Fellows' Bios
Spring 2003 Fellows
OLUWASEUN AJAYI graduated from Yale Law School in 2004. He received his BA cum laude in political science from the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 2001. As an editor of the Yale Journal of International Law, he managed the publication of a symposium on international humanitarian law, which featured contributions by scholars of the laws of war and the State Department's Legal Adviser. Seun's book note, 'J'Accuse: The Court Competes with the Constitution, Congress, and Citizens?' appears in Volume 21 of the Yale Law and Policy Review. His chapter on globalization appears in Globalization and Marginality: Essays on the Paradoxes of Global and Local Forces. He interned at the Center for Economic and Social Rights in Quito, Ecuador under the auspices of Yale University's Kirby Simon Summer Fellowship in international human rights. Seun interned with the Foreign Policy Association as an undergraduate, where he helped plan and host its inaugural World Leadership Forum. After graduating from Yale University, Seun clerked for Judge John T. Noonan, Jr. on the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Seun aspires to a legal career that "elevates the human condition." Seun was born in Ibadan, Nigeria, in 1978 and came to this country as a teenager with dreams of becoming a lawyer. After six enjoyable years in Oakland, Oluwaseun Ajayi recently completed a move from the Bay Area to Washington, DC. Seun will be practicing litigation at Buckley Sandler LLP.
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ALLISON BINNS, born in New Jersey to naturalized parents from Jamaica in 1981, graduated from Princeton University with a degree in sociology in 2003. She is conducting research for two arms control think tanks: the Institute for Defense and Disarmament Studies and the Managing The Atom Project, both of which are run through the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, where she is pursuing a PhD in sociology. Allison developed an early interest in sociology, particularly in network analysis. She has traveled extensively in Latin America, studied mediation and conflict resolution in Mexico, taught reading and writing in the Dominican Republic, and conducted research in Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador. She intends a career combining her interests in academia and public policy. Currently, Allison is working in the Executive Development Program at the Major League Baseball in New York.
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ERIK CABRAL was born in 1978 to naturalized Mexican-American parents and grew up in San Jose, California. Erik pursued his interests in science and medicine at Stanford University, where he was an human biology major and graduated with honors. He conducted his honors thesis research at the National Institute of Health as an Undergraduate Scholar and has published in the Journal of Virology. After graduation, Erik spent three years as a graduate research fellow in immunology at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in Bethesda, Maryland. Erik recently completed his MD at Stanford University and is a resident in dermatology at Stanford University. While at Stanford University, he submitted a first-author manuscript to the Journal of Infectious Diseases, was profiled in the book, Healing Journeys: Teaching Medicine, Nurturing Hope, with a forward by former Surgeon General David Satcher, and won the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute Graduate Fellowship.
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ALEJANDRA CASILLAS was born in 1979 and graduated in 2005 from Harvard Medical School. She was a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard University and is the child of Mexican-American parents, who live in Lawndale, California. While at Harvard University, she worked on a teen pregnancy handbook for Spanish-speaking teenagers in collaboration with Brigham and Women's Hospital. One of her short stories based on medical reality, 'On Saying Sorry,' was published in Current Surgery in October 2004. Alejandra has coordinated medical school student mentoring of at risk pre-teens, has served on the admissions committee, and has been active in recruiting and advising minority students. She was co-chair of the Latino medical students' organization and has represented the medical school on the Harvard University's Graduate Council. For her efforts, she earned the Dean's Community Service Award at Harvard Medical School and has been recognized by the American Association of University Women as one of the top female graduate students in the country. Her career interests are in community medicine and women's health. She was chief resident in internal medicine at the University of California at San Francisco Medical Center, but is now based at UCLA through a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Fellowship working on Latino immigrant health and health reform policy.
