Meet the Omidyar Network International Public Service Fellows

2014–2015

Tim Huang, ’14, (B.A. Human Biology; M.A. Education)

• Hometown: Long Beach, Californa
• Interests: International Youth Development and Empowerment

Jared Naimark, ’14, (Earth Systems)

• Hometown: Phoenix, Arizona
• Interests: Global Sustainable Development

2013-14 International Fellowship

Sahar Khan, ’12, (History)

• Fellowship placement: HiiL Innovating Justice (/Hague Institute of Internationalisation of Law), The Netherlands
• Fellowship mentor: Maurits Barendrecht, Senior Justice Sector Advisor
• Hometown: Muscat, Oman
• Service interest: legal literacy, international law, criminal justice, legal reform/justice innovation
• Stanford experience: honors thesis: “The Crisis of Post-Colonial Secularism in India—Something Exceptional-Typical: Violence in Jabalpur, 1961” International Research in Nehru Memorial Museum & Library (NMML); James Birdsall Weter Prize for Outstanding History Honors Thesis; SLE Resident Tutor for Structure Liberal Education Students (2012-2013); Assistant to Stanford Law School Afghan Interpreter Project; ASSU Community Action Board Member (2013); Member of Vice Provost Harry Elam’s Student Advisory Board (2013); Bing Summer Seminar in New Delhi and Mumbai “Minority as a Cultural Form” (2013); Published in Avicenna and Stanford History Department Journal, Herodotus; Co-Founder of Avicenna – The Stanford Journal on Muslim Affairs; History Department Peer Advisor; Stanford Al-Mojel Student Scholarship (2011).
• Fellowship goal: to learn about legal and justice-relevant problems; to gain knowledge and hands-on experience on how to innovate solutions for these problems; and become more exposed to the field of International Law.
• Post-fellowship plans: Law School (JD-MA or JD-PhD) and eventually a role in International Legal Reform or legal literacy in developing countries.

“Because people’s worlds and words never really leave me, I am reminded of the despairing words of someone who, though not exactly a mentor, has left a mentor’s imprint on my life: “To me, the law is a dark jungle of rules and regulations where there is no room for justice.” The speaker of these words sparked my desire to learn about the disconnect between law and justice. I hope that my next mentor’s insights on where the challenges to and opportunities for legal innovation lie will enable me to bridge, even if only slightly, this disconnect between law and justice. After all, a part of me wants to believe the following words from my favourite film, Crimes and Misdemeanors: ‘But the law, Judah. Without the law, it's all darkness.’“

Lina Hidalgo, ’13, (Political Science)

• Fellowship placement: Internews Asia Headquarters. Based in Bangkok, Thailand, with travel to operations in the region
• Fellowship mentor: Andrea Bosch (PhD '03), Internews Vice President for Asia and the Environment
• Hometown: Bogota, Colombia/ Houston, Texas
• Service interest: Government accountability and responsiveness, free media, access to justice
• Stanford experience: Center for Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law honors thesis  “Tiananmen or Tahrir? A Comparative Study of Military Intervention Against Popular Protest”; Stanford in Government (SIG) Vice Chair of Expansion (SIG's 50th anniversary celebration, new Stipends program to fund internships in public policy); ASSU Chief of Staff and Co-Director of the Leadership Development Program; Political Science Research Assistant on civil service reform internationally; Chappell Lougee Scholarship field research on liberal political parties in Egypt; field research in China on government accountability and political role of media; Bing Overseas Study in Oxford
• Fellowship goals: understand, and contribute to, avenues for stronger citizen participation and media quality in the Asia region

Tiffany Kung, ’13, (Human Biology, Certificate in African Studies)

• Fellowship placement: Desmond Tutu HIV Foundation, South Africa
• Fellowship mentor: Dr. Linda-Gail Bekker and Professor Diane Cooper, University of Cape Town School of Public Health
• Hometown: Atherton, California
• Service interest: ethical practice in global health; facilitating better models of exchange between visiting American students and international communities that are more culturally sensitive, sustainable, and prioritize local research needs; community building through identifying local leaders; basic health and sexual health education; women’s empowerment
• Stanford Experience: honors thesis: “Voices of International Host Communities: the Impact of Global Health Education Programs,” research conducted in La Paz, Bolivia and New Delhi, India; Resident Assistant, Otero freshmen dorm; Haas Public Service Scholars Program (PSSP); Teaching Assistant, Prof. Russ Fernald’s Neuroethology seminar; Bing Overseas Study in Cape Town; Stanford’s Volunteers in Latin America (VILA) in Quito, Ecuador; Haas Alternative Spring Break participant, growing creativity in education reform in NYC; Board member, Co-sign neuroscience group; Clinic volunteer, Roatan, Honduras; Researcher, Prof. Ed Engleman’s immunology lab
• Fellowship goal: While the first generation of perinatally-infected HIV+ South African adolescents is entering adulthood, there are few published health care transition models for adolescents infected with HIV. Kung is designing and implementing a systematic model to transition adolescents living with HIV from pediatric to adult antiretroviral therapy care. She is directing this educational intervention for HIV+ adolescents, which addresses topics including family planning and developing intimate relationships, in the township Gugulethu at the Hannan Crusaid HIV Clinic.
• Post-fellowship plans: medical school, and in the future practice as family medicine physician with a focus in global health ethics

