2012 Associate Fellows
Jasmeet Kaur Ahuja
Law School
Jasmeet Ahuja is a third‐year law student at the Yale Law School. Prior to Yale, she spent six years working in Washington, DC, on U.S. policy towards South Asia. As the senior adviser on South Asia on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, she helped draft foreign policy legislation on Pakistan, negotiate the civil-nuclear deal with India, and lobby for the right of Sikh-Americans to wear turbans while serving in the U.S. armed forces. Previously, Ahuja served in the Department of State as a director on South Asia and in the Pentagon as a Presidential Management Fellow. She is a native of Sacramento, California.
Bryan Eckstein
School of Management / School of Forestry & Environmental Studies
Eckstein is a second-year student studying financial investments in energy and ecosystem services as part of the joint-degree MBA and Master of Environment Management (MEM) program between the Yale School of Management and the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. Previously, he consulted for the World Bank, UNFCCC Secretariat, and various national and regional government agencies to design and implement market-based climate change programs. He started his career serving in the pilot year of what is now a U.S. national program increasing the rates of college attendance and completion among low-income and first-generation secondary school students.
Past Associate Fellows
Eliot L. Abel - 2010 (Law School)
Associate, Renewable Energy Leadership Program, GE Energy
Eliot Abel is an Associate in GE’s Renewable Energy Leadership Program. Prior to attending the Yale School of Management, he was the Sustainability Programs Manager at G24 Innovations, a start-up thin film solar manufacturer based in Cardiff, Wales. While at G24i, he led the design and implementation of a company-wide energy efficiency program as well as the development of a 2MW wind turbine at company headquarters. Prior to this, Abel worked as a market analyst at Renewable Capital, a clean tech venture capital firm. He was a fellow at Green Corps, the premier leadership program for grassroots environmental organizing, and is a member of the organization’s Alumni Advisory Committee.
Elizabeth Addonizio – 2004 (Political Science)
Investment Banking Associate, Morgan Stanley
Elizabeth Addonizio has worked at Morgan Stanley in the Investment Banking Division since 2006. From January 2009 through August 2010, she served on active military duty at U.S. Central Command, working on the personal staff of General David H. Petraeus as a strategic analyst and speechwriter. As an intelligence officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve, since 2004, she has supported the Chief of Naval Operations Strategic Studies Group, the Navy Warfare Development Command, and the Office of Naval Intelligence. Prior to joining Morgan Stanley, Addonizio conducted doctoral research at Yale University on behavioral approaches to voter turnout, and was elected to serve two terms as the 9th Ward Alderwoman in New Haven, CT.
Weslynne Ashton – 2004
(School of Forestry & Environmental Studies)
Assistant Professor, Illinois Institute of Technology
Weslynne Ashton joined the Illinois Institute of Technology’s Stuart School of Business as an Assistant Professor in Environmental Management and Sustainability in Fall 2010. She spent the previous two years as an Associate Research Scientist and Lecturer at Yale University, where she also directed the “Industrial Ecology in Developing Countries” program. In that position she led research projects with collaborators in emerging economies, with a special focus on India. During this period, she held visiting scholar appointments and lectured at the National University of Singapore and The Energy and Resources Institute University in India. Outside of academia, she has provided consulting expertise on cleaner production and green business strategies to the Inter-American Development Bank, United Technologies Corporation, and the Kohala Center in Hawaii.
Alisha Bjerregaard – 2007
(Law School)
Legal Adviser, Center for Reproductive Rights
Alisha Bjerregaard is a Legal Adviser in the Africa Program at the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR). She is currently based in the Center's Nairobi, Kenya office and focuses on improving reproductive health services in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. Bjerregaard first joined CRR as a Robert L. Bernstein International Human Rights Fellow, after graduating from Yale Law School in 2008. In law school, she focused on international human rights law and women’s rights. Bjerregaard has spent time working with Global Rights in Mongolia, researching the impact of the mining industry on women, and at the Global Justice Center, an international women’s rights organization. She has also worked as a field researcher for Tostan, a women’s health and human rights organization in Senegal.
Leslie A. Brown -- 2009 (Divinity School/International Security Studies)
Freelance Writer
Leslie Brown is a freelance writer with expertise in professional communications, including message development and executive speechwriting. Brown has worked as a senior public policy liaison and communications specialist at the United States Senate, the U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration, and the Democratic National Committee. Brown has also served as an advisor to non-governmental coalition-building campaigns, as well as national advocacy and special policy conferences.