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ARJUN CHOPRA was born in India and began his college career there, earning a first class BS degree in physics from University of Mumbai in 1995. He then attended University of Texas at Austin and received a BS in computer sciences with special honors and highest honors in 1998. Following his college graduation, Arjun joined Motive Communications, ranked the fastest growing software company in Austin, as their first college hire. He graduated from Harvard Business School in 2004, where he was co-president of the High Tech & New Media Club and the chair of the Distinguished Speaker Series for the Entrepreneurship Club, two of the largest student organizations at Harvard Business School. Arjun is currently "Entrepreneur in Residence" at IBCC Corp., a company that he and three of his classmates formed in order to invest in early-stage opportunities in technology and life sciences. He is also founder of Vox Holdings. Arjun is the founder and managing director of OStatic in San Franscisco
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AMY CHOW earned her MD from Stanford University and is doing her residency in pediatrics at Lucille Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford University. Her research has been published in Critical Care Medicine and the Journal of Clinical Oncology. She completed her BS with honors in biological sciences at Stanford University with a 4.02/4.0 grade point average. Born in the US in 1978, Amy is a child of parents who immigrated from Hong Kong and China and met in San Jose, California, where they still live. Central to Amy's sense of identity is her long career in gymnastics, including Olympic appearances in 1996 and 2000, where she won gold and silver medals. Amy is the inventor of two skills on the uneven bars, called "Chow I" and "Chow II." She is a member of the USA Gymnastics Hall of Fame, US Olympic Hall of Fame Class of 2008,and a recipient of the outstanding Overseas Chinese Award.
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ROBEN FARZAD was born in
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EKATERINA (KATYA) GLADYSHEVA, born in 1979, earned her MD from Stanford University. She received a BA in history of science magna cum laude from Harvard University in 2001. Katya was born in Moscow and came to the United States when she was 14 with her parents, who now live in Medford, Massachusetts. Committed to enhancing the quality and diffusion of medical care, Katya worked with Partners in Health, the Chernobyl Children Project, and the Teens and Tots Resource Center. She also completed her term as officer for the Stanford Physicians for Social Responsibility, and continues as a steering committee member of the Arbor Free Clinic. Katya is completing a residency in internal medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital. She has begun a fellowship in pulmonary and critical care medicine in the Harvard combined program.
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JONA HATTANGADI-GLUTH was born in 1979 in Philadelphia to parents who immigrated to this country from India, but grew up in Saudi Arabia. She holds an MD from Harvard University. Jona graduated summa cum laude from Duke University in 2001 with distinction in biology and with a minor in economics. She also studied anthropology in South Africa and worked on interventions to end female genital mutilation in Ghana. Jona won a Fulbright Scholarship to Africa, where she worked with traditional healers. Still active in scientific research, Jona sees her future self as "a clinician-scientist in an academic setting, applying modern medical technologies to the infectious diseases which plague underdeveloped nations." Jona has recently worked on a project in northern Thailand to integrate communities into HIV treatment programs. She is still involved in research through the Botswana-Harvard AIDS Institute partnership in Botswana, working with the existing public health infrastructure to incorporate traditional healing into the country's national HIV/AIDS treatment program. Currently, she is a resident physician at the Harvard Radiation Oncology Program at Massachusetts General Hospital. Her family lives in Orlando, Florida.
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ALEXANDER HOOPER received JD from Harvard Law School. Born in New Jersey to an Indian mother and British father, he grew up in Cedar Key, Florida, a small fishing village on the state's Gulf coast. Graduating Phi Beta Kappa and Florida Blue Key from the University of Florida, Alex received three degrees in four years: a BA in economics with highest honors, a BS in mathematics with high honors, and a BS in statistics with honors. He then worked for McKinsey & Company, Inc. in Chicago and London, where he specialized in developing learning programs. Having had significant involvement in well designed public-private partnerships all his life, Alex wants to pursue a personal ambition: to develop and implement educational programs that combine private and public sector resources. He has worked in South Florida for Boies, Schiller, and Flexner, a law firm specializing in litigation and in Washington, DC and Los Angeles with O'Melveny & Myers. He clerked with Judge Sandra Lynch on the First Circuit in Boston, MA and then was the Deputy Vote Director, Youth, for the Obama campaign in Florida. Now he is back at McKinsey & Company, Inc. in Washington, DC.