2012-13 International Fellowship

Kesaobaka Modukanele ‘12 (Biology)

• Fellowship placement: UNAIDS Country Office South Africa
• Fellowship mentor: Eva Kiwango, Institutional Development Advisor
• Hometown: Gaborone, Botswana
• Service interest: HIV policy, infectious diseases, global health
• Stanford experience: honors thesis: "Molecular Analysis of HIV-1C Compartmentalization in Plasma and Cervical Vaginal Compartments” Katzenstein Lab; Stanford Medical School Division of Immunology and Infectious diseases; Student Researcher, Harvard School of Public Health; president, co-founder Association of Stanford Southern Africans; senior editor, Stanford Service in Global Health Journal; localization expert, TeachAIDS; patient intake volunteer Arbor Free Clinic; 2010 Stanford Haas African Service Fellow; teaching assistant, Humbio 156 Global HIV/AIDS (2011)
• Fellowship goal:
• Post-fellowship plans: medical school, and eventually a career in infectious diseases and HIV policy.

“Born and raised in Botswana, I would often watch my parents wake up at 5 am almost every Saturday morning without fail to bury an aunt, uncle, friend or neighbor. People were said to have died from a “bad cough,” or “skin problem,” or “diarrhea” but never AIDS. Meanwhile, families watched loved ones atrophy in their arms due to AIDS. Today, Botswana leads the world after Swaziland, with an HIV prevalence rate of around 25 percent. Thus, having been inextricably tied to this disease, I have vowed to do everything in my power to see an end to the HIV epidemic, not only in Botswana, but in Sub-Saharan Africa and the rest of the world.”

2012–13 Fellows

Lauren Platt ’12 (Human Biology)

• Fellowship placement:  World Health Organization Polio Eradication Initiative, Geneva. Platt will be based in GENEVA and travel to countries to help with various projects including Pakistan and Nigeria (two of the three countries in the world that still have polio). She may also spend 1-3 months in Pakistan in addition to travel to countries like India, Chad, Angola—places which are at high risk of polio. 
• Hometown: San Diego, CA
• Mentors:  Hiro and Roland Sutter
• Service interest: Global Immunizations, Infectious Disease Eradication, and the intersection of Globalization, Infectious Disease and Justice
• Stanford experience: Honors Thesis on Improving Tuberculosis Diagnostics at the Stanford Clinical Microbiology Laboratory, Public Service Scholars Program, Camp Kesem, Human Biology Student Advising Team, Friday Morning Breakfast at the Opportunity Center, Kids With Dreams, Stanford Service in Global Health, and Sophomore College Assistant for The Coming Influenza Pandemic

"If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time… but if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”
Lilla Watson

Jonah Rexer ’12 (International Relations, Comparative International Political Economy)

• Fellowship Placement: BRAC-Uganda Research and Evaluation Unit working on financial innovation for agricultural technology diffusion project evaluation.
• Hometown: Brooklyn, New York
• Proposed Mentor: Munshi Sulaima PhD, Research Coordinator BRAC Africa Programme
• Service Interest: political and economic development in Sub-Saharan Africa, agricultural development and policy, public sector capacity, international aid policy, international trade and development.
• Stanford Experience: conference director for the Stanford Association for International Development, panel organizer for the Stanford African Business Forum, ASSU chair of Global Engagement. Brought luminaries such as Tony Blair, Francis Fukuyama, and John Githongo to speak on development and governance issues in Africa.
• Other service Experience: intern at Violence Prevention through Urban Upgrading (VPUU), a small community development organization in Cape Town's townships; intern at the World Bank Group in Washington DC; SIG Summer Fellow at the Ghana Center for Democratic Development in Accra, Ghana
• Fellowship goals: to understand the impact of both financial and technological innovation in improving the productivity of small farmers in East Africa; to understand policies that can facilitate the diffusion of productivity enhancing innovations at the national level; and to gain a better understanding of the functioning and effectiveness of a large international NGO/microfinance bank.
• Post-fellowship plans: Work at a policy shop or multilateral organization in Washington, after which Rexer hopes to enroll in an MPP program.