Mary-Ann Adiaha-Obong Etiebet – 2002
(School of Medicine & School of Management)
Associate, Senior Clinical Technical Advisor, Institute of Human Virology - Nigeria
Mary-Ann Etiebet is an Assistant Professor of Infectious Diseases at the Institute of Human Virology, University of Maryland School of Medicine. Since 2008, she has also served as the Senior Clinical Technical Advisor at the Institute of Human Virology-Nigeria providing public health and clinical policy, programming and training leadership for a PEPFAR/CDC funded HIV/AIDS prevention, care and treatment organization that provides antiretroviral therapy for over 68,000 individuals in Nigeria. She has also worked with Doctors of the World and for the Medicare Rights Center and is a member of several steering committees in the Nigerian Ministry of Health working with international development partners including WHO, USAID and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS and Malaria to develop and implement a sustainable, integrated and multi-sectoral response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
Miriam Estrin - 2011 (Law School)
Law School
Miriam Estrin is a second-year law student at Yale Law School. Before coming to Yale, she served as Special Assistant to the President’s Special Envoy to Sudan at the U.S. Department of State. She also worked in Foreign Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution, where she authored a chapter of a book that explored the relationship between weak states, poverty, and transnational threats.
Tali Farimah Farhadian – 2002
(Law School)
Federal Prosecutor, US Attorney's Office
Tali Farhadian is a federal prosecutor in the US Attorney’s Office in Brooklyn. Formerly with the US Department of Justice, she was a counsel to the Attorney General of the United States. From 2004 to 2006, she was a law clerk to Justice Sandra Day O’Connor of the US Supreme Court.
Peter Gulliver – 2008 (School of Management)
Peter Gulliver graduated from the Yale School of Management in May 2009, and spent the next several years working in management consulting for a variety of large organizations. Prior to receiving his MBA, Gulliver worked in international development and business consulting. His long-term goal is to help finance enterprises in frontier markets.
Courtney M. Hostetler – 2010 (Law School)
Hostetler graduated from Yale Law School in 2011 and is currently clerking for Judge James Dennis of the US Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit. While at Yale, she participated in human rights fact-finding missions in Tanzania and Senegal and worked on U.S. prison reform projects. Prior to attending to law school, she managed the Close Up Foundation's national youth voting program and worked as a research analyst for the Genocide Intervention Network. She has researched or worked with peace-building and human rights initiatives in Ireland, Uganda, and Sierra Leone.
Emlyn Starr Jones – 2005
(School of Medicine)
Resident, Ventura County Medical Center
Emlyn Jones is in her final year of residency in Family Medicine at Ventura County Medical Center in Southern California. In 2007, she completed a joint MD/Master of Health Science Research degree at the Yale School of Medicine. While at Yale, Jones participated in a clinical research fellowship with the Doris Duke Foundation investigating the economics of substance abuse treatment and also traveled to South Africa to investigate the immune response to hepatitis B vaccination in HIV positive children. During her time at Emory University, Jones worked in Tanzania for Population Services International, as a Technical Trainer for the U.S. Peace Corps in Niger, West Africa and interned for the Carter Center’s Trachoma Control Program in Atlanta.
Stephen B. Kaplan – 2008 (Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, Political Science)
Assistant Professor, Political Science & International Affairs, George Washington University
Stephen Kaplan is Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at George Washington University. Kaplan's research and teaching interests focus on the political economy of global development, the politics of international finance, and Latin American politics. His forthcoming book, Globalization and Austerity Politics in Latin America, is based on his doctoral dissertation, which won the Mancur Olson Prize from the Political Economy Section of the American Political Science Association for the best dissertation in the field of political economy completed in the previous two years.
Robert Jason Klee – 2003
(School of Forestry & Environmental Studies & Law School)
Chief of Staff, Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection
Robert Klee is currently the Chief of Staff of the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, where he advises the Commissioner on a wide range of environmental and energy policy issues. Prior to joining state service, Klee was an appellate litigator at Wiggin and Dana LLP, in New Haven, Connecticut where he also was a member of their Energy and Climate Change and Sustainable Development practice groups. Prior to joining Wiggin and Dana, he clerked for Judge Mark R. Kravitz of the US District Court for the District of Connecticut and Judge Barrington D. Parker of the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Klee has published a number of articles on environmental law and policy, sustainability, and industrial ecology.
