Career News

Nadia Behboodi, MA 07, returned to Afghanistan and is working with UNICEF as a Planning Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist. Her focus is in the area of national policy analysis. She is also a member of the Afghanistan National Gender Working Group, which works at the policy level to direct services and resources for the welfare of women and marginalized populations. She is also trying to establish a women research center within the Kabul University with the support of UNICEF and Ministry of Women's Affairs.

Michelle Dworkin, MA 07, is a Senior Program Officer for International Education and Exchange with Relief International's Washington, DC office. In this position, she manages Relief International's Schools Online program that provides information and communications technology to secondary schools in various developing countries (West Bank, Jordan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka) and then links them with secondary schools in the U.S. for the purposes of exchange of ideas and collaborative youth-oriented projects.

Peter Liu, MA 07, joined Plan International in its China Office as the Sponsorship and Grant Support Manager. He is responsible for teams related to public relations, communications, grants, and corporate relations.

Heljye Mounkala, MA 07, started working for Management Sciences for Health (MSH) in Boston as a Development Associate.

Sachie Nakayama, MA 07, landed a position at ESRI Japan, a subsidiary of ESRI US, a private GIS software company. Sachie works with the GIS specialist team.

Tamer Qarmout, MA 07, is now a Program Analyst for UNDP in Palestine.

Saman Qureshi, MA 07, is now working with UNDP in Islamabad, Pakistan, as a Program Analyst in the Governance Unit.

Andrew Westbury, MA 07, moved Minnesota to work with Land O' Lakes in their International Development as a Grants Specialist.

Mario Gutierrez, MA 06, is a research fellow for the International Trade and Integration Sector of the Inter-American Development Bank, Washington, DC.

Surabhi Jain, MA 06, moved to Chicago and works with the National Council of La Raza through their Chicago office. Her article New Directions in Workfoce Development: Do they lead to gains for women? was published in the New England Journal of Public Policy, Special Edition earlier this year.

Moses Sitati, MA 06, is in Kenya working with the Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis (KIPPRA) as a young professional in the social sector division on the organization. KIPPRA is a semi-government institution and the key consultant to the Government of Kenya on policy issues in all sectors.

Nathalie Tinguery, MA 06, is the Grants Coordinator for Plan International in Burkina Faso.

Jason Hobbs, MA 05 , (jhobbs@worldbank.org) has been working for the World Bank in Brasília, Brazil as a social protection specialist since 2005. Working with the Brazilian government, he provides technical assistance and helps support policy dialogue in the areas of monitoring and evaluation, conditional cash transfer programs, and active labor market policies.

Agne Kurutyte, MA 05, is starting a new position with the Libraries for Innovation Project as a PR coordinator. This is a three-year project co-funded by the Lithuanian Government and Bill Gates Foundation aimed at introducing the Internet to Lithuanian libraries.

Trang Minh Ngo, MS 05, is working as HIV/AIDS Program Management Specialist in the USAID/Vietnam office. Her position focuses on the PEPFAR program, assisting the Program Manager in planning, consulting, managing and monitoring HIV/AIDS program of the USAID and its partners. She is a point of contact for the policy area of the PEPFAR program and participates in planning and writing the Country Operation Plan.

Josique Radegonde, MA 05, started the doctoral program in Sociology at Mississippi State University. Her area is international development, with specific focus on community, culture and nationstate.

Aaron Spencer, MA 05, currently works on the Environmental Cooperation Agreement under the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) for the US Department of State. He helps coordinate $20m dollars of annual FY2006-2009 funding towards environmental cooperation with CAFTA countries.

Jessica Frank, MA 04, accepted a program position at Chemonics International, Inc., an international development consulting firm in DC.

Jacopo Monzini, MA 04, works for the Environmental Sector of the Development Agency of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Lebanon. Altogether he has spent three years with the Development Agency, two in Sri Lanka and one in Lebanon.

James Keough, MA 03, recently moved from the Africa Region to the Environment Department of the World Bank. He is working on economic and sectoral work analyzing the economics of adaptation to climate change. The department's objective is to assist decision makers of developing countries in integrating adaptation measures to their development policies.

Amanda Kiessel, MA 03 , received her PhD in Environmental Studies from the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her dissertation is titled Social Change and Complex Systems: The Art of Participatory Development in Rural Sri Lanka.

Rhonda Neuhaus, MA 99, graduated from the University of Maryland, School of Law in May 2007.

Mary Lee-Crocker, MA 98, is now working as Program Development Advisor for Samaritan's Purse International Relief in Vancouver Island, BC, Canada.

Cedric Schuster, MA 98, is the Director of Pacific Environment Consultants Ltd., a consulting firm he established with two other partners in April 2003.

Arthur Drampian, MA 97, currently is Deputy Chief of Party for the Program for Institutional and Regulatory, Strengthening of Water Management in Armenia. He is also an adjunct senior lecturer at the American University of Armenia in the School of Political Science and International Affairs.

Send your career news to: sid@brandeis.edu