Alumni

Alumnus Peter Evans: Applying Lessons from MIIS in High-Stakes Policy Debates

Bergthora Gudbergsdottir evag@miis.edu Alumni, CNS, Featured, IPS, newsroom, Nonproliferation
peter_evans

“MIIS Match” Peter Evans and Fumio Evans Miyoshi, with their daughter, “a trilingual third-culture kid!”

When the Assad regime in Syria used chemical weapons against it citizens in the city of Ghouta in August of 2013, Peter Evans (MAIPS ’97) represented the Near East Affairs Bureau of the U.S. State Department’s nonproliferation policy office in the policy discussion of the response. “I applied all that I had learned at MIIS and during my internship at the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in The Hague, and it positioned me to be on top of the topic from the start.”

Peter was first attracted to the Monterey Institute by the Translation and Interpretation program, but once he realized his language skills were not “that good,” he found that the Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS) offered a great fit for his aspiration to work with the federal government. He was in the first class that was offered a certificate in nonproliferation studies in 1997. Right after graduation, his work with CNS and the internship with OPCW helped him “stand out amidst the crowd of job seekers,” and he joined the State Department as a civil servant in the nonproliferation policy office.

In his first ten years in Washington, Peter worked on UNSCOM weapons inspections and the Australia Group export control regime. Over time, his area of focus moved to military policy issues and he was appointed to a five-year commission in the Foreign Service, working in Jerusalem and Riyadh from 2008-2013. He is currently serving as the deputy director for Jordan and Lebanon in Washington, DC, but will soon be going overseas again as he has been approved for a mid-level conversion to the Foreign Service full time. 

“MIIS graduates are everywhere,” Peter shares happily, noting that he has met classmates all around the world. He says MIIS prepared him perfectly for the career of his dreams. But best of all, while in Monterey he fell in love with and married his wife, Fumio (née) Miyoshi (MATI ’97). “Our 9-year old daughter is already a trilingual third-culture kid!”

 

Students Share “Amazing” Experiences from CBE Summer Fellowships

Anne-Marie Steiger asteiger@miis.edu Alumni, Faculty, Featured, newsroom
Kelsey Richardson

Student Kelsey Richardson on her fellowship at the UN Environment Programme in Nairobi.

An internationally recognized hub of ocean research and advocacy, Monterey Bay is also known for one of the nation’s most spectacular marine protected areas, the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. This fertile environment is an inspiration to all students at the Monterey Institute, but perhaps most pertinent to those who are enrolled in the International Environmental Policy program’s Ocean and Coastal Resource Management concentration.

Building on their studies in Monterey, students are eligible for fully funded summer fellowships with top marine organizations through the Institute’s Center for the Blue Economy. This summer, ten students are working on projects directly related to their career goals ranging from fishery policies to surfonomics to global marine litter issues. Some have traveled as far as Denmark, Kenya or Micronesia, while others have picked assignments closer by. We checked in with several of the fellows for a mid-summer report.

Working with the Environmental Defense Fund’s (EDF) Ocean Research team in San Francisco has been “amazing,” says Jessica Ann Morten (MAIEP ’15). She is working with the team on several ongoing fisheries policy projects but taking the lead on putting together a research paper on EDF’s global fishery management strategy.

Her classmate Trent Hodges (MAIEP ’15) has been working with the Save the Waves Coalition in Baja, Mexico, collaborating with community members, surfers and conservationists to envision and plan for a “future with healthy waves and a robust local economy.” Part of his work is to build capacity and develop a surfonomics research plan to capture the economic value of surfing. A highlight of his time in Baja was participating in the dedication of the Bahia Todos Santos Surfing Reserve with a paddle out of international and local surfers.

Also in Mexico is Sara Pfeifer (MAIEP ’15) who is working with Nature Conservancy on a cost-benefit analysis for development on the Costa Maya coast of Quintana Roo. Her fieldwork included a month-long journey along the coastline of southeastern Mexico.

Not too far away is Jordan Sanchez who is working with EcoViva in El Salvador. You can follow his work with local fishing cooperatives on his blog.

Another talented blogger is Matt Nichols (MAIEP ’14) who started the summer in Norway learning about the Norwegian Model for natural resource management and policy but has now moved across the Skagerak strait to Denmark where he will start his internship with Maersk Drilling.

Mairi Miller (MAIEP ’15) has spent the summer working on the Sherbro Island in Sierra Leone where she has been helping bolster efforts to combat illegal fishing through community engagement. Also in Africa is Kelsey Richardson who is working on issues related to global marine litter for the UN Environment Programme (UNEP). She says it is “a bit ironic to be here on a CBE fellowship and totally landlocked in Nairobi, but the nature of the work is exactly what brought me to MIIS, and I am continually challenged and learning more with every day.”