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RASHAD HUSSAIN was born in 1978. He earned his JD from Yale University and his MPA from Harvard University. His parents are naturalized citizens from India and live in Plano, Texas. Elected to Phi Beta Kappa, he holds bachelor's degrees with highest distinction in both philosophy and political science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, which he completed in two years. He received highest honors for his philosophy thesis, "Assessing the Theistic Implications of Big Bang Cosmological Theory." Rashad also holds an MA from Harvard University in Near Eastern languages and civilizations. He finds his heritage central to his identity as a Muslim American and his career goals, especially in light of events in recent history. Rashad has worked extensively on Capitol Hill, both as an intern in the office of former House Democratic Leader Richard Gephardt during the summer of 2000 and as a legislative aide on the House Judiciary Committee, where he worked for a year and a half between his time at Harvard University and Yale University. Rashad sees his varied academic interests converging and feels that his study of international affairs, law, and security can form a salient combination for addressing many contemporary legal and public policy issues. He finished a clerkship for Judge Damon Keith on the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Detroit, MI and was a Trial Attorney at the US Department of Justice. Now he is deputy associate counsel to President Barack Obama.
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CYNTHIA INDA graduated from Stanford Law School in 2005. She was born in 1979 to Mexican immigrant parents in Santa Barbara, California, and is the first in her family to pursue education beyond high school. Cynthia first attended community college in her hometown, where she earned an AA degree with a 4.0 grade point average, and was selected to the USA Today All American Two Year College Academic 1st Team. She transferred to Harvard University, graduating magna cum laude in 1999. After college, Cynthia worked as a high school teacher in a maximum-security prison for juvenile offenders. In the fall of 2000, she began a nine-month leadership training program as one of eleven Coro fellows in public affairs in Los Angeles. She then returned to her hometown where she worked as a victim advocate in the office of the district attorney. Cynthia was selected as executive editor of the Stanford Law Review. She was an associate at O'Melveny & Meyers in Los Angeles, but now is a Deputy District Attorney in the District Attorney Office in Los Angeles. Cynthia hopes her law training will prepare her for a career in criminal justice.
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Shreya Kangovi received her MD from Harvard Medical School. Born in 1980 in Bangalore, India, Shreya moved to Princeton, New Jersey, when she was three. She received her BA in biology from Columbia University. While at Columbia University, Shreya was awarded the Truman Scholarship for Public Service based on a proposal about tuberculosis in India. During the summer following her graduation from Columbia University, she came face to face with the devastating medical and personal consequences of AIDS while working with doctors in Lusaka, Zambia. Shreya wants to deliver medical care to patients in low-resource settings both in America and abroad. She also hopes to remain actively involved with policy initiatives like the United Nations Millennium Goals Project, in order to promote wide access to health care and medicines. Currently, she is completing her residency in combined internal medicine and pediatrics at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.
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JIN "PJ" KIM, born in Korea in 1980, has his MBA from Harvard Business School and his master's of public administration from the Kennedy School of Government. He graduated from Princeton University in 2001 with a degree from the Woodrow Wilson School for Public and International Affairs, where he wrote an award-winning thesis that recommended ways to remedy the shortage of public school teachers in New Jersey. He was also elected president of Princeton University's student government and was chosen by students and alumni to serve on its board of trustees until 2005. Prior to graduate school, he worked as a business analyst at McKinsey & Company, Inc. in New York, spending much of his time serving nonprofit clients. PJ serves on the board of directors of the Korean American League for Civic Action and has worked for Senator Bill Frist and on numerous political campaigns. PJ was also one of the featured subjects in the Public Broadcasting System documentary, Arirang: the Korean American Journey that aired in preparation for Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. He served as Director of FoodChange, an anti-poverty nonprofit in New York City. He was Vice President for Programs at SingleStop USA in New York City. He intends a career in public service that combines his interests in entrepreneurship, New York City redevelopment, and politics. Now he is a candidate for New York City Council in Democratic Primary, District 1. For more information, visit his website at www.pjkim.com
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ANNA ADEOLA MAKANJU was born in present-day St. Petersburg in 1976. Her father was Nigerian and her mother was part of a family of devoted Soviet Communists. When Anna was 11 years old, her family moved to Germany, then Phoenix, then Kuwait, and finally to Texas. Anna entered Western Washington University when she was 16 years old and graduated with a BA in linguistics and French. She graduated from Stanford University Law School in 2004 and clerked for Judge Theodore McKee on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in 2005-06. She organized the Stanford Law Review "Symposium on Punishment and Its Purposes." She also argued and won a case that will prevent fishing practices that kill endangered leatherback sea turtles. She spent time working for the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court and also at the President's Office of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. She was an attorney in the international arbitration group at Cleary Gottlieb in Paris, France. Anna worked as a field organizer for Obama for America and then as an associate at Cleary Gottlieb in New York. In July, Anna will beSpecial Assistant to the Assistant Secretary for International Security Affairs at the Department of Defense.
