Bob Handelman
Max Townsend
Nova Scotia, Canada
MPP in Global Affairs
How did you spend your time between undergrad and the Jackson School of Global Affairs?
I worked at a bank in New York for a couple years, and then moved to Washington, where I joined the World Bank’s private-sector arm—the International Finance Corporation (IFC). At IFC I helped manage investment projects which had fallen into financial distress or legal challenge. Our team worked across all different industries and geographies: from telecom companies in sub-Saharan Africa to transport infrastructure in Southeast Asia, and everything in between.
What made you decide to apply to the school?
I wanted to use graduate school as an opportunity to deepen my knowledge in certain areas where I’d had previous professional exposure, but also to take the courses I felt like I had missed during my undergraduate studies. The flexibility of the Jackson School and its integration with the rest of Yale was a big part of my eventual decision to attend. I’ve benefited immensely from taking policy-oriented seminars with people like Robert Ford and Sigga Benediktsdottir, language study with both the French and German departments, and courses in the economics, history, and political science departments. The time has completely surpassed my expectations.
What are your future plans?
I’m returning to the World Bank through its leadership development program, first in Washington, but then hopefully abroad. I was based in Kinshasa with IFC during my interim summer at Jackson and it would be great to continue to work overseas. Work doesn’t begin until September, so I’m headed on an extended backcountry canoe trip across the Canadian Arctic with a fellow graduating student in the meantime.
Bob Handelman
Isiuwa Omoigui
Los Angeles, CA
Jonathan Edwards College
BA in Political Science and Ethnicity, Race, and Migration
What did you write about for your senior theses?
For the political science one, I did a yearlong essay, just thinking about punishment and how to account for people’s social context. For ER&M, I’ve always been very interested in French language, culture, history—particularly Africans’ experience in mainland France—so I looked at the history of the October 17, 1961, massacre of peaceful Algerian protesters in Paris: what it means to belong as people from formerly colonized areas in the metropole, and how ideas of belonging and citizenship are racialized.
What sort of things did you do outside of class?
For the past four years, I’ve been in the Yale Gospel Choir. Singing was always something that I wanted to try. It was a really beautiful experience, and I was the president in my final year. I’ve also been involved with the Politic, the undergrad political journal. Writing is a big love of mine. So I wrote and was managing editor there. I was a peer liaison at the African American cultural center, mentoring Black first-years, welcoming them to Yale—and that’s been really fruitful and fulfilling. I’ve also been involved in the Yale Undergraduate Prison Project, and I was cohead of the End Solitary Confinement campaign. I was a writing partner at the Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning, giving constructive feedback on people’s papers and assignments, and this past year, I got to be a lead, running workshops, contributing to admin and training.
What are you planning to do after graduation?
I’ll be enrolling at Columbia Law.
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