For more information about the CBE Fellowships and a complete listing of fellows, visit the CBE website.

Alumna Satomi Kobayashi: Around the World and Back Again

Anne-Marie Steiger asteiger@miis.edu Alumni, careers, Featured, language_teaching, newsroom, TFL
Alumna Satomi Kobayashi

Satomi Kobayashi (MATFL ’97).

Growing up in Japan, alumna Satomi Kobayashi (MATFL ’97) always dreamt of traveling the world and volunteering for the good of others. Her practical side led her to the field of language teaching and the Monterey Institute. It turned out to be the perfect environment for both interests.

“While I was still a student at MIIS, I got an offer too hard to resist,” she shares, adding that the offer was for a teaching position at a local private high school that included covering her tuition. While teaching at the high school, she joined Operation Crossroads of Africa and spent her summer setting up youth groups in one of the most impoverished areas of Malawi. She was hooked. The following year, Satomi was off to Nepal to work in the Bhutanese refugee camps. In 2001, she took a sabbatical from teaching and worked for a year as a volunteer for two non-profit organizations in Tanzania.

At that point Satomi was at a crossroads in her life, and her career. “I wanted a family and I also had to think about a steady income,” she says of her decision to return to teaching and to Monterey. “It was not an easy decision, but I realized that most of the people working in the field were either single or not living in the same country or area as their family.” Satomi currently works for the Defense Language Institute (DLI) in the test management division.

“I am very happy with the choices that I made,” she remarks and adds that working at DLI is a little like MIIS in that she gets “to learn about other cultures through differences in customs, food, or from anecdotes and life stories.” Her hope is to retire early and use her income to continue her volunteer work, to fulfill her wishes to “do something good for the community, country, or the world!” She values greatly the balance she has with her family life and job at DLI and says that none of that would have been possible without MIIS.

Alumnus Garvey McIntosh Shoots for the Stars Working at NASA

Anne-Marie Steiger asteiger@miis.edu Alumni, careers, Featured, IPS, newsroom
Garvey McIntosh with Leah Gowron

Garvey McIntosh (MAIPS ’03) with Alumni Relations Director Leah Gowron (MPA ’97).

Garvey McIntosh (MAIPS ’03) came to the Monterey Institute of International Studies from Japan, where he had been teaching for four years. The inspiration for this move was actually his father, a retired college professor who had attended a conference at MIIS, and proclaimed that this was the “exact place” for him! As it turns out, his father was right—and in many ways still is, because Garvey has remained actively involved as an alumnus and is now one of the leaders of the revitalized Washington D.C. MIIS alumni chapter.

Garvey is among those MIIS graduates who really can claim two different sets of classmates. He certainly left his mark on campus, earning his master’s degree in International Policy Studies while serving as Student Council president and working in the President’s Office, where he had the opportunity to interact with faculty, staff and students from all corners of campus. “I saw it as my role in a way to improve relations among everyone,” Garvey says.

That knack for facilitating connections is one of Garvey’s greatest strengths and he has used it, along with his other skills, to catapult into a very rewarding career with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). While at MIIS, Garvey received a Center for Nonproliferation Studies fellowship to work for the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons for close to a year and then he was off to Vietnam on a yearlong Boren fellowship. When he returned to complete his degree after two years away, he had the opportunity to gain a new set of classmates.

“I love my job,” Garvey says affably of his position as international programs specialist at NASA, noting that the majority of space and aeronautics missions today have an international component. He has traveled the world negotiating agreements on behalf of the U.S. government and NASA, and we can’t help but think that international scientific cooperation is in good hands.

For more stories from the current issue of the Communiqué newsletter, see the online edition.

Recent Alumnus Amer Barghouth: “MIIS Prepared Me Well” for Demanding New Career

Anne-Marie Steiger asteiger@miis.edu Alumni, careers, Environment, Featured, IEP, newsroom
Amer Barghouth

Recent MIIS graduate Amer Barghouth speaking at the December 2013 Energy Management Conference & Exhibition in Bahrain.

We always love to hear back from recent alumni who have realized their dreams for an exciting new career propelled by the training and education they received at MIIS. Amer Barghouth (MAIPS ’09, MAIEP ’13) received his job offer from the Regional Center for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (RCREEE), less than three weeks after graduating with a master’s degree in International Environmental Policy in 2013. While acknowledging that the job is demanding, he says happily, “I have always felt up to the task. My education at MIIS has prepared me well for this job.”

