Recent Duke University Graduates Selected for International Fellowships

DURHAM, N.C. -- Duke University's Hart Leadership Program has selected its 2003-2004 Hart Fellows, who are placed with organizations throughout the developing world to conduct research and fieldwork on pressing policy issues.

Each fellow's work falls under one of two categories: "International Health Policy and Social Medicine" or "Globalization, Poverty and Democracy in a Community Context."

This year's fellows, as well as their hometowns and work project, are:

-- Sona Chikarmane, from Hazleton, Pa., who graduated from Duke this spring with a bachelor's degree in her self-designed curriculum "Culture and Medicine: Global Perspectives," and a minor in chemistry. She will work in two residential treatment centers for substance abusers and people living with HIV/AIDS: Sahara House in Delhi, India, and the Freedom Foundation in Bangalore, India.

During her time at Duke, Chikarmane was actively involved with Students of the World, a documentary and community service student group, and traveled to Cuba and Peru to address humanitarian issues. She had summer internships with the government agency Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to design health disparities initiatives; and with the Duke Leadership in an Aging Society Program to explore cultural issues in death and dying.

-- Chad Hazlett, from Pittsburgh, Pa., who graduated from Duke in May 2002 with a bachelor of science degree in psychology and a certificate in neuroscience. He will spend his fellowship working in Udaipur, India, with Seva Mandir, a non-governmental organization working on rural development issues.

Hazlett has worked for several years at the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience at Duke writing research papers and designing experiments and analysis tools. Recently he traveled to Mexico to learn about the lives of maquiladora workers through interviews with employees, managers, and community organizations. In the fall of 2002, he spent two months traveling in South India studying a wide range of social, health-related, economic and political issues.

-- Carl James, from Riverdale, Md., who graduated from Duke this spring with a bachelor's degree in his self-designed course of study, "Health Issues in Developing Countries." During his fellowship, he will work in Moshi, Tanzania, with KIWAKKUKI (the Swahili acronym for Women Against AIDS in Kilimanjaro). KIWAKKUKI's activities include the operation of an AIDS community information center; community HIV/AIDS education activities; material support and home visits by trained volunteers to HIV-positive individuals, their families and orphaned children; and skills-training and income-generating activities for people affected by AIDS.

James has held summer internships with the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In the spring of his junior year, he spent an academic semester in Kampala, Uganda, where he completed an independent research practicum while working with a rural non-governmental organization that offers medical and counseling services to people living with HIV/AIDS.

-- Seth Napier, from Verona, Italy, who graduated from Duke this spring with a major in biology and a minor in comparative area studies. He will be working in Battambang, Cambodia, with the organization Homeland, which works to improve the standard of living and well-being of vulnerable children and families.

Napier spent a year volunteering in a Romanian orphanage prior to enrolling at Duke. At Duke, he performed field-based research on the challenges of aiding street children in Bamako, Mali, and spent a summer in rural Kenya as a tutor and mentor to children living in an at-risk environment ravaged by AIDS.

-- Laura Thornhill from Roanoke, Va., who graduated from Duke this spring with a major in public policy and minors in Spanish and English. Thornhill will be working with Seva Mandir in Udaipur, India.

As part of the Hart Leadership Program's Service Opportunities in Leadership program in 2001, she worked in Chicago to produce a child-care needs assessment for a program providing transitional housing and support services for battered Latina immigrants and their children. At Duke, Thornhill has been an active staff member of Project WILD, serving as a crew leader for wilderness backpacking trips and as director of the organization's house course on experiential education. She has studied abroad in Costa Rica, Bolivia and England.