Many UWC-USA alumni work in finance across many sectors. Join us for a conversation with three alumni working for the World Bank as they explore the ways the World Bank supports efforts to build economic resilience in Western and Central Africa.
The Western and Central Africa region is rich in resources and brimming with opportunities, but it also faces enormous challenges. It houses about a quarter of the world’s extreme poor, and more than 70% of the region’s population lives in fragile, conflict, and violence affected (FCV) countries. Climate change amplifies the impact of conflict and extreme weather events such as droughts and floods on people’s livelihoods. In addition, many countries are increasingly at high risk of debt distress.
How does the World Bank support these countries in confronting these challenges? What are some factors that influence the success of the World Bank’s operations and projects in these countries? Join us for a conversation with Marina Wes ’88 and Frederico Gil Sander ’94, moderated by Pui Shen Yoong ’08 on debt and development issues in Western and Central Africa.
What: Distinguished Alumni Speaker Series Event: Topic: World Bank Support for Western And Central Africa When: December 10 at 6:30 pm MT Where: Online (register below)
This event is free and open to all alumni and friends of UWC-USA
The Alumni Office at UWC-USA is hosting a virtual Distinguished Alumni Speaker Series event on September 26 at 6:30 pm Mountain Time. This event will be held in conjunction with UWC Day, and will reflect this year’s theme “Together We Change.” The event is free and open to the public – anyone can register for the event by completing the form below.
At UWC-USA students are part of an intentional community focused on a common mission centered on creating a more unified, peaceful, and sustainable world. By exploring the work that UWC-USA alumni are doing as community activists today we can learn about their challenges and successes and think about how we can take steps to help our own communities.
This Distinguished Alumni Speaker Series event will feature two remarkable alumni:
Shaina Kasper ’09 is from Vermont and has worked as an activist in a variety of fields including housing access, electoral organizing, economic justice, environmental justice, and disability justice. She has worked supporting community groups in their organizing against pollution threats including The National PFAS Contamination Coalition, New Hampshire Pipeline Awareness Networks, and Rural Environmental Justice Opportunities Informed by Community Expertise. She is currently the incoming Executive Director of T1International, a global diabetes advocacy organization working on insulin access and affordability.
Anaïs Tuepker ’92 lives in Oregon and is a sociologist and health systems researcher with the Department of Veterans Affairs and an assistant professor in the Department of Family Medicine at Oregon Health and Science University. Her research often takes place at the intersections of health professions education, primary care delivery, community organizing for health, and community partnerships. Alongside her professional life, she has been a lifelong activist and sometime organizer for climate and social justice, having been a volunteer, staff member, and board director with several organizations focused on environmental and climate challenges.
Please join us for this opportunity to learn about the inspiring work of two remarkable UWC-USA alumni.
The UWC mission emphasizes unity – which is increasingly challenging given the degree to which our societies are polarized. As members of the UWC community, we are called to discern the causes of polarization as well as to explore possible solutions.
All alumni, students, staff, and friends of the school are invited to join us for a conversation with two UWC-USA alumni who have deep experience in journalism and who will share their understanding of how journalism contributes to and can reduce polarization.
Speakers:
Alice Speri ’04 currently works for The Intercept as a foreign policy and national security reporter.
Ramón Cuauhtémoc Taylor ’06 is a producer for the NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt. Moderator:
Aurora Martínez ’19 recently graduated from the University of Florida with a degree in journalism.
Please complete the form below to RSVP for this free event.
For the second year in a row, a UWC-USA student is representing the state of New Mexico in a national poetry competition. Kaitlyn Lubega ‘25 from the UK and Uganda will compete in the National Poetry Out Loud competition in Washington, DC on May 1.
You can watch the live and one-time only webcast to see Lubega recite her poem on Wednesday, May 1, at 3 pm MT by following this link. The New Mexico program is produced and directed by the state arts agency, New Mexico Arts, and offers state high school students an opportunity to improve their public speaking skills, build confidence, and learn about literary history and contemporary life.
