AfSP Alumni Updates

Caleb Diamond

MSFS Class of 2023

Caleb Diamond is a consultant with Forge Group, where he assists U.S. government clients conduct assessment, monitoring, and evaluation of security cooperation activities, with a focus on institutional capacity building and security sector governance. Caleb’s professional background includes several years of experience working on peacekeeping in Africa and security sector governance with the United Nations, U.S. Army War College, and United States Institute of Peace. He is a proud 2023 African Studies certificate alum.

Kyliyilah Terry

SFS Migration Diplomacy Studies Class of 2021

Kyilah Terry graduated from SFS in 2021 with a concentration in migration diplomacy between Europe and Africa. After graduation, she served as a Legislative Fellow with Representative Barbara Lee and as a Policy Fellow for the Office of the Vice President. In both offices her portfolio included national security and immigration issues. From 2022-2023 she served as a Princeton in Africa Fellow in Nairobi, Kenya. Kyilah worked with the International Rescue Committee (IRC) in researching the effects of drought on refugee communities located in Kakuma and Dadaab refugee camps. She also holds a B.A. from UCLA. Kyilah will continue her studies at the University of Pennsylvania to pursue a Ph.D. in Political Science.

David Ballard

SFS and African Studies Class of 1983

After graduating from Georgetown University, David joined the U.S. Foreign Services in 1985. With the exception of one full assignment spent in Portugal and two short assignments spent in Iraq and Italy, David spent his entire overseas career on the African continent, and three of his eight years working in Washington on African affairs. David has been to all but 20 African countries, and has served in Morocco, Rwanda, Burundi, Angola, Mozambique, Tunisia, and Egypt. In one Washington assignment alone, he covered thirteen West African countries and visited eleven.

Since his retirement in 2015, David usually works half the year at overseas U.S. Embassies filling unexpected vacancies. Recently, this has included a five-month assignment in Burkina Faso and a four-month assignment in Tunisia.

Nikki Duncan

SFS International Affairs, Economics & African Studies Class of 2002

Nikki Duncan is an international business executive with over 15 years of experience managing complex programs designed to strengthen economies, empower communities and improve lives. Nikki has worked in over 26 countries, 16 of which are on the African continent.

Nikki has just started a new role supporting Amazon’s supply chain sustainability activities within their Devices and Web Services business lines. 

Most recently, Nikki served as the Chief of Party (Project lead)  for USAID’s Zahabu Safi (Clean Gold) project in Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).  Implemented by Global Communities, the objective of USAID’s Clean Gold Project is to establish commercially viable, responsibly sourced artisanal gold supply chains that originate in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). 

Over the last decade, Nikki has been cultivating and managing partnerships between bilateral donor agencies, governments, companies and communities to advance shared economic and social development initiatives. Prior to joining Global Communities, Nikki served as the Director of International Corporate Responsibility for Walmart Stores Inc. where she was responsible for developing strategies to support charitable giving, community and employee engagement in the 27 countries where the company has retail operations.

Prior to working for Walmart, Nikki served as the Director for International Programs at the Global Cold Chain Alliance (GCCA), a trade association that represent companies within the perishable foods supply chain and logistics industry.  In this capacity, she managed a multi-country project portfolio designed to improve food handling, distribution and retail infrastructure in developing countries.

Nikki holds a M.A. in International Economics and Development from Johns Hopkins University, School for Advanced International Studies (SAIS), specializing in International Development and International Economics, as well as a B.S. in Foreign Service from the Georgetown School of Foreign Service with certificate in African Studies.  

David Gittelman

SFS & African Studies Class of 1981

David Gittelman graduated from SFS in 1981 with a concentration in African Regional Studies, and was one of the first to receive an African Studies Certificate. During his junior year she studied at the Université de Dakar (now the Univerisité Cheikh Anta Diop) in Dakar, Senegal. After graduating he served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where he helped run a child vaccination program for 1.5 million people in East Kasai Region. Both his studies at Georgetown and his field work in DR Congo greatly informed his graduate studies at UCLA’s School of Public Health, which included a summer internship in Togo. The next 32 years found him at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) based in Atlanta, in which his global health work largely focused on Africa. Highlights included serving as a CDC advisor on child health in Lesotho for 4.5 years; monitoring and evaluating mass vaccination campaigns against polio and measles throughout Africa; establishing a program on reproductive health in refugee settings based largely on work in Tanzania; and serving as deputy lead at CDC for 12 years for the President’s Malaria Initiative, overseeing malaria prevention and control in 24 African countries. Since retiring in 2018 I continue to consult on global health programs, especially in Africa, for the International Federation of Red Cross & Red Crescent Societies/Alliance for Malaria Prevention and the Task Force for Global Health in Atlanta. As adjunct professor at the University at Albany/SUNY New York’s School of Public Health and Center for Global Health, he incorporates his experiences in Africa into his Introduction to Global Health course, and in supervising interns and mentoring students. Georgetown’s African Studies Certificate and complementary courses have been essential to David’s global health work, providing a strong grounding in African history, languages, cultures, and politics that I apply to this day.