Scott Michael Kleeb – 2002
(Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, History)
Director of Operations, Morgan Ranch
As a doctoral student in history at Yale University, Scott Kleeb studied the international influences, both cultural and economic, on the development of the late nineteenth century American West. After earning his Yale doctorate, he ran unsuccessfully for Congress from Nebraska in 2006 and 2008. As a politician, he has run on a platform advocating more assistance for education programs and aid to family farms, energy independence, and a healthcare reform. Before coming to Yale, Kleeb worked on campaign politics in New Mexico and also worked at the United Nations.
Radha Sharaschandra Kuppalli – 2005
(School of Forestry & Environmental Studies & School of Management)
Director, New Forests Inc.
Radha Kuppalli works for New Forests, a forestry investment management firm specializing in sustainable forestry investments and environmental markets investments in the Asia-Pacific region and the United States. As Director of Client Relations and Marketing for the company, Kuppalli works closely on product development, fund strategy and execution, and liaising with investment clients. Kuppalli was previously an analyst at Natsource LLC for two years. At Natsource she advised clients on a range of issues related to greenhouse gas emissions markets and renewable energy credit markets and developed extensive experience in environmental markets-related investments.
Bryan Leach – 2004 (Law School)
Partner, Bartlit Beck Herman Palenchar & Scott LLP
Bryan Leach is a partner at the law firm of Bartlit Beck Herman Palenchar & Scott LLP, in Denver, Colorado. He specializes in international arbitration and dispute resolution, and has recently handled trials and arbitrations in London, New York, Seattle, and San Francisco. After leaving Yale Law School, Leach served as a judicial law clerk for Judge Jose Cabranes in New Haven and Justice David Souter at the United States Supreme Court. Leach sits on the board of KIPP Colorado Schools, which oversees a network of public charter schools in Denver. He also serves on the Boards of the Association of Marshall Scholars and the Grafton Street Fund, a donor-advised fund that directs charitable contributions to nonprofit organizations in developing countries.
Brian LoBue – 2007
(School of Management)
Manager, TechnoServe, Tanzania
Brian LoBue is the manager of the Enterprise Development Unit with TechnoServe in Tanzania. He works with a team of local business consultants and food technologists to sustainably improve the profits of medium-sized food processors and improve the quality of their products. Prior to TechnoServe, LoBue was a senior consultant in the Strategy and Transformation practice at BearingPoint, Inc. in McLean, Virginia. Before attending the Yale School of Management, LoBue worked as a consultant at Peace Corps headquarters in Washington, DC, and served as an environmental volunteer with the Peace Corps in Tanzania.
Molly Martinez – 2005
(Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, Sociology)
Executive Director, Ticket Summit
Molly Martinez is currently the Executive Director of Ticket Summit, the nation's leading conference and trade show for executives in the ticketing and entertainment industry. During her graduate studies, Martinez sub-specialized in organizational development and market research, conducting ethnographic data collection and analysis for SmartRevenue, a marketing research company. Following research and program evaluations for clients such as Schering Plough, Lowe's, and ESPN, Martinez was subsequently hired as Marketing Program Manager for TicketNetwork, Inc., a global online ticket exchange. She has also worked as a translator in Zimbabwe, Switzerland, and Washington, D.C., and was an English lecturer at Metropolitan University in Puerto Rico.
Tarek El-Miselhy Masoud – 2006
(Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, Political Science)
Assistant Professor, Harvard University
Tarek Masoud is an Assistant Professor in Public Policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. He is currently working on a book that explains why Islamist parties such as Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood have emerged as the principal elected opposition to the ruling parties that dominate most Arab-majority countries. Masoud is the co-editor of Problems and Methods in the Study of Politics (Cambridge, 2004) and Order, Conflict, and Violence (Cambridge, 2008), and his articles and reviews have appeared in the Journal of Democracy, Foreign Policy, and the International Journal of Middle East Studies, among others. In 2009, Masoud was named a Carnegie Scholar by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, and was awarded the American Political Science Association’s Aaron Wildavsky Memorial Award for Best Dissertation in Religion and Politics.
Laura Nneka Mobisson – 2003
(School of Medicine & School of Management)
Director, Population Health Management, Connecticut Hospital Association
Laura Nneka Mobisson-Etuk serves as the Director of Population Health Management at the Connecticut Hospital Association. Prior to this, she was a Consultant in McKinsey & Company’s New Jersey Office, where she worked primarily in the area of strategy development in the payor/provider and pharmaceutical practices. Before joining McKinsey, Mobisson-Etuk completed a pediatrics residency at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. She also worked at The World Bank on investing in private healthcare in resource-poor countries and developing the healthcare strategy for Africa. She has significant clinical and public health experience particularly in the area of pediatric HIV.