“Earning a place amongst a group of such talented peers in the Poetry Out Loud National Competition is both a humbling honor and an incredibly rewarding opportunity,” says Kaitlyn. “I’m extremely excited and fortunate to be able to give voice to the values I hold dear and represent the beautiful state of New Mexico. Poetry has always been a sanctuary for expressing myself, in such a liberating way, a place where my passions ignite and take flight.”
UWC-USA recently received a grant from the New Mexico Energy, Minerals, and Natural Resources Division. In the aftermath of the Calf Canyon/Hermit’s Peak Fire, the school has been seeking state and federal funding to make the campus more resilient and sustainable. The Natural Resources Division has funded “a project primarily for the prevention of forest health issues” on the UWC-USA 220+ acre campus. The application for funds cites an “outbreak of bark beetles that have killed a large portion of trees on the western ridge facing the school.”
The school will receive up to $18,000 to thin trees which will reduce competition for water and combat the bark beetles and dwarf mistletoe that have proven to be destructive to the ponderosa pines that are an important part of the forest ecosystem.
“We are finalizing our forest management plan,” said Bob Nash, senior director of operations and safety, “and will continue to apply for cost-sharing through the Forest Health Initiative program for additional treatments based on the recommendations from this plan.”
Tez Steinberg AD ‘06 is set to complete a remarkable feat: rowing 5000 miles from Hawaii to Australia on his own over four months. No stranger to adventure and activism, Tez has always been a person who takes action to solve problems. This desire to change the world for the better was one of the reasons Tez received a Davis Scholarship to attend the United World College in Italy, UWC Adriatic. Years later, Tez founded United World Challenge, a non-profit based on the UWC values of activism and sustainability.
In 2020, Tez successfully rowed 2700 miles solo from California to Hawaii and raised funds for scholarships for students to attend UWC-USA. His 5000 mile expedition from Hawaii to Australia will set a record for rowing and is a testament to his endurance and grit.
Tez’s transformative encounter with ocean plastic pollution during his California to Hawaii rowing expedition set up his new challenge: raising awareness and funds to fight plastics in our oceans and waters. In partnership with organizations like AG1, Ocean Conservation Network, and others, his subsequent 5,000-mile solo row from Hawaii to Australia has been a zero-waste endeavor focused on gathering essential data for ocean research. His dedication to merging adventure with environmental advocacy and sustainability underscores the significance of individual action in combating global challenges.
“The ocean plastic crisis is a monumental threat, not only to marine life, but to our entire world,” says Tez. “It feels insurmountable, but like I remind myself, one oar stroke doesn’t seem to make a difference, but two million strokes will take me across the Pacific. Consistent, tiny actions show that no ocean is too great to cross.”
You can learn more about Tez and United World Challenge here.
UWC-USA is pleased to announce that Yessika Moreno Ramirez ’92 is this year’s Giulio Regeni Alumni Impact Award Winner. Yessika joins Julie Hall ‘84, Rene Celaya ‘88, and others as alumni honored by their peers for work inspired by the UWC mission and their time at UWC-USA.
After graduating from UWC-USA in 1992, Yessika studied medicine in her native Costa Rica and began her career as a general physician in the countryside serving the needs of rural patients. In 2002 she accepted a position in the pharmaceutical industry as a research supervisor. Her first project, testing a rotavirus vaccine that saved the lives of many children in Central America, represented an opportunity to have an impact on more patients than she could as a physician. Throughout her career she worked on many other projects and in July 2020, just a few months into the COVID-19 pandemic, she joined Pfizer Mexico as Director of Medical Affairs.