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TAREK MASOUD is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He holds a Ph.D. (with distinction) from Yale and an AB (with honors) from Brown, both in political science. His articles and reviews have appeared in the Journal of Democracy, The New Republic, Foreign Policy, the International Journal of Middle East Studies, and the Wall Street Journal, among others. Prior to earning his doctorate, he was an editorial intern at Foreign Affairs, a reporter on the Newshour with Jim Lehrer, and a research fellow at University of Virginia's Miller Center of Public Affairs. He is a recipient of numerous grants and awards, including the National Science Foundation graduate research fellowship. Born in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, he is the son of Egyptian immigrants, and spent most of his childhood in Saudi Arabia. He lives in Cambridge, Massachussetts with his wife Kristin and sons Hamza and Ali. Recently, he was named a Carnegie Scholar (2009-2011) by the Carnegie Corporation of New York for continuing his research on Islamist political parties in the Arab world.
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KEDAR MATE was born in 1977 and graduated from the New Pathways program at Harvard Medical School in 2005 and completed an internal medicine residency at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. He received a BA in modern American history from Brown University in 1999. At Brown University, he teamed up with an Indian doctor to create an undergraduate-run health infrastructure to identify and treat HIV patients in Kerala, India. After Brown University, Kedar spent two years working for Partners in Health in Cambridge. At Harvard University, he has served the Prevention and Access to Care and Treatment Project in Boston, where he focuses on a strategy to improve patient adherence to medication regimes. He has also worked for Director Dr. Lee Jong-Wook at the World Health Organization in Geneva, where he has been addressing the "3 by 5" Initiative which seeks to treat 3 million people living with HIV/AIDS in developing countries by 2005. Additionally, Kedar has prepared a Special Report on "3 by 5" and made significant contributions to the 2003 and 2004 World Health Report. Recently, he traveled to Lesotho to work with the Ministry of Health on a campaign to scale up access to HIV treatment to the entire adult population. Kedar is currently with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement building HIV programs in southern Africa and is also a technical advisor to the South African Department of Health.
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EUGENE MAZO was born in Moscow in 1973 and came to the United States as a Jewish refugee at the age of five. His family settled in Newark, New Jersey. A 1995 graduate of Columbia University, he studied Russian politics at Oxford University as a Rotary Scholar, and was editor-in-chief of the Oxford International Review. He also worked in Russia for the Washington Post and in Georgia for the United Nations. In 2000, Eugene began jointly studying public policy at Harvard University and law at Stanford University. He was editor-in-chief of the Stanford Journal of International Law and articles editor of the Stanford Law Review. He also founded IDEAS, the International Development Exchange at Stanford, an organization devoted to improving the lives of people in developing communities. In 2002, Eugene returned to Newark to help a candidate run for mayor. Eugene's autobiography, The Passage, was chosen by the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society as one of the best immigrant stories of all time. Eugene was elected to be a 2004 fellow of the Stanford Center on Conflict and Negotiation. He was also awarded a grant by the Social Science Research Council to study comparative constitution-making in transitional societies. He plans an academic career in international law and policymaking. Eugene was a fellow at the Center for Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford University's Institute for International Studies. He is now an associate at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP in Palo Alto, CA. He is married to Gwen Parker, and they have a child named Maxwell.
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MICHAEL PACOLD was born in 1977 and holds an MD from Harvard Medical School. He also has a PhD in molecular biology from the Cambridge University and dual BS degrees in chemistry and biology from Indiana University. Michael held a British Marshall Scholarship and a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship during his time in England. As a physician-scientist, he plans to direct his research towards the improvement of human health. He also hopes to teach at an academic medical center. Since graduation from Harvard University, Michael has been doing a radiation oncology residency at the Harvard Combined Radiation Oncology Program. Michael is the child of immigrants -- his father from the Czech Republic and his mother from Indonesia, where she was a member of the Chinese minority. They live in Elmhurst, Illinois.