Jason Pielemeier – 2006
(Law School)
Special Advisor to Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights & Labor
Jason Pielemeier is a Special Advisor to the Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. His portfolio covers national security issues, including detention authority, humane treatment issues, and transfer and assurance policies. He also works on private security contractor accountability and legal matters related to foreign sovereign immunity and human rights litigation. Prior to working in government, Pielemeier was a practicing attorney at Debevoise and Plimpton, LLP, a law clerk for the Hon. Raymond Dearie in New York, and a Peace Corps volunteer in Northern Guatemala.
Jacob Ritvo - 2011 (School)
School of Management
Jacob Ritvo is a second-year MBA candidate at the Yale School of Management, where he focuses on entrepreneurship and marketing strategy. Prior to Yale, Jacob worked on Capitol Hill, serving as Director of Communications to U.S. Rep. Pete Visclosky, as Press Secretary and Legislative Assistant to U.S. Rep. Grace Napolitano, and as an adviser to numerous political campaigns. A communications and strategy specialist, he also worked on a broad portfolio of policy issues, including energy, labor, immigration, and budget concerns.
David Scales – 2007
(School of Medicine & Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, Sociology)
Research Fellow, HealthMap
David Scales is a medical sociologist and research fellow with the Children’s Hospital Informatics Program’s HealthMap, an online tool for real-time epidemic surveillance. He currently leads a project developing an online tool for users to do geographically based risk analysis incorporating information on demography, migration and infectious diseases. His dissertation examined the International Health Regulations, pandemic influenza preparedness and the Codex Alimentarius, which are WHO regulations designed to prevent, contain or mitigate the effects of disasters and epidemics. With primary interests in infectious disease and international health, David completed medical rotations in Beirut, Lebanon and Kampala, Uganda. Outside the classroom, he volunteered as an Arabic translator at Yale’s refugee clinic and worked in student groups examining how intellectual property can serve as a barrier to accessing medicines and vaccines in resource-poor countries.
Priya Shete – 2006
(School of Medicine)
Public Health Advisor, United States Agency for International Development
After finishing her medical residency at the University of California, San Francisco, Priya Shete was named a fellow by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In this capacity she has been working as the health advisor for the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance at USAID, based in Washington DC, providing technical guidance for humanitarian health aid and programming. Her global portfolio focuses on emergency health interventions and policies in regions affected by natural disasters and complex humanitarian emergencies. Shete is on the clinical faculty in Internal Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco and practices at the Veteran’s Hospital in Washington DC.
Reed Schuler - 2011 (Law School)
Reed Schuler is a second-year student at Yale Law School. He is Co-Chair of the Africa Law and Policy Association and a Student Fellow at the Yale China Law Center. He is focused on urban development, global sustainability, and economic empowerment of low-income communities. After graduating from Pomona College, he conducted research in urban development and sustainability in China as a Fulbright Fellow, worked in energy efficiency and renewable energy programs with the social impact consulting group New Sector Alliance in Boston, started and managed a cross-sector residential energy efficiency program for the Baltimore Office of Sustainability and the Baltimore Community Foundation, and consulted for the agricultural development social enterprise KickStart in Tanzania.
Debra Lois Shushan (formerly Shulman) - 2003 (Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, Political Science)
Assistant Professor, College of William & Mary
Debra Shushan is Assistant Professor of Government at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. She is a specialist in Middle East politics, and a member of the interdisciplinary faculties in International Relations and Middle East Studies. Her current research projects investigate: foreign policies of Middle East states in the Iraq wars; the politics of Arab foreign aid provision; and levels and impacts of female representation in Arab parliaments.
Allegra Kyria da Silva – 2006
(Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, Chemical Engineering)
Environmental Engineer, CDM
Allegra da Silva works with cities to address water quality challenges by piloting novel approaches for drinking water and wastewater treatment. Prior to her current position at CDM, da Silva was working at the United States Agency for International Development, integrating water and food security in US foreign assistance. da Silva conducted postdoctoral research at the University of California Berkeley, harnessing advances in materials science to develop a new drinking water filter for low-income markets. Her doctoral research at Yale investigated how viruses are transported through the environment.
