Meet the IRC-Zolberg Fellows for Summer 2023
The IRC and the Zolberg Institute on Migration and Mobility at The New School are excited to announce the summer 2023 cohort of fellows. Supported by the Arnhold Foundation, master’s and doctoral students at The New School have the opportunity to contribute to or lead design and research projects at the IRC.
Since 2017, fellows have worked at the IRC on a range of teams including policy, innovation, research, health, governance, and emergency response amongst others. Fellows have a wide range of experience, and come from the Parsons School of Design, the School of Social Research, the School of Nonprofit and Public Management, the School of Global Affairs, and other New School departments. Learn more about the fellowship.
Ana Beatrix Trejos, Julien J. Studley School of Global Affairs, International Affairs, MA, 2024
Ana Beatrix Trejos holds a BA in Political Science & Dance from Barnard College of Columbia University. There, her research focused on Urban Violence and the effects that it has on the population, as well as how dance reflects social and political movements, with a specific focus on Latin America and Brazil. She previously worked at AtlasIntel as a Research and Political Risk Analyst, where she covered multiple election cycles like the 2022 Brazilian Presidential elections, 2022 US Midterms, and 2022 Chilean Constitution Referendum. She is also the co-founder of Conselheira 101 (Board Member 101), a Brazilian non-profit program aiming to amplify the awareness and voices of black and indigenous leadership, where she was responsible for creating the course program, internal communications, and translations. Ana’s research interests include humanitarian aid and different forms of education, like arts and culture, in situations of crisis, with a focus on fieldwork and data analysis.
As the PlayMatters Research Fellow, Ana will directly support the regional research and Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning teams to design, implement, and disseminate IRC-led PlayMatters research, monitoring, evaluation and learning activities that are taking place in Ethiopia, Uganda and Tanzania. Playmatters is an education initiative funded through the LEGO Foundation that cultivates holistic learning for children ages 3–12+ whose education and social development has been affected by displacement and trauma. She will work closely with the regional team and country-based teams in support of quality evidence-building and actionable learning activities in support of moving PlayMatters forward on the Path to Scale, in addition to closely coordinating with Education Researchers from IRC’s Airbel Impact Lab.
Ayman Mir, Parsons School of Design, Transdisciplinary Design, MFA, 2024
Ayman is currently pursuing an MFA in Transdisciplinary Design from Parsons School of Design, and has a background in Visual Communication Design. She has previously worked with the National Rural Support Program, Punjab Public Health Agency, and McCann Pakistan in areas related to Advertising, Public Health Outcomes, Participatory Design, and Design-Led Social Justice. As a graduate student at Parsons, Ayman has worked with multiple organizations such as: Equity for Children, The Village on Staten Island, IBM, Wheel The World, and Supernature Labs. Additionally, she works as a Research Assistant, as well as a Teaching Assistant to faculty and has a key interest in academia. Ayman’s research focuses on the visibility and mobility within immigrant communities, visual culture, community engagement, and design-solutions/negotiations for marginalized groups.
As the Southeast Asia Private Sector Engagement Fellow, Ayman will be contributing to scaling up the IRC’s livelihoods work in Pakistan and Bangladesh and will work closely with the Economic Recovery and Development (ERD) Technical Unit. The ERD units in Bangladesh & Pakistan have identified partnerships with the private sector as an approach to bolstering sustainable livelihoods services to vulnerable populations, with a focus on women’s safe employment in Pakistan. Ayman will support the mapping of medium and large sized companies across Bangladesh and Pakistan, in the sectors of: agriculture, fisheries, livestock, hospitality, construction, textile, tourism, and banking among others. She will also draft a private sector engagement strategy and help develop communications materials across stakeholders.
Azra Tanović, Milano School of Policy Management and Environment, Public and Urban Policy, PhD, 2025
Azra holds an MSc in Civil and Environmental Engineering degree with a concentration in Environmental and Water Resources Engineering from Tufts University (2018), and two BA degrees from the University of Miami (2017). She has 6+ years of international research, advocacy, and project design and implementation experience in the environmental field (with diverse expertise, ranging from water security to climate resilience), particularly in conflict and post-conflict settings. As a doctoral student at The New School, Azra has worked with the Tishman Environment and Design Center as a Research Fellow and Project Manager for the Equity Workgroup of the New York City Panel on Climate Change (NPCC). Her doctoral research focuses on the nexus of environmental violence and justice in post-conflict countries, leveraging a decolonial approach to reformulate the notion of climate security ‘from below.’
As the Research & Advocacy Fellow, Climate Innovation, Azra will support the Airbel Impact Lab’s Climate Resilience Global Research and Innovation Priority team, which generates and adapts solutions to increase the resilience of agro-pastoral livelihoods in the areas hardest hit by climate change and conflict. Her work will focus specifically on synthesizing learnings across seed security improvement projects in Northeast Syria, Pakistan, South Sudan, and Niger. Azra will finalize a set of four Seed Security Solutions Reports and develop four brief Seed Security Case Studies, which will culminate in the creation of a blog post centered around advocacy messaging ahead of the UN Climate Change Conference. Throughout the Fellowship, Azra will also sit in on workshops with technical country program staff, user-centered designers, behavioral scientists, strategists, and researchers, all working to leverage client feedback and co-create new and adapted solutions to address seed system challenges in fragile contexts.