As Director of Medical Affairs, Yessika was responsible for bringing Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine to Mexico. She negotiated with skeptical federal officials uniting the conservative establishment and a new progressive government. For months, Yessika led negotiations that were difficult, time-consuming, stressful, and required her to step out of her comfort zone. Thanks to Yessika’s perseverance and skill, Mexico approved the Pfizer vaccine in December 2020, two hours before it was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Yessika’s ability to listen to others, understand their concerns, and craft solutions – skills that were further developed in Montezuma while a student at UWC-USA – led to the approval of a life-saving vaccine in Mexico.
This year’s finalists also included Nicole Paulet Piedra ‘09 and Patricia Mengech ‘88.
About Giulio Regeni ’07: Giulio Regeni was an Italian citizen and a doctoral student at Cambridge University in the UK. He was conducting his Ph.D. research on the formation of independent trade unions, specifically the street vendors’ union, in Egypt after the fall of former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak. He was in Cairo conducting field research when on January 25, 2016, the fifth anniversary of the “25 January Revolution,” he disappeared. His body was found nine days later.
UWC-USA is participating in a new Princeton “Project 55 Fellowship” program this year, which – thanks again to Shelby Davis’ generosity – brings to our campus a recent Princeton graduate to take on a high-impact, hands-on staff position in an area where we have a significant need.
Zhudi Pan is this year’s Project 55 Policy Fellow, drilling down and providing clarity around key campus projects and New Mexico regulations related to environmental sustainability, water management, New Mexico state requirements, student health and wellness, and residential life.
Zhudi says she selected UWC-USA from a variety of options because she wanted to challenge herself after college and experience living in a rural environment, and the UWC campus in Montezuma was the perfect place to work on globally minded projects that value educational equity.
She says that the Project 55 Fellowship at UWC-USA gives young professionals like her an opportunity to experience what it is like to have a career in international education, take part in the inner-workings of running a school, and see what it takes to make the UWC mission real for students.
As a staff sponsor for CAS (Creativity, Activity, and Service) experiential education programs Zhudi inspired cohorts of students to tackle some of the world’s most “Wicked Problems” and to become effective “Partners in Health.”
With combined leadership and team management experience gained at Princeton and her personal interest in social entrepreneurship and global health, Zhudi successfully guided 15 UWC-USA students in grassroots proposal development for the Go Make a Difference (GoMAD) grant competition, which awards $2,000 for each winning project to aid communities in Northern New Mexico and around the globe.
Zhudi’s own purpose-driven and proactive approach to carrying out UWC’s mission, and with newly developed experience working with the school’s Wellness, Academic, Residential Life, and Advancement teams, has opened doors for her to collaborate with senior faculty on unique research that aims to improve evidence-based policy making for student mental health and wellness.
Always down to earth, Zhudi will still tell you that “the experience I value the most is being on campus, having meals with the students, and knowing that I have become a trusted staff member and mentor for some.”
On February 16th and 17th, UWC-USA will host this year’s Annual Conference: Fire and Water. The conference will bring together high school students and teachers from Mexico and the state of New Mexico for workshops, activities, and speakers focusing on the themes of Fire and Water as they relate to climate change, resilience, community practices, policy, and the human experience.
Two of the speakers will be livestreamed during their keynote addresses. Dr. Len Necefer ’07 and Hugo Contreras Zepeda ‘87 will speak about how we can be better stewards of the natural world.
Dr. Len Necefer ’07, Friday, February 16 at 3:15 pm MT Hugo Contreras Zepeda ’87, Saturday, February 17 at 1:15 pm MT
To watch the keynote sessions:
At the time of the workshop (all times are Mountain Time), simply click this link which will take you to the UWC-USA Facebook page. There is no need to register in advance and there will be recordings of the sessions.
More about the speakers:
A member of the Navajo Nation, Dr. Len Necefer, has spent the past decade learning about the land and water that has shaped his identity as a Navajo person and those of indigenous people across the globe. After thirty years of figuring out and surviving western education he obtained a bachelors in Mechanical Engineering and Doctorate in Engineering and Public Policy from Carnegie Mellon University. As an unforeseen result of obtaining these degrees, he worked for the U.S. Department of Energy and, most recently, as a professor at the University of Arizona. However the confines of government and the cloistered halls of academia grew too frustrating and he set off to become an entrepreneur and to meld his education with adventure storytelling.
