Panther Alier, MA SID'07
Country Director, Smile Again Africa Development Organization
Two decades after Panther Alier, MA SID’07, fled his home during Sudan’s devastating civil war in 1987, he finally returned home to his village of Bor in South Sudan.
He traveled from refugee camp to refugee camp through Ethiopia and Kenya, separated from his aunt and siblings, before finally resettling in the United States in 2001. It was a struggle to acclimate to his new country—but eventually, he earned a bachelor’s degree from UMass-Boston and started to earn a comfortable living. He gained U.S. citizenship. No one could fault him for staying.
But that’s not what Alier wanted. He chose to pursue a master’s degree in sustainable international development at Heller so he could find a job that would take him back to Sudan.
“My goal was always to return and help communities back home,” he says. “I went back with the euphoria of going to make drastic changes.”
Rodrigo Moran, MA SID'16
Technology for Development Manager for Central America, Creative Associates International
When Rodrigo arrived at Heller in 2014, the school “exceeded my expectations, which were high,” he says. “It was exactly the type of program I wanted, to understand all dimensions of international development. I met some of the most fantastic individuals—I pretty much have a friend or colleague in almost 100 countries now.”
Jarnail Singh, MA SID'13
India Director, The Climate Group
“The skills I gained at Heller allowed me to grow within my organization,” he says. “The Climate Group wanted a strategist who could look beyond the obvious. The leadership traits I picked up during my time at Heller—coupled with technical knowledge—that’s what did the trick.”
Dorcas Wepukhulu, MA SID’11
Co-Founder, African Storybook Project
Before joining Heller’s Sustainable International Development (SID) program as a Ford Foundation International Fellow in 2009, Dorcas Wepukhulu, MA SID’11, taught high school for 16 years in rural Kenya. In these arid regions, social services are rare and age-appropriate children’s books in local languages even rarer. While a student at Heller, Wepukhulu met Judith Baker, a Boston classroom teacher who was also concerned with meeting children’s literacy needs in Africa.
Together, in 2011 they conceptualized the African Storybook Project, an organization that provides access to large quantities of age- and language-appropriate digital reading materials for young children in Africa.
Sarah Zoen, MA SID'06
Senior Policy Advisor, Oxfam America
“How do you get a company to listen to you?”
That’s the question Sarah Zoen, MA SID’06, tackles every day at Oxfam America. As a senior policy advisor in the private sector department, she works to hold major companies, from Amazon to Coca-Cola, accountable for the human and environmental impacts of their businesses.