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.

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

Nimesh Dhungana (2009) received an M.B.A. from Kathmandu University School of Management, Nepal and a B.A. in Commerce (Honors) from Delhi University, New Delhi, India. As a development practitioner, he holds professional experiences in organization development, project management, reviews, and studies, and human resource management/development. He has been involved in a number of capacity-strengthening interventions for various non-governmental organizational and international agencies. He is also involved in projects related to conflict transformation/peace building, youth empowerment, and leadership development in his capacity as a General Secretary of one of the leading youth-led Nepali NGOs, People and Development.

Contact: ndhungana@clarku.edu

Carly Edwards (2009) received a B.S. in resource ecology and community issues in Africa from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.  She has worked with communities adjacent to a nature reserve in South Africa as well as with orphanages in Ghana and South Africa.  Prior to attending Clark, she was a Peace Corps volunteer in Morocco, where she focused on providing educational opportunities for women and girls and engaging children in the local environment.  Her interests include issues of gender, the effects of using foreign volunteers in development, the relationship between local religion and development, the role of community organizations in development, and ecotourism.

Contact: cedwards@clarku.edu

Nicholas Gebauer (2009) received a B.S. from Michigan State University in metrology, Earth science, and GIS. As a Hollings Scholar, he interned with the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration in Boulder, Colo., creating products to project meteorological data onto Google Earth interface. After taking a year off to bike across the country, volunteer in Honduras, and work as an environmental educator in Texas, he is ready to explore his primary academic interests of using GIS to investigate anthropogenic affects on the global climate and water supply.

Contact: ngebauer@clarku.edu

Kriti Gongal (2009) graduated from Katmandu University with a B.S. in environmental science. She is an active member of an environmental club called the Nature and Social Concern Society. She participated in the 2007 National Conference on Environment as well as a training program on e-learning with Green Productivity and Integrated Management Systems. She is working as an environmental coordinator for Environmental Resources Group, an environmental services provider. She also serves as a publications coordinator for Hydro Nepal, editing and managing hydropower project articles.

Contact: kgongal@clarku.edu

Norma Gutierrez (2009) earned her B.A. in political science and Latin American studies with a minor in international studies from California State University, East Bay. She is currently the community education and leadership development program director at a non-profit organization whose mission is to empower low-income immigrants and refugees. She has previously had the opportunity to do labor organizing across the country, and her recent work experience has further expanded her interest in aiding communities to work towards change and equality.

Contact: ngutierrez@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

Alexandra Pinschmidt (2009) received her B.A. in biology from Boston University in 2001, and had opportunities to study abroad in Ecuador and China.  She has worked with several domestic and international non-profits, focusing on a wide range of issues such as community building, education, world hunger, grassroots media, and homelessness.   In 2003-2004, she volunteered with Humana People to People in rural Mozambique, teaching biology, chemistry, and sex education at a vocational school.  Upon her return, she worked at Haley House, a small organization in Boston. There she lived in an intentional community that runs a soup kitchen for homeless men as well as several social and educational programs for the community.  Fusing her interests of education, social justice, artistic expression, and empowerment, Ali has created a feature-length documentary film about the experiences of international volunteers in Mozambique, and is working on another film about homelessness and Haley House’s personal and radical approaches to social change.  She hopes to continue to incorporate grassroots media in her work for change.

Contact: apinschmidt@clarku.edu

Helena Qvicklund (2009) earned her B.A. in Public & Community Service and Political Science from Providence College in 2006. Before coming to Clark, she spent two years working as a consultant for a Washington, D.C. based firm specializing in affordable housing. During her tenure, she worked on a wide variety of projects with housing authorities across the country. She also spent time working on a program in Louisiana, helping homeowners rebuild after hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Contact: hqvicklund@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

Kristin Sherwood (2009) received her B.A. in linguistics and psychology from Harvard University and her M.A. in creative arts and learning from Lesley University. She has had several years of experience teaching math and social science classes while incorporating multicultural curriculum. She has also spent time teaching abroad in diverse locations such as Costa Rica, India, Mexico, Uzbekistan, and Hungary.

Contact: ksherwood@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

Ebenezer Teye (2009) earned his B.S. in metallurgical engineering with a mineral processing & extraction (Mining) major, from Kwame Nkrumah University of Science & Technology-Ghana in 2002. The greater part of his working experience has come from a gold mining company called Gulf Coast Resources, where he worked as a processing engineer. Ebenezer has also worked with Tema Steel Works as Quality Control Engineer/Spectrometric Analyst as well as at Weblink Portfolio as an Environment/Development research assistant. His interest for the environmental issues heightened during his time at Weblink Portfolio while researching alternative source of livelihood for peasant farmers in Dangme plains. He also had the opportunity to work under the Ghana Poverty Alleviation Strategy 1 Program: on Non-traditional Cash cropping. Ebenezer has also served as a volunteer environmental health adviser to the Manya krobo Traditional Council for the last several years. His current interests include environmental health and safety issues in energy industry, sustainable energy sources, environmental policy implementation in developing countries, and environment and urbanization.

Contact: eteye@clarku.edu

Zaliah Zalkind (2009) has a degree in Liberal Studies from the University of Arizona with concentrations in political-economy, gender and sustainable development.  He has worked with organizations focusing on gender violence, local micro-business development, domestic violence, and human rights community organizing. Most recently, Zaliah has worked as Program Support Coordinator for Border Action Network in Tucson, AZ.  His research interests include community sovereignty and decolonization, community organizing, deconstructing power relationships, and implementing localized alternatives to coercive globalization. 

Contact: zzalkindhawkins@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