Alumni

Andrea Bulungu’s research focuses on methods for measuring maternal and child diet and women’s time use in low income country contexts. She also works on multisectoral approaches to improving nutrition outcomes globally.

• Email: andrealspray@gmail.com

Kate Clitheroe works with One World Surgery, an organization that provides high-quality primary care, specialty, and surgical services to underserved communities in Honduras and the Dominican Republic. Kate oversees One World Surgery’s monitoring and evaluation plan to ensure that programs are functioning as designed and achieving defined goals. Specifically, One World Surgery looks at surgical outcomes for more complex surgeries, as well as basic outcomes in terms of infection and complication rates. One World Surgery also looks at patient satisfaction and long-term impact of surgeries, among other variables.

• Email: kate.c@oneworldsurgery.org

Mingguo Deng is the Director of Charity Promotion and Social Work for the Civil Affairs Bureau of Chongqing Province, China. Mingguo oversees the development of the social work profession and services in the area. Under his leadership, the number of social work service organizations in Chongqing has grown to 260 organizations. Chongqing has now established a social worker training system to train 10,000 social work professionals annually. Over 3,000 social work studios have been set up in rural communities, and 5,000 social workers have been recruited in this process.

Yueh-Ya is a Research Associate for Innovations for Poverty Action, a research and policy non-profit that evaluates and promotes effective solutions to global poverty problems. Yueh-Ya’s team is currently collaborating with BRAC in Dhaka, Bangladesh to evaluate their Ultra-Poor Graduation Program. While at the Brown School, Yueh-Ya worked with the Social Policy Institute and Assistant Dean Dan Ferris and got hands-on experience with research in supporting mission-driven organizations. Learning how to balance objectives and working cultures across academic, government, and industry sectors has proven important. Lee Koelliker’s leadership class sharpened Yueh-Ya’s understanding of stakeholders, organizational dynamics, and the idea of leading without a title. Professor Lindsay Stark helped Yueh-Ya clarify my professional interests and find suitable organizations in support of those goals. Yueh-Ya’s talented classmates’ diverse backgrounds developed his ability to work on cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural teams.

Dr. Mingchao Jin’s research area currently focuses on global social development, with a particular focus on financial capability. In his research, Dr. Jin assessed the status of poverty in China via asset-based approaches and made relevant policy suggestions. Dr. Jin has also conducted research on how families in Africa can use livestock to improve child nutrition. His current work tries to answer what financial capability means and impacts, and how to improve financial capability for populations in developing countries.

Before joining the Chinese Academy of Financial Inclusion at the Renmin University of China, Xixi Kang served as the Program Officer for the Social Policy Team in UNICEF’s China Country Office for three years. Her work supported the development and implementation of national social assistance reform projects and research on social protection. In Xixi’s new role, she will manage academic research programs and coordinate policy advisory and advocacy, facilitating the construction of China’s financial inclusion system and contributing to the implementation of a rural revitalization strategy.

Throughout Megan Keenan’s time at the Brown School, she developed new skills in systems thinking and research for the promotion of health equity. Megan used these skills in her practicum experience with Fast-Track Cities-St. Louis, where she worked with community stakeholders and healthcare leaders to improve HIV care in the region. Megan’s international practicum with the Centre for Infectious Disease Research in Zambia (CIDRZ) provided her with the opportunity to engage the skills she had cultivated locally and apply them to a global context. Continuing her work in the field of HIV care, Megan collaborated with community researchers in Zambia to analyze the implementation of patient-centered care services with local healthcare providers across the country.

Lindsey Wise’s work in the field of public health nutrition began at the Brown School working with Dr. Lora Iannotti. Lindsey built on her practicum experience with Meds and Food for Kids in St. Louis, and she was awarded the Mickey Leland International Hunger Fellowship at the UN World Food Programme in Cambodia in 2011. She has worked with the UN World Food Programme (WFP) at sub-national, national, regional, and global levels over the past 10 years serving in different capacities to tackle malnutrition in all its forms. Lindsey is joining the Nutrition Division in 2022 to take on a new role as the Deputy of the Nutrition Integration team within the Nutrition Division. Her work will focus on enhancing the nutrition sensitivity of WFP’s food security programmes, such as school meals and social protection, as well as supporting efforts to tackle the double burden of malnutrition and address equity gaps in delivery of services to vulnerable groups.

• Email: lindsey.wise@wfp.org

Jianrong Zhang participated in the first cohort of Clark-Fox Policy Scholars at the Brown School. Jianrong has conducted global health research as a collaborator in the Global Burden of Disease Study led by the University of Washington, and he has published a total of 15 articles. In 2008-2016, Jianrong received his M.D. from the Guangzhou Medical University in China with clinical and research training in thoracic surgery and oncology.

Zhen Zhang is the General Secretary for the RICI Foundation, which has launched the Xinyi Project and the Flourishing Magic School program in Chinga. The RICI Foundation has engaged 3,000 undergraduates and local teachers in delivering 1,400,000 mental health prevention lessons to over 145,000 rural children around China. RICI has also built collaborative relationships with over 150 university student associations and more than 40 nonprofit organizations and local governments. In 2020, Zhen was named in the Forbes China 30 Under 30 List – Social Enterprise Category.