In 2021 Len went full time with NativesOutdoors as their founder and CEO – a native-owned athletic and creative collective founded in 2017 – working in media and film production, design, and consulting. His storytelling, film, and photography work melds the intersection of sport, environmental advocacy, and indigenous people and has been featured in the Alpinist, National Geographic, the Rolling Stone and over 50 film festivals globally.
In recent years, Len saw a calling to return to the southwest and to document the lands and waters around the Colorado River in light of a decades-long megadrought gripping the region. From the snowpacks of Colorado to the Gulf of California it became clear that knowing how to move through these landscapes needed its own education. To combine the academic training with on-the-ground- knowledge, it required learning how to climb and ski at age 28, learning avalanche and mountaineering safety at 30, learning how to packraft whitewater at 33, and how to operate a film camera at age 34. In building these skills, Len has built a community of professional athletes, filmmakers, and other storytellers focused on supporting native communities. Dr. Len calls Tucson, Arizona home.
Hugo is the Head of Infrastructure Services for the LAC Region at Water.org. He has more than 20 years experience building successful partnerships, supporting change and driving innovation in the water, sustainability and natural resources governance.
He has Managing Director experience reporting to Boards in multinational corporations, global NGOs, and government. A solid academic background in economics, development issues and business management and multicultural experience in developing and developed regions, coupled with a trajectory of engaging with IFIs (International Financial Institutions), International Agencies, private and public sector and communities. Fluent in Spanish, English and able to communicate in French and Portuguese. Hugo heads the newly created Infrastructure Services practice for Water.org in the LAC Region. In this capacity, he is responsible for identifying, developing and helping finance water infrastructure aimed at improving access to water and sanitation, ameliorate water quality, mitigate scarcity and help communities become more resilient to climate change.
Prior to his tenure at Water.org, Hugo led TNC´s Latin America´s Freshwater Regional Unit. In this role he has led one of TNC´s most successful Partnerships in the water space, the Latin American Water Funds Partnership. The Partnership helped incubate 25 NGOS across the Region focused on mainstreaming nature base solutions and strengthening governance for a more water secure world.
As Business Development and Public Affairs Director for Mexico at one of the leading international private water utilities, he was able to acquire first-hand experience in responding to the challenges of providing water services to large populations.
Hugo earned his BA in Economics at ITAM in Mexico, his MSc in Environmental and Natural Resource Economics from UCL in London. He also has diplomas in Management and Environmental Economics from Cambridge University, the IPADE, Berkeley University and the World Bank.
One of the things that unites UWCers across the movement is a keen interest in food and food culture. For many, this interest is cultivated as they spend two years learning about the foods that their classmates eat while they cook meals together in dayrooms and faculty kitchens. A number of UWC-USA alumni have gone on to explore careers in the culinary arts or have started businesses that are food-centered. This Distinguished Alumni Speaker Series event will celebrate and explore the work of two alumnae working with food.
Brien Darby ’04 is the executive director of Cultivate KC, a nonprofit dedicated to helping people grow healthy, affordable food in an urban setting. She works with New Americans as they bring their agricultural skills and experiences to a new country and provides support, training, and advocacy for urban farming initiatives.
Soumaya Merhi ’06 is the CEO and founder of TAQA Snacks, a company in her native Lebanon that sources healthy, local ingredients for a variety of sports snacks. Every day she works with supply chain, marketing, and production challenges for a growing and thriving business.
The session will last one hour and include time for questions for the panelists.
What: UWC-USA Distinguished Alumni Speaker Series
When: February 26, 2024 at 12:00 pm MST
Who: Brien Darby ’04 and Soumaya Merhi ’06
Where: Online (register below)
This online event is free and open to all alumni and friends of UWC-USA.
