide prevention advocacy; and most recently she worked for an organization that educates, motivates, and equips underprivileged minority youth in Washington with the skills needed to create better lives for themselves and their communities.

Contact: lzayer@clarku.edu