2022 Graduate Fellows

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Monalisa Barman
SIPA, Masters Candidate in Public Administration- Development Practice

Monalisa Barman is an indigenous woman from north-east India. She is the first person from her tribe to come abroad for her higher education, as well as the first north-eastern Indian woman at the School of International Public Affairs (SIPA) in Columbia University. Monalisa Barman is a Master’s in Public Administration- Development Practice candidate at SIPA. Her research investigates through a participatory mixed-method research on finding various insights through nutrition and WASH the gender disparity in East Timor on peacebuilding. Prior to these Monalisa Barman, has worked on human rights issues, she had worked as a researcher and advocates for the marginalized communities in India, as well as in Bangladesh and some African countries on various human rights violations. Her recent work pertained towards abortion rights within the tribal indigenous community in India. She is passionate about working on policy research/advocacy by synthesizing quantitative and qualitative research for sustainable human centered policies.

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Jaclyn Davis
Columbia University Department of Political Science, PhD student in Comparative Politics

Jaclyn is a PhD Candidate in Comparative Politics. Her work focuses on justice institutions globally, examining when and how multi-ethnic communities develop institutions to resolve conflicts. She is interested in the ways that historical legacies shape these contemporary institutions, looking at how past relationships and social contact across groups are connected to present day dynamics. For her doctoral dissertation, Jaclyn has conducted fieldwork in the Philippines, and utilizes archival and census data from the early 1900s to examine historical relationships across sectarian groups in the Philippine's southern region of Mindanao. As an AC4 Fellow, Jaclyn will be conducting a remote survey of local government officials in Mindanao to determine how community conflict resolution processes vary across different regions. Prior to graduate school, Jaclyn researched community re-entry from incarceration in the United States, conducting interviews with men and women who were justice involved. She continues this work using survey and administrative data on Rikers jail and New York City arrests to examine inequalities in the city's local justice system. 

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Sa’adat Mohammed
Teachers College, MA Candidate in International Educational Development

Sa’adat is interested in International humanitarian issues such as education in emergencies and peacebuilding. She will be interning at Adapt Peacebuilding-learning institute, a peacebuilding social enterprise located in Mallorca. She will be working on the development of Adapt’s very first pilot program targeting international aid professionals that are working on interventions taking place in fragile or conflict affected settings. The course responds both to the need for early and mid-career professionals to develop advanced conceptual knowledge and skills with respect to conflict sensitivity and peacebuilding. As well as mindfulness competencies to build resilience amidst the dynamism and pressure of conflict settings.

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Vandita Churiwal
Teachers College, MA Candidate in International Educational Development

Vandita Churiwal has worked as a teacher, curriculum developer and facilitator in urban and rural areas of India in formal and non-formal settings. She has taught middle school in an under-resourced suburban school of Maharashtra, created digital lessons for government school teachers in an Ed tech NGO, facilitated life skills lessons for young children, and conducted teacher trainings in India. After working at the grassroots level, she wishes to further her research about the role education plays in different vulnerable sections of society. 

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Chris Henderson
Teachers College, EdD candidate in Comparative and International Education

Chris Henderson, who is from Aotearoa New Zealand, is a doctoral fellow at Teachers College, concentrating on humanitarian issues through the International and Comparative Education program. Before coming to Columbia, Chris worked as a consultant with UNICEF's regional office for South Asia, where he focused on gender and education in the context of COVID-19. He is currently the co-chair of the Inter-agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE) Teachers in Crisis Contexts (TiCC) Collaborative. Chris has also worked in teacher professional development and adolescent development for over 10 years, which has included long-term projects in Indonesia, the Solomon Islands, Bangladesh, Chile, and the Philippines. His dissertation research considers the correlations between teacher professional development outcomes and teacher mental health in the Rohingya refugee hosting context of Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh.

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Ye Huang
Teachers College, MA Candidate in International and Comparative Education

Ye is a master’s student in the International and Comparative Education Program at Teachers College, Columbia University. Her academic interest primarily lies in climate change action and education. Before her master’s study, she worked as a consultant for International NGOs, conducting field research and leading campaigns about wildlife conservation in seven African countries. Besides her research work with NGOs, she also had experience designing Project-Based-Learning curricula and teaching high school students about Sustainability Development in China.

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Emily Rice
SIPA, MA Candidate

Emily is a Master's student at the School of International and Public Affairs, and is from Sydney, Australia. Prior to starting at SIPA, Emily worked on the post-conflict truth and accountability process in Sri Lanka, co-writing a conflict map of the Sri Lankan civil war and providing support to transitional justice mechanisms. She also worked for the Comisión de la Verdad in Colombia, analyzing impunity for human rights violations during the Colombian civil war. In response to the COVID pandemic, Emily co-wrote a guide on conducting remote human rights investigations. Her current project contributes to conflict prevention in Timor-Leste, where she will research the gender sensitivity of early warning, early response systems for a national NGO.