Meet the IRC-Zolberg Fellows for Fall 2019

The IRC and The Zolberg Institute on Migration and Mobility at The New School are excited to announce the fall 2019 cohort of fellows. Supported by the Arnhold Foundation, master’s and doctoral students at The New School have the opportunity to contribute or lead design and research projects at the IRC, at headquarters and in the field.

Since 2017, fellows have worked at the IRC on a range of teams including policy, innovation, research, health, governance, and emergency response. Fellows have a wide range of experience, and come from the Parsons School of Design, School of Nonprofit and Public Management, and other New School departments.

Learn more about the fellowship.

Erin Johnson, MA of International Affairs, Julien J. Studley Graduate Programs in International Affairs

Working in IRC’s Emergency Unit, Erin Johnson will be developing various models to support stronger engagement, communication, and feedback between the IRC and communities in early onset and acute humanitarian emergencies.

Erin is a Montana native and new New Yorker who has based her career in education and refugee relief. She first started working with refugees in Amman, Jordan, where she studied development economics and had a fellowship with Collateral Repair Project. After returning and completing her undergraduate degree, Erin served with Americorps, which took her from Montana to Boston to D.C. to Wichita. She taught math and science to English-language learners with City Year Boston, as well as serving in the organization’s Service Reserves. She subsequently worked for the Plan International USA Global Women in Management conference in Washington, DC. She then moved to Kansas, where she worked in adult education with the International Rescue Committee in Wichita. She is currently pursuing her Master’s degree in International Affairs, and is very daunted at the idea of staying in one place for such a long time. In her free time, Erin loves to read, craft, and re-read.

Lina Jaramillo, PhD in Public and Urban Policy, Milano School of Policy, Management, and Environment

Lina is a Colombian research-activist with five years of experience supporting organizations with management of operations and academic research. Lina will be responsible for scoping and supporting the design of early stage innovations at the Airbel Impact Lab, including refugee resettlement, emergency response to the Ebola outbreak, and leveraging data science, machine learning, and artificial intelligence to improve humanitarian response efforts.

Her previous work experience helps her to explore the connections between disciplines that allow to build new knowledge based on socially innovative research approaches, while supporting vulnerable communities in the south pacific of Colombia. Lina was able to design methodological guidelines centered on design thinking and social innovation to work with women victims of armed conflict on economic empowerment and psychological healing. She is interested in research with public incidence, storytelling that creates empathy, human-centered design thinking and social justice through public policy.

Lina holds a Masters in Management for Social Innovation and an undergraduate degree in Political Science and International Relations from Icesi University in Cali, Colombia.

Olivia Friedman, M.A. Psychology, New School for Social Research

Olivia is a first-year MA Psychology student with a focus on Global Mental Health. Working closely with Airbel’s communications and knowledge management team, Olivia will capture stories and create visuals which will better communicate innovative new projects and key research findings.

Olivia has a background in the User Experience, Software Development, and Apparel Design industries. Olivia received a BS in Fiber Science & Apparel Design from Cornell University in 2018. She is eager to channel her design background into her work in Global Mental Health and is interested in studying new ways in which technology can be incorporated into trauma intervention techniques to support vulnerable populations.

Weston Finfer, MA in Liberal Studies, New School for Social Research

Weston is a current Liberal Studies MA candidate at the New School for Social Research. His current research is focused on algorithmic randomness and complexity, and how that maps on to the practical usage of computation in every day interactions. As a Zolberg-IRC fellow, Weston will be researching an end-to-end analysis of pharmaceutical supply chains at IRC.

Evan Neuwirth, Kendall Pfeffer, Anjali Bhalodia, and Douglas de Toledo Piza will be continuing their fellowship into fall 2019.