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Development Alumni

Below is a selection of bios and commentary by alumni of the Development concentration in GPIA. Here you can read about their experiences within the program and concentration, as well as where they came from and where they’re heading.

GPIA Alumna Ashlee Tuttleman Designs Social Impact Programs Increasing Profits for Rwandan Coffee Farmers

Ashlee_Tuttleman Ashlee Tuttleman is a 2012 graduate of the M.A program in International Affairs at The New School. She has extensive experience in East Africa working in product and program development, supply chains and human-centered design. Prior to Milano, Ashlee worked in the private sector for eight years in organizational change management, project management and marketing.  Most recently, Ashlee became the Social Enterprise Project Manager at Sustainable Harvest Rwanda, where she designs and implements social impact programs that improve information exchange among coffee origins and along the coffee supply chain. Programs she designs reinvest premiums earned through coffee processing back to the farmers.

 

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International Affairs Alumna Mala Kumar Publishes Op-ed in The Advocate: “Why I Quit My Job at the United Nations”

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Mala Kumar is a 2010 M.A. International Affairs graduate. She recently finished a UNICEF project manager job in Burundi. Click here to read the full op-ed.

 

 

 

 

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Alumna Mala Kumar Launches Book: “The Paths of Marriage”

Mala KumarMala Kumar is a 2010 M.A. international affairs graduate, concentrating in development. During her time at The New School, she co-founded the student organization, Association for International Development [AID], and was an India China Institute student fellow. After graduating, she worked as a Programme Officer on the African Risk Capacity of the UN World Food Programme. Mala’s first book, The Paths of Marriage, is scheduled to be released on 1 October 2014. The novel is about three generations of women from 1950s India to present-day NYC, and their battles of discrimination from the outside world and from each other.

 

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Alumni Spotlight: Diana Rusu

DianaRusuBlogDiana Rusu is originally from the Republic of Moldova where she completed her undergraduate studies prior to coming to The New School. During summer 2013 she participated in the IFP to Turkey where she interned with the Habitat Center for Development and Governance. Here she ‘helped develop youth participation and examined the importance of female power in Turkish society.

 

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Alumna Emily Miller Continues Latin America Focus Researching at Brookings Institution

Emily graduated from the International Affairs program in May 2013. During college Emily majored in Spanish and Latin American Studies with a minor in Macroeconomics. She pursued courses along this trajectory at The New School while researching Argentina’s macroeconomic history with visiting labor economist Roxana Maurizio. This helped Emily prepare for the International Field Program in Buenos Aires where she interned at the UN Economic commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC). At the UN ECLAC Emily researched the economic and urban factors at play in creating urban employment in Argentina. This experience led her to her current job with The Brookings institution where she provides event logistics and supports the director of the Latin America Initiative in foreign policy research.

 

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Alumni Spotlight: Maximillian Ashwill

Want to be part of this series? Shoot us an email at [email protected].

interview conducted by Benjamin Ace

 

maxashwillMaximillian graduated from GPIA in 2008 having concentrated in development. Prior to attending The New School, he received a Bachelor of Science degree in Natural Resource Management from the University of Wisconsin in Madison, and was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Paraguay. During his time at The New School he worked as a research assistant for various professors and researched many topics related to development and economics.

Some of his professional experiences include everything from working with NGOs in the Palestinian territories, Colombia and Guatemala, to conducting research for the World Bank. Currently he is the managing editor and staff writer for a World Bank publication entitled Inequality in Focus.

 

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Student Spotlight: Aliana Pineiro

Want to be part of this series? Shoot us an email at [email protected].

interview conducted by Benjamin Ace

 

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Aliana Pineiro is a 2012 graduate of the Graduate Program in International Affairs, she concentrated in development. She currently works for Runa in Tena, Ecuador ( ‘where the foothills of the Andes meet the Amazon’)  where she is Director of Monitoring and Evaluation. ‘Runa works with over 2500 indigenous Kichwa farmers that grow guayusa, a tree native to [the] area, the leaves of which are used to make an infusion that has caffeine and antioxidants that the indigenous people have been drinking for over 1000 years. Runa uses an innovative hybrid for-profit/non-profit business model to help communities earn additional income, learn new farming techniques and management skills while protecting the forest.’

 

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Emma Saloranta

Emma Saloranta joined the Graduate Program in International Affairs in 2009 from her native country, Finland, where she had obtained a Bachelor’s Degree in Social Services from the Helsinki Metropolia University of Applied Sciences. Due to her interest on socio-economic development, poverty, equality and the intersection between development and human rights,the Development-concentration offered her an ideal way to explore those topics further and deepen her understanding of the definitions, theories and complexities around the often very loaded concept of development, particularly development beyond mere economic growth. She examined these topics through, for example, classes such as Human Rights and Poverty Case studies with Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, Conflict and Development with David Gold, and State, Market and emmaDevelopment in Latin America with Michael Cohen, all offering nuanced and different approaches and insights into the broad and multifaceted notion of development from the perspective of an interdisciplinary approach.

As a student at GPIA, Emma worked for Alberto Minujin as the Website and Content Manager for professor Minujin’s online initiative, Equity for Children. During her last semester, she did an internship with UNICEF’s Gender and Rights unit in New York, and continued to work as a consultant for the Gender team after graduating in May 2011. She stayed with UNICEF for a year working on issues regarding gender equality and women’s and girls’ empowerment and rights, until relocating to Bangalore, India, in August 2012. In Bangalore, Emma continued to work on gender equality issues as a researcher for a local civil society organization IT for Change, focusing on the role of technology and internet in promoting women’s rights and social change. Her studies at GPIA have been extremely valuable in navigating the professional word. For example, the analytical skills obtained from classes such as Human Rights and Poverty as well as writing her thesis, and the ability to understand the different roles of the state and the marked in development, as in State, Market and Development in Latin America, have supported the work she has engaged in since graduation and given her the self-confidence to both address and examine, as well as at times question and criticize, broadly accepted notions and ideas of development, human rights and equality.

 

Renita J. Moniaga

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Renita J. Moniaga is currently working as a Diplomat at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Indonesia.Renita graduated in 2009 from The New School with a concentration in Development. Her classes, ranging from Poverty Case Studies to the Human Rights Based Approach to Development (HRBA) have been influential in her career path.

At her current job, her tasks involves writing position papers, coordinating projects with other Ministries, and assessing bilateral and multilateral cooperation involving issues from the MDGs to human rights and security dialogues. In February 2013, Renita was awarded the Australian Awards Scholarship (AAS). She will pursue a PhD in Political Science in Australia. Her doctoral research project is on the relationship between development and democracy in Indonesia.

 

Josh Greenstein

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After graduating from GPIA with a concentration in Development, Josh decided to continue to learn about similar issues by staying at the New School to pursue a Phd. Josh is currently a PhD candidate in Economics at NSSR, with areas of concentration in Economic Development and Microeconomics. His research includes subjects such as development goals, social and economic rights, welfare economics, and
measurements of and trends in poverty and inequality.

The courses in GPIA, especially those related to economics and the Development concentration, helped give Josh the background in economic theories and concepts that formed the basis for his current work. The economics courses at GPIA were his first experience studying economics at a more advanced level, and they sparked his interest in economics that eventually led to his decision to pursue a PhD.