Fellowship Program Highlights

Fellowship Program Highlights 2009 – 2010

Effective January 2011, this program is being phased out.

The Compton Foundation believes that long-term sustainability requires an investment in future leaders. To this end, Compton Foundation offers two fellowship programs that promote both experiential and academic learning for emerging leaders. These programs support exceptional individuals committed to catalyzing social and environmental change that will help bring about a sustainable and just world.

Compton International Fellowship

For over three decades Compton Foundation has supported an international fellowship program as a companion to its other grantmaking activities. From 1976 until 1999 the Foundation’s fellowships were awarded primarily to doctoral candidates from the United States pursuing degrees in world affairs. In 2000 the Foundation redesigned its fellowship program to focus exclusively on students from developing countries, primarily Central and South America and sub-Saharan Africa. The primary goals of the Compton International Fellowship Program are: 1) to increase and enhance professional capacity and collaboration in developing countries in the fields of Peace and Security, Population and Reproductive Health, and Environment and Sustainability; 2) to promote research-based linkages between these three fields which will be of practical and theoretical importance; and 3) to foster a network of scholars who will assume an engaged role in their country of origin or region. Since the program redesign in 2000, the Foundation has supported over 275 International Fellows from 40 countries. Examples of Compton International Fellows include:

Peace & Security

Reuben Chirambo is on the faculty at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. His research interests focus on African literature and postcoloniality. Reuben has continued to pursue interdisciplinary interests bridging literary studies, politics and peace-building. He recently published an article exploring issues of corruption, tribalism and democracy in Malawian popular music and he is teaching a graduate course on migration, identity and globalization. Dr. Chirambo has continued to pursue interests in peace building by serving as Africa Coordinator for ARK for Peace Program. This program brings together globally diverse youth to become architects of a culture of peace in their own communities and to construct a “new roadmap for peace.”

Environment & Sustainability

Dhyana Quintanar Solares is the Coordinator of the Bicycle Mobility Strategy for Mexico City, at the Secretariat of Environment. Dhyana has been coordinating the planning and execution of various initiatives to promote cycling as a mode of transport through infrastructure and cultural changes, with the goal of increasing the number of trips on bicycle from 1% in 2007 to 5% in 2012. Under Dhyana’s coordination, Mexico City has launched the first phase of its bicycle share program ECOBICI (the first of its kind in Latin America), changed traffic rules to give priority to pedestrians and cyclists, installed over 1,000 bicycle racks, and developed projects for 21.2 Km of fully segregated bicycle tracks, and other bike lane projects totaling over 1,000 new kilometers of streets with bicycle priority.

Population & Reproductive Health

Patricia Polo currently works as a researcher/lecturer at the Institute of Public Health at Catholic University in Quito. Patricia’s research focuses on how health and illness concepts and practices vary in rural areas of the Northern Ecuadorian Amazon (NEA). Working with indigenous groups, mestizos, and rural farmers, Patricia’s research examines how health and illness is encountered and addressed in relationship to the socio-political organization of communities. In concert with Ecuador’s new constitution and the development of regulations for a more inclusive and dignified health system, Patricia’s research will be presented to the Ministry of Public Health and will demonstrate that building health policy needs to take into account different but nested socio-political, historical and geographic context at local, regional, national and international scales.

Compton Mentor Fellowship

The Mentor Fellowship Program provides post-college opportunities for outstanding graduates from selected colleges and universities who seek to address environmental and social concerns. Under guidance from a Mentor who provides encouragement, expertise, and opportunities in their chosen fields, Fellows implement a year-long, self-directed project. Since the program’s inception in 2002, the Foundation has awarded 52 Compton Mentor Fellowships.

The work of Mentor Fellows broadly reflects the Foundation’s primary grantmaking interests in peace and security, population and reproductive health and environment and sustainability. Examples of how current Mentor Fellows are approaching these issues include:

Peace and Security

Juliana Valente is working with women reentering their community after having been incarcerated, providing support and promoting peace and conflict resolution skills in order to lower recidivism rates in Poughkeepsie, New York. Ms. Valente is also engaging at-risk youth in workshops informed by the experience of incarcerated women, with the aim of violence prevention and providing youth with alternatives to violence. Ms. Valente’s Mentor is Bonnie Allen, Project Director of the Dutchess Collaborative Reentry Project.

Population and Reproductive Health

Isaac Holeman is addressing obstacles confronting communities affected by HIV/AIDS in Malawi by launching FrontlineSMS:Medic, an initiative to allow health workers to access electronic medical records with old and prevalent mobile phones. The project plan also includes creating a comprehensive collection of text and video tutorials, and providing technical support to organizations and clinics using the technology. The resulting software and technical support will enable remote health workers to educate those affected by HIV/AIDS, and also gather clinical data that is more timely, accessible and complete. Ken Banks, founder of kiwanja.net and developer of FrontlineSMS, serves as Mr. Holeman’s Mentor.

Environment and Sustainability

Nadia Eghbal is working with Ceres and the Investors Network on Climate Risk (INCR), a leader in providing risk and opportunity information to investors. Ms. Eghbal helped organize the recent UN Summit on Climate Risk, and is continuing to partner with INCR to update and disseminate the organization’s publication for foundations, universities and individual investors. As part of this effort, she is reaching out to select universities to engage them in the process of addressing climate risk in their endowments. She is also currently developing climate-related screenings and research for Benchmark Assets Management. Ms. Eghbal’s Mentor is Joshua Humphreys, founding director of the Center for Social Philanthropy.

Please visit the Mentor Fellows website for a complete list of their projects.