Synaptic Scholars
2011 Scholars
Alison Coffey | Charles Cushing | Nadia Nibbs | Nnenna Okoye | Sean Smith | Nick Stratton | Ayda Wondemu
Alison Coffey
Alison is a member of the class of 2011 majoring in Latin American Studies and minoring in Urban Studies. Through participation in the 2008/2009 EPIIC Colloquium on Global Cities, Alison’s long-standing indecision on a course of study gave way to a passion for addressing issues of housing rights and urban violence at home and abroad. Inspired by this coursework she spent fourteen months living in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where she carried out senior thesis research on the Unidades de Policia Pacificadora, a new public security initiative attempting to regain State control of favelas previously under the control of drug factions.
During that time she also worked as a research assistant to Dr. Janice Perlman, Director of the Mega-Cities Project, assisting with data collection for Dr. Perlman’s book, Favela: Four Decades of Living on the Edge in Rio de Janeiro, as well as carrying out field interviews for a Habitat International Coalition study on real estate transactions in formal and informal areas of Rio de Janeiro.
During the summer of 2010 Alison worked for the Sustainable Development Department of the World Bank on a study evaluating the integration of informal settlement upgrading policies in Brazil and their role in strengthening citizenship for favela residents.
Alison is also co-leader of EXPOSURE, the Institute for Global Leadership’s Center for Photojournalism, Human Rights, and Documentary Studies. Under the mentorship of VII photographer Gary Knight and former AP correspondent Mort Rosenblum, Alison traveled to Cambodia in the summer of 2008 where she photographed and reported on issues facing the country’s transgender population. She was also a coordinator of EXPOSURE’s first Boston-based workshop, working under the guidance of Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Jim MacMillan to document the HOPE VI redevelopment process at the Washington-Beech public housing project in the neighborhood of Roslindale. While in Brazil, Alison published an article on GlobalPost about forced evictions for the 2016 Olympics.
Beyond her academic pursuits, Alison loves documentaries, learning about Latin American cinematic movements and cooking with her Synaptics class.
Charles Cushing
Charles is a member of the class of 2001 and has lived in Lexington, Massachusetts for the last twelve years with his parents, his younger brother and his younger sister. Charles attended the Fessenden School in Newton, MA, from grade 6 through grade 9. Afterward, he enrolled in Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, NH, graduating in 2006. He spent his summers as a teacher’s aide at the Cotting School in his hometown of Lexington, teaching and supervising eight students with complex disabilities. After enrolling at Tufts in the Spring of 2006, Charles deferred his admission for one year. In August, Charles departed for China. He spent the month of September taking an intensive TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) certification class. In October, he headed north to Changchun, Jilin Province, and began teaching English six days a week at public and private middle and high schools. While he was there, he also had the opportunity to travel and study Chinese independently. He returned to the States in July 2007. At Tufts, Charles found his passions in economics and energy, while continuing to pursue his interest in Chinese language and culture. During his freshman year, he became the treasurer and an active member of the Tufts Energy Forum (TEF), helping to plan and finance the annual Tufts Energy Conference. He undertook his first project for the IGL, planning the 2008 IMUSE conference, a forum that seeks to facilitate Sino-US cultural exchange. He also joined the Tufts Financial Group’s (TFG) Energy Sector analyst team, researching and pitching stocks for TFG's Alpha Fund portfolio. In August 2008, Charles returned to China to work in NBC’s Beijing research department for the 2008 Summer Olympics. After the Games he remained in Beijing, spending fall semester at Associated Colleges in China, an intensive Chinese language program. Charles is currently back at Tufts, living in Chinese House and re-engaged in his roles at TEF, TFG, and now Synaptic Scholars. This summer, he plans to return to China for more language study, and to pursue research an internship in the field of energy. Outside of class, Charles enjoys running, spending time with friends and family, keeping up with the news, practicing DJing on his turntables, and looking for the solution to climate destabilization.