Connor Smith, The New School for Social Research, Politics, PhD, 2025
Connor holds a BA in International Relations from the College of William and Mary (2014) and an MA in Political Theory from the University of Ljubljana (2018). Prior to beginning his PhD in Politics at the New School, Connor worked for the Open Society Foundations Strategy Unit Innovation Lab, as well as in strategy-focused roles for non-profit and consulting organizations. He has also worked for two U.S. Embassies in Southeast Asia and conducted research focused on sub-municipal governance in the Western Balkans. As a graduate student at the New School, Connor has worked with the Zolberg Institute on Migration and Mobility as a Melamid Doctoral Fellow, where he supported a global organization focused on strategic litigation for refugee rights and led a research project investigating non-citizen voting legislation in New York City. As a Teaching Fellow, he has led the Advanced Research Seminar: Constructed Environments course for students at the Parsons School of Design. He also serves as a Research Assistant for the Parsons Design for Social Innovation and Sustainability (DESIS) Lab and has completed a Design Studies graduate minor. His primary research interests include global human mobility infrastructures, theories of democracy and political community, and applied participatory design in social/political contexts.
As the Anticipatory Action Research Fellow, Connor will work closely with the Governance Technical Unit to directly support implementation of the learning and research component of an anticipatory action project that addresses urban flooding in Nigeria. There is increased evidence that early warning systems and anticipatory action can mitigate humanitarian impacts of a disaster, however, there is still substantial learning needed to inform how best to design anticipatory action interventions for climate change in urban areas. Through literature reviews, the generation of user journeys, the creation and review of data collection tools, analysis of qualitative and quantitative contextual data, and the drafting of a research report section, Connor will contribute to the rigorous learning and research needed to measure the effectiveness of this project’s pilot and understand its pathways of change
Hermann Derwanz, New School for Social Research, Politics, PhD, 2025
Hermann Derwanz is a Ph.D. student at the New School for Social Research in New York City. He holds an M.A. in Politics from the same institution (2022) and was a Fulbright Scholar from Germany (2021–22). He has previously worked as a data analyst and a quantitative researcher in the higher education and public consulting sectors. Additionally, as a graduate student at the New School, Hermann has gained experience as a Research Assistant on multiple projects. His primary area of interest is the history and theory of international relations, with a particular focus on post-war institution-building, the decline of empires, and theories of decolonization.
As the Crisis Analysis Fellow, Hermann will be a core member of the Global Crisis Analysis team, contributing to a range of high-profile internal and external reports that aim to provide actionable analysis of the drivers and impacts of humanitarian crises. He will work on briefings for senior leaders and regular short- and long-form thematic reports, as well as support on updates to the methodology for the annual IRC Emergency Watchlist, which details the countries the IRC believes are at greatest risk of a major deterioration in the humanitarian situation over the coming year. Hermann will also gain practical experience applying qualitative and quantitative analysis skill sets within the humanitarian sector, as well as experience presenting such analysis to senior internal and external audiences.
Kari Fuentes Quinteros, Parsons School of Design, Transdisciplinary Design, MFA, 2024
Kari is a passionate individual currently pursuing a Master of Fine Arts in Transdisciplinary Design at Parsons. She has a background blending arts, philosophy, and science from The Pontifical Catholic University of Chile. Kari has embarked on numerous research projects and collaborations that delve into the power of the creative process. Her focus lies in exploring narratives of memory, compassion, intimacy, and identity, as she believes in the transformative potential of these themes. By leveraging storytelling and design tools, Kari is committed to contributing alongside communities, empowering individuals, and fostering their active participation. She hopes to connect her personal interests with her creative practice, so that she can contribute to the realization of futures that are more inclusive and equitable.
As the Financial Inclusion Fellow, Kari will closely work with the Economic Recovery and Development Technical Unit to develop a Digital and Financial Literacy curriculum specifically tailored to low literacy and crisis-impacted populations, a current gap within the humanitarian and development spheres. To advance the IRC’s understanding of the use of shock-resilient credit for business owners, Kari will also perform a literature review of current and past shock-resilient assistance programs and services to business owners, as well as map out the various climate-related financial services/business continuity assistance in Pakistan and Bangladesh available to climate-impacted business owners and smallholder farmers. This work will ultimately lead to the drafting of a concept paper about shock-resilient credit programming.
Eben Rose, Patrick Cleary, and Marianna Poyares will be continuing their Spring 2023 fellowships into Summer 2023, and Jennie Spector will be continuing her Fall 2022 and Spring 2023 fellowship into Summer 2023.