Katherine Southwick – 2004
(Law School)
Rule of Law Advisor, American Bar Association Rule of Law Initiative
Based in Manila, Philippines, Katherine Southwick assists with the design and implementation of legal reform programs on behalf of the American Bar Association Rule of Law Initiative. In the Philippines, she provides technical assistance on a variety of judicial reform programs and assists with overall monitoring and evaluation. She also manages programs relating to the regional human rights system of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and anti-trafficking in persons in the Solomon Islands. She has worked for the U.S. State Department, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, and a human rights organization in New Delhi, India.
Matthew J. Spence – 2005
(Law School)
Special Assistant, Office of the National Security Advisor, White House
Matt Spence is Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for International Economics on the National Security Council at the White House. He is responsible for coordinating the U.S. government's economic strategy for countries in transition, including Afghanistan and Pakistan, and other trade and investment issues. Prior to this, Spence was Senior Advisor to the National Security Advisor, for both Tom Donilon and General Jim Jones. In that capacity, he traveled with the President to over a dozen countries, and briefed and planned visits of the National Security Advisor to China, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. He prepared the National Security Advisor for daily intelligence briefings with the President and drafted memoranda for the President ranging from the Afghanistan troop deployment decisions and operation against Osama Bin Laden, to policy toward the Middle East. Previously, he was a member of the Obama-Biden Transition Project’s National Security Council transition team under. He is the co-founder of the Truman National Security Project, a national security leadership development institute based in Washington, DC.
Allison Patricia Squires – 2003 ( School of Nursing)
Assistant Professor of Nursing, New York University
Allison Squires is an assistant professor of nursing at New York University College of Nursing, where her research line has had her leading or participating in healthcare human resources studies covering 28 countries to date. In June of 2011, she was promoted to become the Deputy Director of International Education and Visiting Scholars at the College where she facilitates capacity building educational collaborations between the College, Ministries of Health, and nursing schools around the world. She also serves as a strategic consultant and analyst for NursesNow International, a Mexico-based, international long term nurse staffing and capacity building company accredited by the Alliance for Fair and Ethical Recruitment Practices.
Joel A. Steinhaus -- 2009 (School of Management)
Steinhaus is currently Senior Vice President for Global Public Affairs at Citi in New York, working across communications, marketing and government affairs for Citi’s multi-national franchise. Prior to this, he was senior producer at Civic Entertainment Group where he helped found NBC News’s Education Nation, a multi-media enterprise focused on engaging the public in a conversation about improving education in the United States. Until 2008, Steinhaus was an Associate at Kekst and Company, a strategic corporate and financial communications consultancy. He was previously affiliated with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a Washington, DC-based think tank where he focused on U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East.
Jacob Sullivan – 2002
(Law School)
Deputy Assistant to the President and National Security Advisor to the Vice President
Jake Sullivan was appointed by Vice President Joe Biden to be his National Security Advisor in February of 2013. Since February 2011, Sullivan had been the Director of Policy Planning at the United States Department of State and Deputy Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Prior to that, Sullivan had served as Secretary Clinton's Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy since January 2009. He also served as Deputy Policy Director on then-Senator Clinton’s presidential campaign, and as a member of the debate preparation team for then-Senator Obama’s general election debates. Sullivan previously served as Chief Counsel and senior policy adviser to Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, his home state. Trained as a lawyer, he worked as an associate at the Minneapolis law firm of Faegre & Benson and as an adjunct professor at the University of St. Thomas Law School. He served as a clerk for Judge Guido Calabresi of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and for Justice Stephen Breyer of the United States Supreme Court.
Erin Walsh – 2007
(School of Forestry & Environmental Studies)
Erin Walsh is in her final year of doctoral study at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. She is finalizing her dissertation research on ways to enhance the resilience and adaptive capacity of urban infrastructure systems in the face of major disruptions by natural hazards, both episodic and lasting. Prior to coming to Yale, Walsh worked as a consultant in energy and defense-related areas. A native of Washington, D.C., she received her undergraduate degree in chemical engineering from Princeton, and her master’s degree in environmental management from Yale.
Edward (“Ted”) M. Wittenstein – 2010 (Law School)
Wittenstein has pursued a career in national security through a succession of U.S. Government jobs at the Department of Defense, Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the Department of State. His work focuses primarily on intelligence, counterterrorism, counterproliferation, and U.S. foreign policy regarding South and Central Asia, as well as the Middle East. As Special Assistant to Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte, Wittenstein advised on intelligence matters pertaining to key foreign policy priorities, including stability in Iraq and Afghanistan, counterterrorism and political transition in Pakistan, and nuclear negotiations with Iran and North Korea.