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PARAG PATHAK was born in 1980 and holds a PhD in business economics from Harvard University. He completed his AB in applied mathematics and economics and his master's in applied mathematics at Harvard College, all in the space of four years, graduating summa cum laude. Parag was born in Corning, New York, to a family that emigrated from Nepal. Parag has worked at the National Bureau of Economic Research and in the antitrust division at the US Department of Justice. He was a junior fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows. In 2004, his work in economics was presented at the London School of Economics, Harvard University, University of North Carolina, the IMF, and Barclays Bank in San Francisco. Because of Parag's work, 15,000 students in Boston have used a new student assignment mechanism he developed in a National Bureau of Economics Working Paper titled, "Changing the Boston School Choice Mechanism." Currently, he is an assistant professor of economics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he teaches micro-economic theory.
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DANYA QATO completed her doctorate in pharmacy with honors at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Pharmacy in 2002 and is now a community pharmacist at Providence, RI. She also earned a master's in public health at Harvard University with a concentration in international health and humanitarian studies. A central aspect of Danya's professional vision as a pharmacist is the responsibility of not just dispensing drugs, but of "integrating principles of rational drug use, education, and essential drug access within the public health discourse." As an Albert Schweitzer Fellow, she interned at the Marjorie Kovler Center for the Treatment of Survivors of Torture. Danya also founded the Chicago Palestine Film Festival. Danya attended a health and human rights field experience in the West Bank where she worked with the Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committee documenting health implications of human rights violations. The project was arranged by the Francois-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard University. Danya was born in the West Bank in 1979 and is a naturalized citizen. Her family lives in Orland Hills, Illinois. Danya will begin her doctoral studies in health policy at Brown University in the fall.
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MONICA SANTANA ROSEN is a first-generation Dominican American and was born in 1976. She graduated from Harvard Business School in 2004. After graduating from Wesleyan University in 1997, Monica joined the Tiger Foundation, assisting nonprofits working to break the cycle of poverty in New York City. She later served as executive director for Management Leadership for Tomorrow, working to increase minority leadership across sectors. Monica worked in the Chicago Public Schools as Director of the Human Resources Employee Service Center. She was a talent manager officer for Chicago Public Schools. Now she works for Chicago Public Schools as an Acting Officer for the Office of Principal Preparation and Development. Monica's parents both emigrated from the Dominican Republic. The youngest of four children, Monica was born and raised in New York City. Adhering to her parents' belief in a solid education, Monica's long-term aspiration is to develop a program offering academic enrichment and financial literacy to young children and their parents.
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GAD SOFFER was born in Rehovot, Israel in 1976. His family moved to the US and settled in Atlanta, Georgia. Gad was born without fibulas in either leg; he had had both feet amputated when he was four. As an undergraduate at Harvard University, he was not only a varsity wrestler, but also highly successful academically. He earned his AB in earth and planetary sciences magna cum laude with highest honors. Gad received a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship to pursue PhD studies in earth and environmental sciences at Columbia University. He is now working on his MBA at Harvard University. His spouse is named Katie.
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ZAW THET - As the CEO and co-founder of 4INFO (http://www.4INFO.net), the leading SMS/text messaging media company, Zaw Thet is helping to set the bar for how consumers search, access, and engage with content on their mobile devices. At age 27, Zaw Thet is already a veteran of the software/wireless industry with a successful track record for leading companies, including 4INFO, to outstanding growth and performance. Founded in 2004, 4INFO helps people stay in the know on the go by delivering millions of real-time answers and SMS alerts a day. Prior to 4INFO, Zaw was part of the early social networking industry, as a Director at Spoke Software. Zaw also did a short stint at IBM, was the co-founder and CEO of GetInventory, a web-based supply chain management company, and was a special consultant to the San Francisco 49ers. He is an active advisor and investor in the start-up community. His entrepreneurial pursuits have been featured in: The New York Times, Business Week, Entrepreneur Magazine, and CNN. Business Week selected Zaw in 2006 as one of the "New M-Commerce Barons." Zaw has an MBA from the Stanford University. He received his BA from Stanford University in political science (minoring in computer science) where he was a President's Scholar.
