Meet the 2024-2025 Global Community Fellowship cohort!
Brianna Avila
BEAM Education Foundation
Raised in the agricultural city of Salinas, California, Brianna witnessed firsthand the educational disparities faced by students in her community. Her early experiences strengthened her understanding of the need for accessible and equitable education for all communities. Beginning her academic journey at Hartnell College, Brianna worked with her college to create avenues for first-generation students aspiring to transfer to California universities. Alongside working towards an associate degree, she actively engaged with local organizations committed to empowering underrepresented groups. Once receiving an associate’s degree, Brianna transferred to the University of California, Santa Barbara, to pursue her bachelor of science in psychology and brain science. In undergrad, she further developed her leadership skills and became the first university graduate in her family.
Brianna deeply values cross-cultural communication and believes that fostering understanding and empathy across diverse backgrounds is essential for creating successful educational programs. Driven by these values, she sought organizations that reflected her principles, ultimately leading her to the VIA program. At BEAM, Brianna is excited to mediate access to higher education for the diverse students from Myanmar. Brianna hopes to represent the diversity of the United States abroad while she explores other cultures in Thailand. Her dedication to education and community engagement will propel her to assist students in reaching their personal, academic, and career goals.
Anny Lin
Parami University
Raised in China during her early years, Anny Lin immigrated to a small town in Vermont at the age of five. There, she spent her adolescent years navigating through the intricacies of being a daughter of immigrants, an ESL student, and a Chinese-American girl living in predominantly white, English-speaking spaces. For Anny, these early experiences fostered her hopes for creating social change through cross-cultural learning and connection-building.
In 2023, Anny received a BA in International Affairs with a concentration in International Development from George Washington University (GWU), becoming the first university graduate in her family. During her undergraduate career, Anny took a course on equitable development in Southeast Asia, which spurred her interest in the region, and most recently, led her to complete a senior thesis that focused on the wellbeing of Rohingya refugee teachers in Bangladesh.
At GWU, Anny was heavily involved with First Gen United, where she supported first-generation college students through mentorship and advocacy. Recently, Anny completed a fellowship with Global Campaign for Education-US, where she supported advocacy strategies, and partnerships with US government agencies, congressional offices and civil society to bolster support for international basic education programs.
As a Program Progression Advisor at Parami University, Anny is excited to build meaningful connections with her students, and to support them in leveraging their liberal arts education to shape their learning during their time at Parami and beyond! Throughout her VIA Fellowship, she is looking forward to expanding her understanding of Burmese and Thai languages, histories, and cultures.
Alexandra Dingle
Parami University
Alexandra (Alex) Dingle grew up in New York City, where she was constantly surrounded by people from all over the world. Her upbringing, alongside visiting her family in Greece every summer, piqued her global engagement and desire to listen to different stories and hear about backgrounds. Wanting to immerse herself somewhere on the ground after graduating high school, Alex became the sole fellow on the Tufts 1+4 Bridge Year program to go to Pune, India with Global Citizen Year. There, she learned about the power of education firsthand by working in a government school with Teach for India. Her experience inspired her to work in the Eleonas refugee camp in Athens, Greece during the summer of 2020. While she was organizing activities for young children from many different countries, she understood the power of play in social cohesion efforts.
Upon arrival to Tufts in the fall of 2020, Alex decided to pursue her majors in International Relations (Identity) concentration and Middle Eastern Studies with minors in Arabic and Child Study and Human Development. She wanted to take her experiences to the classroom and build on skills to bring back to the ground. During her time at Tufts, Alex was heavily involved with the Middle East Research Group and other programs through Tisch College. She was also accepted into the Laidlaw Research and Leadership Program to pursue research on children’s play in refugee camps in Greece, which led her to spend a summer working with UNICEF, and the work culminated in her senior honors thesis. Wanting to immerse herself and learn from people in community firsthand, Alex spent a year studying abroad in Amman, Jordan with SIT: Refugees, Health, and Humanitarian Action and the Middlebury School in Jordan. Her time there was transformative and further pushed her to reconsider traditional protection and education structures upon her return to Tufts.
After graduation, Alex is excited to work with Parami University as a Program Progression Adviser and learn directly from her students and new community. She hopes to continue understanding different approaches to education in challenging situations and to support her students to develop into change-makers for their community. She is eager to better delve into understanding causes for transnational migration and engage in cross-cultural immersion.
Janhvi Kulkarni
Parami University
Janhvi was born in Pune in Maharashtra, India. After six years of moving around India, she immigrated with her family to North Carolina. Growing up, Janhvi found her identity to be a patchwork quilt of interests, fueled by a curiosity about people and experiences the world has to offer. At UNC-Chapel Hill, Janhvi spent three years as an Advocate at the Community Empowerment Fund, a nonprofit dedicated to ending the racial wealth gap by supporting community members in achieving financial, employment, and housing goals. She felt great joy in connecting with members and cheering on their successes. She also gained a deep understanding of barriers people face due to NC’s housing crisis and inequitable neighborhoods.
In 2022, she graduated with degrees in Computer Science and Psychology, her heart set on finding ways to continue engaging with her community. Since then, Janhvi worked full-time as the Program Coordinator at Kiran, serving South Asian people in NC affected by domestic violence. There, she felt she made an impact on the lives of survivors and learned about challenges survivors experience from a lack of supportive community structures.
Janhvi is excited to work at Parami University as a Program Progression Advisor and delighted by the opportunity to exchange experiences, knowledge, and culture with her Parami students and coworkers through music, food, and more. She anticipates that living and working in Chiang Mai will also broaden her perspective on cities around the world, which will aid her in her aspirations of building stronger, bountiful communities.
Navya Mohan
Parami University
Navya Mohan graduated from the University of Maryland in May 2024 with a double degree in Public Policy and Marketing, in addition to a citation in Public Leadership. She is committed to community engagement, and spent her college years leading adventure trips around the east coast and volunteering as a peer crisis counselor. She is passionate about education justice, exhibited through her experiences teaching and camp counseling in addition to her years of nonprofit development and private sector corporate social responsibility work.
An avid board gamer and proud older sister, Navya is passionate about exploring, mentoring, and forging connections.She is a passionate changemaker with a love for storytelling. She hopes to forge a strong sense of community in Chiang Mai while developing a deeper understanding of Southeast Asian education equity through direct experience. She hopes to use this experience to continue building a career in international education equity.