2011-2012 Fellow

Lucinda Lai (Human Biology) 

• Fellowship placement: Burma Border Projects at the Mae Tao Clinic in Thailand
• Fellowship mentors: Dr. Kathleen Allden (Medical Director of the International Survivors Center) and Ellen McCurley (founder of The Pendulum Project)
• Hometown: San Jose, California
• Service interest: global health, education for all, international development, community-based research
• Stanford experience: honors thesis "The Greatest Merit": Reframing Barriers to Organ Donation in Thailand, Public Service Scholars Program, Co-Chair of Stanford Khmer Association, Bing Overseas Study in Australia and Bing Overseas Seminar in Vietnam, Peer Tutor for the Center for Teaching and Learning, actor and teacher for the Flying TreeHouse Children's Repertory Theatre Company
• Fellowship goal: build up healthcare services for Burmese refugees/migrants in Thailand, including mental healthcare
• Post-fellowship plans: medical school, towards a career in health and human rights

"I have always felt that the action most worth watching is not at the center of things but where edges meet. I like shorelines, weather fronts, international borders. There are interesting frictions and incongruities in these places, and often, if you stand at the point of tangency, you can see both sides better than if you were in the middle of either one." 
                          -Anne Fadiman, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down  

2010–2011 Fellow

Josh Wong (Human Biology)

• fellowship placement: Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Kenya and Kenya Medical Research Institute
• fellowship mentor: Robert Breiman, Chief of International Emerging Infections Program and Country Director for CDC-Kenya
• hometown: Lodi, California
• service interest: underserved community health, global health, health education, microfinance, HIV advocacy, epidemiology of diseases of poverty, women's health, LGBT health
• Stanford experience: honors thesis: "Persistence of Measles-vaccine specific Helper T-cells in HIV-positive Adults on HAART" (researched in Pediatric Infectious Diseases with Hayley Gans), Pacific Free Clinic, Stanford Association for International Development, Patient Advocacy Program, Human Biology Student Advising Team, Stanford Service in Global Health, Support for International Change, Village Hopecore International, HepBFree campaign
• fellowship goal: study disease eradication
• post-fellowship plans: pursue an MD/PhD

"I am training to be a doctor to the poor and an eradicator of infectious diseases.  Coming from an international family of siblings, I always have had a very personal connection to the issues surrounding global health and community health. Coming from a small town in the Central Valley of California, I knew that I wanted to engage in studies that benefitted the disenfranchised.

"I first got involved during my first year at university with the Office of Community Health with an Alternative Spring Break trip looking at the health of domestic farmworkers, and with the Patient Advocacy Program that placed me in a free clinic focused on immigrant health. Both were moving experiences that brought me into contact with many individual patients, but also contained strong didactic components on public health for the domestic poor. Increasingly, I saw that the improvements I wished to see could not be cured with individual prescriptions, but rather with changes in health policies and advancements in disease prevention and treatment tools.

"Now decided on public health, I chose a track within my major of Human Biology looking at “Public Health, Global Infectious Diseases, and Social Justice.” In my coursework, I studied diseases like malaria, HIV, and measles that occur in the developing world. However, I dislike armchair intellectualism, which is why I embarked upon a summer-long internship in Kenya and Tanzania working first with HIV-positive support groups for adults and then teaching HIV education to children. As an avid runner, I recall spending many evenings jogging around my resident Maasai village, trying to process what I had witnessed: my first patient who died of AIDS, children debilitated by pneumonia, mothers losing pregnancies to malaria. Even though our global governing bodies had failed to create an infrastructure system for implementing global health interventions, ultimately, the scientific community had failed to create breakthroughs like TB vaccines or a cure for HIV on behalf of the global poor.

"When I started looking for laboratories in which to complete an honors thesis, I knew that there were many opportunities to look at heart disease or cancer, but I insisted upon researching issues directly benefiting the developing world. I was fortunate enough to find a laboratory, where I was generously supported in looking at immune responses in HIV-positive individuals to measles. I discovered that postponing or denying treatment to HIV-positive individuals dampens their vaccine immunity to measles, a disease that kills about one million children a year in the developing world. This was one of the most intellectually empowering moments of my life. I had proven to myself that I could use cutting-edge techniques and molecular biology, things that academically excite me, as a powerful tool for global health advocacy.

"After assisting my longtime mentor with a seminar on smallpox eradication, indisputably the greatest public health achievement in history, I discovered the project to which I will devote my career—disease eradication. This is why I chose to mentor under the CDC, one of the central players in the smallpox eradication efforts, with my current fellowship support. I work in the urban slums of Nairobi, learning how public health and infectious diseases research occurs on the ground. Already I have gotten involved with studies on bacterial pneumonias, encephalitis surveillance, and flu vaccines. My studies at Stanford and my time spent here have led me to believe that through a collaborative effort of scientists, global governing bodies, charitable organizations, and the empowered global poor, we can we can amass the tools and agency necessary to eradicate infectious killers like Hepatitis B, HIV, and measles.

"In the future, I plan on enrolling in an MD/PhD program and perhaps a public health program. I foresee myself working on interventions and technologies that have the potential for great change in global change and would like to be involved at different points in my career with policy, fieldwork, research, and emergency humanitarian interventions. What I know for certain is that I’ll never stop traveling!"