Amer first heard about the organization through Dr. Tareq Emtairah, executive director of RCREEE, who taught a workshop on sustainable urban transformation at MIIS. RCREEE is a regional nonprofit organization that provides policy advice, as well as technical and institutional support to 13 Arab governments. “My first assignment at RCREEE was to co-author a study commissioned by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) and the League of Arab States,” says Amer. The findings were presented at the World Future Energy Summit in January, and will guide IRENA’s future interventions in the region. Currently Amer is leading the Private Investment Promotion Program, which aims to identify and scale up profitable business models in sustainable energy in the Arab region. Furthermore, he will be the co-author of the Arab Future Energy Index (AFEX) report, an annual assessment of progress made by Arab countries in energy efficiency and renewable energy.

Four people report directly to Amer and he has to manage multiple budgets amounting to a hundred  thousand euros. In addition, he spends about one week per month on the road promoting energy efficiency and working with various governments and companies to increase the share of sustainable energy in the region. “Professor Zarsky’s and Shrimali’s classes in particular equipped me with the right mix of policy and business skills,” says Amer. He really enjoys his new career, especially “working with different stakeholders from young entrepreneurs to senior-level policymakers to create the right environment for rapid deployment of sustainable energy technologies and practices.”

MIIS Donor Challenge: Will Match with $25,000 if 250 Give in Next 25 Days

Anne-Marie Steiger asteiger@miis.edu Alumni, donors, Featured, newsroom
Donor Challenge

MIIS community members do the math on this exciting challenge!

The Monterey Institute community has been presented with an exciting challenge by long time Board Member and supporter Jed Smith. If 250 alumni and friends of the Institute make a gift of any size in the next 25 days, or from June 5 to June 30, he will match these gifts with $25,000 for financial aid.

Financial aid ensures that great students from all of backgrounds can come together at the Monterey Institute. It’s what makes a MIIS education possible for about 90% of our fantastic students. “I hope this match will inspire others throughout the Monterey Institute community to step up and show their support – MIIS needs us!” says the enthusiastic Jed Smith.

The challenge ends on June 30, so people are encouraged to match Jed Smith in this enthusiasm and give now at go.miis.edu/give. If you already gave this year, an additional gift made in June will still count towards the challenge. Remember any size gift counts!

Celebrating Outstanding Alumni: The MIIS 2014 Alumni Achievement Awardees

Bergthora Gudbergsdottir evag@miis.edu Alumni, newsroom
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Vladimir Cernavskis and Jennifer Ullman on the steps of the Alumni Office in Simoneau House before a celebration in their honor on May 16.  Ed Brzytwa was not able to attend Commencement this year.

This spring marks the third consecutive year of alumni, staff, faculty and friends nominating outstanding alumni for a trio of awards that acknowledge professional success, service, and other values important to the Institute. The Alumni Achievement Awards Review Committee, comprised of the provost, deans, student council representative, alumni relations director, one alumni influencer, and one faculty member met in February to review the numerous deserving nominations. After careful consideration and deliberation, the committee announced the following 2014 award recipients:

Distinguished Alumni Award: Mr. Ed Brzytwa, MACD ’03

Young Alumni Achievement Award:  Mr. Vladimir Cernavskis, MAIPS ’04

Alumni Volunteer Service Award: Ms. Jennifer Ullman, MAIPS ’93 

The 2014 Alumni Achievement Awards were presented during Spring Commencement as a way to acknowledge the many achievements of our alumni, and to demonstrate that our alumni truly live the motto of “Be the Solution.” While Ed was not able to attend Commencement, due to a commitment with a trade delegation negotiation in China, we happily celebrated Vladimir and Jennifer’s professional success and volunteer service to the Institute. Ed will receive his award later this year in Washington, DC.

For details about each awardee, check out their stories at alumni.miis.edu, and please mark your calendars for the 2015 award cycle in January—your nominations of our outstanding alumni are critical to the success of this program!

MIIS Alum Adnan Al-Hammody published

Adrienne Lubbert Alumni, careers, Language Education, Language Program Administration, Language Studies, MIIS Update, TESOL, TFL

MIIS Alum Adnan Al-Hammody, MA TESOL 2013, has recently been published. The paper is called When a Facebook Group Makes a Difference: Facebook for Language Learning, and was written during his time as a student at MIIS for Applied Linguistics Research and as part of his portfolio. The paper investigates what Iraqi students gain from interacting in English in a Facebook group in an EFL context.