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QUY TON was born in 1973 and holds an MD from University of Minnesota Medical School. Quy was born in Saigon, but at 18 months old, his family fled Vietnam, eventually settling in St. Paul, Minnesota. He earned a BA in international relations from Carleton College and a master's of public health from University of California at Berkeley. Quy received a Larson International Fellowship and a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship to study acupuncture in Vietnam, China, Japan, and Korea. He has cycled from San Francisco to Los Angeles and from Hanoi to Saigon to raise funds and awareness for AIDS treatment and injury/tobacco use prevention. In the winter of 2004, he visited Haiti, where he photographed communities affected by AIDS. He has participated in the Global Health & Human Rights Political Leadership Institute and organized Vietnam-CDC-Harvard AIDS Partnership training workshops in Hanoi and Saigon. He has also conducted research in Peru with Partners in Health's sister organization, Socios en Salud and returned to Haiti to help out at one of the organization's satellite health clinics. He is doing a residency in internal medicine and pediatrics at University of Minnesota in the Twin Cities, but he continues to be involved with Worldwide Orphanages in Vietnam to help identify and treat HIV positive orphans.
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MICHAEL UMPIERRE graduated in 2002 with distinction and election to Phi Beta Kappa from Stanford University, where he earned honors in public policy. He then went on to obtain his JD at Yale University. Michael was born in 1979 and is the child of parents who emigrated from Cuba and now live in Burbank, California. At Stanford University, Michael worked for the Quest Scholars Program, serving as program director during the summers of 2001 and 2002. He interned for the Department of Health and Human Services and was a policy associate with the Social Policy Action Network. He also worked at Legal Services for Children in San Francisco and the National Center for Youth Law in Oakland and helped create the Pacific Juvenile Defender Center, which supports lawyers who represent children. Additionally, Michael has worked at the Youth Law Center in Washington DC as a John Gardner Public Service Fellow. At Yale University, he participated in an immigration clinic, where he represented individuals seeking asylum. In the summer of 2004, he worked for the Legal Aid Society of Hawaii and focused on family law. The following summer, he was a law clerk in the juvenile division of the Public Defender Service in Washington DC, where he subsequently became staff attorney in the trial division. He is presently part of the executive team at the DC Department of Rehabilitation Services.
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RICHARD VIDAL was born in 1978 in Miami, Florida, to Cuban parents. He holds an MD and MBA from the University of Pennsylvania. A 2000 graduate in biology honors from Florida State University, Richard received the Florida College Student of the Year Award and the John Dalton Servant Leader Award. He founded the International Medical Outreach program, a non-governmental organization that organizes medical service delivery missions to underserved areas in Latin America and the Caribbean. At the University of Pennsylvania, Richard was the medical coordinator of a student-run clinic for a low-income, uninsured population in West Philadelphia. He was awarded the Caring for the Community Grant by the American Association of Medical Colleges, which provided $20,000 to strengthen and expand the services of the clinic. Richard has piloted a new global health program in Botswana for University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. The program has created an opportunity for first-year medical students to partner with a local Botswanan frontline health provider to work on a sustainable global health development project and to increase awareness on international health disparities. Most recently, he was awarded the Herbert Nickens Award by the Association of American Medical Colleges, presented to the top five third year medical students in the country for outstanding leadership in working to eliminate inequalities in the educational, societal and healthcare needs of minorities. He works with McKinsey & Company, Inc. in their healthcare private equity division. Currently, he is on a two-month leave to finish his novel.
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GERARDO VILDOSTEGUI was born, in 1974, in Miami to a family originally from Cuba. He is a PhD candidate in philosophy from the University of California at Berkeley. He received his BA in philosophy from Yale University in 1996, where he graduated summa cum laude and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa after his junior year. He received his JD from Yale University in 2000, where he was editor-in-chief of the Yale Law Journal. After law school, as a Luce Foundation scholar, Jerry worked in Japan at the International Movement Against All Forms of Discrimination and Racism and at University of Tokyo. He has worked in Puerto Rico helping to write a report on prison conditions, at the Office of the Legal Adviser in the State Department, in Costa Rica at the Center for Justice and International Law, and in Chile working on an exchange with Chilean law students. Jerry is an assistant professor at Rutgers Law School in Camden, NJ, where he teaches constitutional law and is a co-director of the Institute for Law and Philosophy.
