Our Team
The Refugee REACH Initiative is housed within the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Professor Sarah Dryden-Peterson leads an interdisciplinary team of students and colleagues who work in practice, policy, and research toward the collective vision of creating welcoming communities and quality education in settings of migration and displacement.
Each fall, we welcome a new cohort of graduate student assistants who contribute a wide range of skills, experiences, and perspectives. Our application cycle is now closed. Click here for more ways to be involved.
Sarah Dryden-Peterson
Founder & Director
Sarah Dryden-Peterson is a Professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She leads a research program that focuses on the connections between education and community development, specifically the role that education plays in building peaceful and participatory societies. Her work seeks to connect practice, policy, and research and is strengthened through sustained collaborations with UN agencies, NGOs, and communities. Raised in Toronto, Canada, Dryden-Peterson has taught primary and middle school in Madagascar, South Africa, and the United States. Learn more about her academic research publications and her Mowana Research Lab.
Elizabeth Adelman
Co-Founder
Elizabeth Adelman is a Lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and Education Research Advisor for the International Rescue Committee. Adelman’s research explores the intersection of global strategies, national policies, and local experiences as they relate to the provision of education to students in conflict-affected settings. Her current work focuses on the experience of and supports for teachers in conflict settings and how they understand their roles and responsibilities with regards to refugee and displaced learners in their classrooms.
Vidur Chopra
Co-Founder
Vidur Chopra is the Bruce S. Goldberg Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Teachers College, Columbia University and a volunteer member of the REACH team. His research is cross-disciplinary, at the intersections of education, forced migration, and citizenship studies. He examines how education enables and complicates global, local, and transnational understandings of membership and belonging for youth affected and displaced by conflict, including youths’ conceptions of citizenship and membership and their strategies to navigate deeply unequal structures.
Hellen Zziwa
TEAM MEMBER
Hellen Zziwa provides portfolio and project management leadership for Harvard University IT (HUIT) Technology Partner Services Program. She has over 20 years of experience as an IT leader. She holds a B.Sc. in Electrical & Electronics Engineering from Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture & Technology (JKUAT), Kenya, and an M.Sc. in Communications & Signal Processing from Newcastle University, UK. Hellen is passionate about enabling access to quality education for refugees around the world through technology.
Hiba Salem
fellow, Together Project
Hiba Salem is a researcher in education and forced displacement, holding a Ph.D. in Education from the University of Cambridge. She recently completed a postdoctoral position at the University of Cambridge focusing on Syrian refugees’ experiences of learning in Jordan. Hiba has also acted as consultant on numerous evaluations and assessments on education in emergencies.
Bibi-Zuhra Faizi
fellow, Together Project
Bibi-Zuhra Faizi is a lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her research examines community-based education in settings of conflict and displacement with a focus on Afghanistan. She is passionate about culturally-informed and sustainable educational opportunities beyond standardized models for marginalized children. Dr. Faizi holds a B.A. in Linguistics from the University of Colorado Boulder, an M.A. in International Political Economy from the Colorado School of Mines, an Ed.M. in International Education Policy from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and an Ed.D. in Culture, Communities, and Education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. At Harvard, Dr. Faizi served as an associate at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs and as an editor for the Harvard Educational Review.
Celia Reddick
fellow, together project
Celia Reddick is a Lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and the Faculty Lead for the Chen Yidan Visiting Global Fellows Program. In her research on multilingualism and refugee education, Celia examines how schools influence the futures open to young people affected by migration and conflict, and the ways diverse education stakeholders navigate competing educational aims during moments of uncertainty. Previously, Celia worked as a teacher of newcomer students in New York City, and with teachers navigating shifting language-in-education policies in Uganda and Rwanda. She has also conducted research with diverse organizations, including UNHCR and Save the Children. She earned her PhD in Education from Harvard University.
Alebachew Kemisso Haybano
fellow, Postdoctoral Fellow
Alebachew Kemisso Haybano is an Assistant Professor and a faculty member in the Center for Comparative Education and Policy Studies (CCEPS) at Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia. He holds a Ph.D. in International and Comparative Education from Addis Ababa University. Currently he is a postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard University Center for African Studies. He is also an inaugural fellow in the Open Society University Network (OSUN) East African Hub. His research focuses on how national education systems deal with issues of identity development and the integration/inclusion of refugees. He has consulted with various organizations including the Danish Refugee Council, Jesuit Refugee Service, UNICEF, Education International, and UNHCR, among others, on studies related to refugees in across sub-Saharan Africa.
Mervi Kaukko
Fellow, Together Project
Mervi Kaukko visits REACH as a Fulbright Senior Scholar during 2022-2023. Originally a primary school teacher, Mervi works as an Associate Professor of Multicultural Education at Tampere University, Finland. Mervi’s current research projects explore what educational success looks like in the eyes of refugee students; how former unaccompanied youth in Finland, Norway and Scotland build relational wellbeing in their new communities; and how participatory and arts-based methods can be used with different groups of refugees. At Harvard, Mervi works with Sarah Dryden-Peterson in a project entitled Schools of Welcome: Learning From Refugee- and Non-Refugee Students About What Makes a Welcoming Community.
Hania Mariën
fellow, together project
Hania Mariën is a PhD student in the Culture, Institutions and Society concentration at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Her work focuses on Critical Participatory Action Research (CPAR) with 3rd-5th grade students, and how they make sense of power and act on (in)justice in the context of these projects. She has worked as a Curriculum Development Specialist and Youth Library Development Specialist for the Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization in Portland, OR, as an after school program educator at a bilingual community school in Salem, Oregon, and as the co-founder of Imagining More Just Futures, a social justice education project for elementary school children.
Click here to learn more about Hania’s work.
Shelby Carvalho
political economy and policy fellow
Shelby Carvalho is a Ph.D. student and Fulbright recipient in the Government department at Harvard University. Her dissertation examines the political economy of refugee education in low- and middle-income countries. Before beginning her doctoral work, Shelby taught high school and worked for the World Bank and UN Education Commission. She has also worked with UNHCR, the Center for Global Development, and with the IRC on issues related to political economy, education, and migration. Shelby holds a master’s in Global Policy Studies from UT Austin and an Ed.M. in Education Policy from HGSE.
Click here to learn more about Shelby’s work.
Ahmed Badr
fellow, together project
Ahmed Badr is the founder of Narratio, which delivers the only U.S. based program building cohorts of resettled refugee youth Fellows to shape and influence the global conversation around displacement and cultural production. As an author and multimedia artist, Ahmed explores the complexities of migration, identity, and self-expression, with a focus on re-framing and reclaiming the power of tragedy. His multimedia projects include the UNPACKED: Refugee Baggage exhibit, VPM/NPR’s Resettled podcast, the While the Earth Sleeps We Travel book, and the World Bank’s Youth4ClimateLive Series, among others. Ahmed received an Ed.M. from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, an Adrian Cheng Fellowship from Harvard Kennedy School, and a B.A. in Anthropology from Wesleyan University. He is a National Geographic Young Explorer and a UN Young Leader for the Sustainable Development Goals. Learn more here.
Sharmeen Maronesy
Curriculum and communications
Sharmeen Maronesy is a Master’s candidate at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She is currently studying Education Policy and Analysis with a concentration in Global, International and Comparative Education. Sharmeen has worked as a program facilitator for children and families in refugee camps and areas of resettlement, and focuses on providing and enhancing educational opportunities for women and children who are experiencing forced displacement.