Orlando Hutchings

SFS & African Studies Class of 2019

Orland Hutchings currently serves as the Director of Projects for NEAR Protocol in Kenya. Near Protocol is a general purpose blockchain, whose goal is to support African entrepreneurs solve problems in their countries and communities. To date, we’ve invested in or given grants to more than 16 start-ups across Africa, including in Nigeria, Kenya, Rwanda and Zimbabwe. The companies include health tech, agricultural tech, Identity verification and community regeneration among others.

Haben Fecadu

SFS International Politics & African Studies Class of 2008

Haben Fecadu is the Deputy Chief of Party/Senior Legal Advisor at Expanding Access to Justice in Somalia an American Bar Association Rule of Law Initiative.  She is an experienced human rights lawyer with a demonstrated history of working in the international human rights field. Skilled in advocacy, public policy, civil and human rights law, immigration law, legal writing, international relations, and international and comparative law.

Robert Melanson

SFS & African Studies Class of 1989

Patrick Meriweather

SFS & African Studies Class of 1990

Patrick Meriweather has worked in international affairs focusing on Africa and elsewhere, for nearly 30 years.  After graduation, Peace Corps (Togo), graduate school (AU SIS 97), and a brief stint in Government (Dept of Commerce), he has worked in international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) in program development and implementation in health, education, livelihoods, and WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene).  During that time, he visited 17 African countries and collaborated with USAID, United Nations, World Bank, African Development Bank, national/local governments, Civil Society Organizations, communities and numerous INGOs to design and backstop development assistance programs.  Since 2019 he has led USAID partnerships for WaterAid a UK-based INGO that enables access to safe, sustainable water and sanitation in 27 countries primarily in Africa, impacting 28 million people since 1981.  At WaterAid, he works closely with counterparts and colleagues in many African countries including Liberia, Ghana, Ethiopia, Mali, Mozambique, Nigeria, and Zambia to capture US Agency for International Development (USAID) funding for development programs.  Program work scopes include:   Creating an enabling environment for private sector water and sanitation actors; improving water infrastructure maintenance and operations including water quality testing; or improving facilities at clinics and schools to promote hygiene, health, and attendance.  Decades of research have proved that WASH interventions improve the lives of women and girls who labor to collect water and benefit from increased schooling and improved hygiene especially around birth and maternity.  

Prior to WaterAid he performed the same duties at mothers2mothers (a South African NGO that empowers women to reduce HIV transmission) and Grameen Foundation (a US-affiliate of the Grameen Bank a renown microfinance institution) and elsewhere.  This work requires deep understanding of the development sector, African political economy, and the challenges and realities of implementing large scale projects that reflect local priorities and are sustainable while reaching scale. 

Joel Ziebell

 French & African Studies Class of 2010

At the end of 2021, Joel moved back to the USA after 4 years of building a cashew export business in Côte d’Ivoire. They operated along the entire value chain from buying direct from farmers, working closely with our transport and logistics partners and teaming up with public and private organizations to develop the sector.

Sarah Rooney

SFS Culture and Politics & African Studies Class of  2017

Sarah participated as a Princeton in Africa Fellow in 2019-2020 in Gaborone, Botswana and had an amazing time up until the pandemic ended the fellowship early (would love to talk to anyone interested in applying). Then she went on to pursue a masters in Decolonization Studies from University College Dublin – which was also a very rewarding program. Although the pandemic brought Sarah away from the continent, she is continuing to apply what she has learned about communalism from her time with this department to her work within a growing mutual aid organization called Collective Focus, started by a group of organizers during 2020 in Brooklyn, NY.