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ALICE WANG was born in 1978 and graduated in 2004 from Harvard Law School, where she was an executive editor of the Harvard Law Review. Raised in Houston, Alice attended the University of Texas at Austin, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa as a junior and graduated summa cum laude in English, economics, and a liberal arts honors program. Alice worked as an assistant editor at Foreign Affairs following her graduation. She has published two articles in the Washington Quarterly and two case comments in the Harvard Law Review. She has interned at the Federal Defender Division of the Legal Aid Society in New York, the Immigration Unit of Greater Boston Legal Services, and Ropes & Gray, a prominent Boston law firm. Alice served as law clerk to Judge Judith Rogers of the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit and is now working as a supervising attorney in the appellate division of the DC Public Defender Service. She plans a career in criminal law, immigration rights advocacy, and law teaching. Her parents emigrated from Taiwan and reside in Houston, Texas. She is married to Andrew Felton.
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KAO KALIA YANG was born in 1980 in the Ban Vinai Refugee Camp in Thailand, where her family had fled to escape the ethnic cleansing of the Hmong, a preliterate highland tribal people who fought with the American soldiers during the Vietnam War. After six years in the refugee camp, the family moved to St. Paul, Minnesota, where they have lived since. As an undergraduate at Carleton College, Kao majored in American studies, with minors in cross-cultural and women and gender studies. Kao received her master's of fine arts in creative nonfiction writing at Columbia University in 2005. Kao received the Page Foundation awards for excellence three years in succession, the Gilman Scholarship for International Study, the Freeman in Asia Scholarship for international study in Asia, and a Dean Fellowship from Columbia University. Previously, Kao taught a Columbia University-sponsored workshop for writers of color. Hmong Movement has published a piece of her writing "Dreaming in Time. Paj Ntaub Voice," and her poem titled "Mai. In the Shower" was published recently as well. She has taught as an adjunct professor of writing at Concordia University and now runs a writing agency called Words Wanted in Minneapolis.
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CELINA YONG is an internal medicine resident at University of California at San Francisco. Under a British Marshall Scholarship, she completed an MBA degree at Oxford University and an MSc degree in health policy, planning and financing at the London School of Economics. Born in 1979 in Windsor, Ontario, she is the child of ethnically Chinese parents who had left their homes in Singapore to study in Manitoba. She graduated from University of California at Berkeley in 2001 with honors in molecular environmental biology. As a junior, Celina was named a Truman Scholar and one of Glamour Magazine's top ten college women. Celina founded Promise America, a program that encourages disadvantaged students to set and achieve academic life goals. She is the former co-editor-in-chief of the Issues Berkeley Medical Journal and has worked at the White House and USAID. She spent the summer of 2004 doing a Stanford University program called Traveling Scholars, for which she traveled to India for a month to pursue an independent research project in collaboration with The World Bank. She also serves as Co-Director of the Roosevelt Institution's Center for Health and Human Services at Stanford University. She is married to Freddy Abnousi.
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YUNG WOOK YU was born in 1977 and holds an MM from the Manhattan School of Music. He came to the US from Korea when he was 13 and holds a green card. He received a BM from Juilliard School in 2001, where he majored in piano, a focus he continued in his graduate work in addition to composition. His awards include the prestigious Paloma O'Shea Santander International Competition, where he received a gold medal with the unanimous vote of the jury. Yung Wook is also a composer, and he had his first recital of his own work at the age of 10. As his career has taken off, Yung Wook has traveled all over the world and given as many as 60 concerts in one year. Most recently he colaborated with Natalia Gutman (cellist) and Yuri Bashmit (violist). He plans a career as a pianist, a composer, and a conductor, saying that he wants to leave behind an enduring legacy like that of multi-talented artists such as Liszt. Wary of too much professionalism in his playing, he sees graduate study as a new kind of challenge, one that will enhance his theoretical musical background as well as his technical skill.
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