Nadia Nibbs
Nadia is currently a sophomore at Tufts University majoring in International Relations. Concentrating on the United States in World Affairs, Nadia also has interests in global migration, human rights, and the relationship between culture and politics. While Nadia is an Asbury Park, NJ native, she attended boarding school at The Lawrenceville School. While there, she began her study of the Japanese language. Five years later, Nadia is proficient in Japanese and is planning to study abroad in the spring of 2010. In addition to Synaptic Scholars, Nadia is also an active member of the Bias Education Awareness Team, president of the African Student Organization, and a starter of the Tufts University Varsity Fencing team. Nadia loves being part of Synaptic Scholars not only because of the wonderful friends she has made, but also for the opportunity to apply what she has learned in the classroom and pursue an active approach to learning. When Nadia is not fencing, studying, or planning events, she is almost always cooking. She spends her free time looking for new recipes on the Internet, or experimenting with recipes handed down through her family of Caribbean heritage. Nadia would like to someday retire and open a bistro somewhere with warm weather.
Nnenna Okoye
With support from the Institute of Global Leadership, Nnenna Okoye conducted a research study in Nigeria where she studied the business experiences of female street vendors in Lagos, Nigeria. She is jointly pursing her undergraduate biology degree and Masters in Public Health through the dual degree program at Tufts University School of Medicine and hopes to attend medical school soon. She is currently heavily involved in Node Africa, an African initiative created by Africans for Africans, that creates local field-based learning projects and internship opportunities for African high school students to enable young Africans to become the next generation of social entrepreneurs.
For more information, please visit Node Africa at Node Africa
Sean Smith
Sean Smith is from Bozeman, Montana. He is a 2011 International Relations major at Tufts University in Boston, and additionally studies religion and Arabic. He is a Synaptic Scholar with the Institute for Global Leadership, is a member of EXPOSURE, the Institute's organization for photojournalism, documentary studies and human rights, and is a staff photographer for the Daily and the Observer, two Tufts periodicals. Journalism, Sean believes, must assume a more intimate form if it is to remain relevant in the 21st century. Globalization, an unequivocal truth, has drawn together populations and demographics between whom there would have been no interaction in the past. Demonstrating that humanity shares a common form across cultures, and that differences are to be celebrated, should be the object of this interaction. Media, in the written word and the image, can share this. In August 2008 Sean attended the EXPOSURE workshop in Uganda's northern Acholi province. Under the tutelage of Sara Terry, director of the Aftermath project, and Stephen Alvarez, National Geographic photojournalist, Sean photographed a local NGO's reconstruction efforts after the 22-year civil war. In fall 2009, Sean will move to Lebanon to study and photograph. In his free time, Sean climbs rocks and reads Faulkner and Steinbeck.
Nick Stratton
Nick Miller-Stratton is a senior majoring in Music and in International Relations with a concentration in Global Health. Upon returning from a semester abroad in Paris, he interned in New York City at the Clinton Global Initiative where he came in contact with the Haiti Action Network, after which point he began intensive research on Haitian history in the context of US foreign policy. Continuing the engagement with Haiti, Nick joined RESPE Ayiti in 2010 in order to further develop his interests in community health, the social construct of the AIDS epidemic, inequality, and policy, a combination that came to fruition over the summer while volunteering at Housing Works in NYC with HIV+, transgender, homeless clients. Such work led him to intern over winter break at l'Agence Régionale de Santé, Île-de-France in Paris where he worked as a research assistant on the implementation of a national health plan for youth (ages 15-24).
In 2008-09, he participated in the Education for Public Inquiry and International Citizenship (EPIIC) colloquium entitled “Cities: Forging an Urban Future,” in which he studied social determinants of health and poverty, urban arts initiatives, and conflict in divided cities while volunteering at the “Forum for Cities in Transition” – a forum to construct working solutions in the divided cities of Londonderry/Derry, Belfast, Mitrovica, Kirkuk and Nicosia – in Boston in April 2009.
When he's not studying, Nick enjoys teaching piano to youth in the Tufts Community Music Program, miming in Boston's only collegiate mime troupe (HYPE!), dancing Argentine tango, and cooking. He is fluent in French and is currently studying Kréyol.
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Ayda Wondemu
Ayda Wondemu is from Addis Abeba, Ethiopia. With help and guidance from the Synaptic Scholars and the greater IGL community, Ayda conducted a research study in Ethiopia where she examined the state of volunteerism in Ethiopia. Her research was focused on understanding volunteerism from the perspective of Ethiopians. She is a double major in International Relations and French.
For the past academic year, Ayda has been studying abroad in Paris, France where she also interned with the organization Maison des Journalistes, an organization that houses exiled journalists from around the world. During her internship, Ayda worked as a contributing writer for their online newspaper. Currently, Ayda is working as a documentary journalist in the Philippines for International Bridges to Justice.
You can find her articles at ibj.blog.org