Adnan’s paper was published by the e-journal English Language Teaching World Online (ELTWO), and can be found at this link: http://blog.nus.edu.sg/eltwo/2014/04/22/when-a-facebook-group-makes-a-difference-facebook-for-language-learning/.

Congratulations to Adnan!

Alumna Tricia Bean: Nurturing Her “Latin Soul” Through Love of Teaching

Anne-Marie Steiger asteiger@miis.edu Alumni, Featured, language_teaching, newsroom, TFL
Tricia Bean (MATFL ’96) and family

Tricia Bean (MATFL ’96) and family.

Growing up in Florida, Tricia Bean (MATFL ’96) had her curiosity about other countries and cultures sparked at a very early age. “I knew a lovely Cuban lady who told me stories about her native country,” says Tricia, adding that as a young girl she developed a desire to travel and master the beautiful Spanish language.

When she was fifteen she went to Maracay, Venezuela as an exchange student with American Field Service (AFS) and “fell in love with the people, the country, the music, the tradition, and the language.” She happily shares that her Venezuelan friends often said she was born in the wrong country with the “soul of a Latina.” She completed her junior year of college in Alcalá de Henares, Spain where Miguel de Cervantes, author of Don Quixote de la Mancha, was born.

The international community at MIIS proved the “perfect fit” for Tricia. As a student she worked part-time for the Santa Rita School District in Salinas, and upon graduation she was hired as a bilingual teacher to teach English Language Development (ELD), Spanish, and Spanish for Spanish speakers at Gavilan View Middle School in the district. Her passion and enthusiasm for sharing her love of language and interest in other cultures is inspiring.

During her time at Gavilan View, Tricia took students abroad with the People to People Student Ambassador Program, was honored with the Fulbright Teacher Exchange Scholarship, and spent a year teaching English in Baranquilla, Colombia. Today Tricia is “proud to be among the talented faculty and staff of Carmel High School,” where she and a colleague designed and implemented a program to better meet the literacy needs of native Spanish speakers.

She collaborates regularly with the Institute, bringing students to the Institute’s International Education Day activities each year, participating in local language teacher discussions and hosting MATFL practicum students in her classroom. “I enjoy being able to give back to the institution that has given me so much.”

MIIS Alumni Find Dream Jobs Come with Familiar Faces – Fellow MIIS Alumni

Bergthora Gudbergsdottir evag@miis.edu Alumni, careers, Featured, newsroom
alumni_enclaves

Thailand alumni – all part of the diplomatic corps — and their families gathered for a group photo.

A story we posted last year about alumni from the same era working at the U.S. Embassy in Turkey seems to have started a trend, spurring a flurry of e-mails from groups of MIIS alumni working closely together around the world!

Christine Carlson-Ajlani (MPA ’13) wrote to tell us about what she calls “the MIIS enclave” at the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Child Labor, Forced Labor, and Human Trafficking (OCFT) in the International Labor Affairs Bureau. After serving in the Peace Corps in Morocco as part of her MIIS Peace Corps Master’s International degree, Christine landed her “dream job” last year.

Christine attributes her success directly to the skills she learned in the Peace Corps and the instruction of professors Edgard Coly and Beryl Levinger. She recently helped secure a $5 million grant to combat child labor in Morocco and will be travelling back there to help create their monitoring and evaluation plan. When she arrived at her new job, she discovered that two out of 45 new colleagues also graduated from MIIS: Rachel Rigby (MBA ’03) and Lorena Davalos (MAIPS ’05).

A competitive fellowship program specifically designed to hire MBA graduates brought Rachel to the Department of Labor in her last year at MIIS; Lorena brought experience from working on youth employment issues in Brazil to the job. All three are tireless advocates of reducing child labor and forced labor around the world. As Christine says, “It’s pretty great working across the street from the Capitol Building in the heart of international policy making in D.C., especially with two other talented colleagues from MIIS!” 

Four classmates working in three different embassies in neighboring countries recently got together in Bangkok, Thailand. The hosts, Jennifer Green Matlock (MAIPS ’02) and her husband Dean Matlack (MPA ’01), both work at the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok. Yekta Noyan (MAIPS ’02) works for the Turkish Embassy in the same city. Their friend Darby Parliament (MAIPS ’03), who works at the U.S. Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, also flew over from Malaysia with his wife Adanys.

Another MIIS get-together was held in Berlin recently, when Lara (Tozawa) Sullivan (MAIPS ’02) and John Kastning (MATI ’05), who both work at the U.S. Embassy, met up with fellow MIIS alumna Nicola Kim (MAIPS ’05), who works in the Canadian Embassy.

For more stories from the Communiqué, check out our latest edition online.