Friends of The DateKeepers
Welcome to our "people collection," also known as our Friends Page. Our Friends offer a diverse array of goods and services, communicate in more than 50 languages, and are busy breaking ground in many fields. They say the enemy of your enemy is your friend, but they forgot to mention that the friend of your friend is also your friend. Do you want Our Friends to be Your Friends? Apply here!
Arts & Letters
Joanne B. Mulcahy
MA, PhD
Joanne B. Mulcahy is an essayist and biographer. Her award- winning essays have appeared in many journals and anthologies. For over thirty years, she taught creative nonfiction at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon and in prisons, libraries, and elsewhere in the US and overseas.
Terese Svboda
MFA
Author of 24 books, Terese Svboda has published in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New York Times, and The Paris Review, won the Guggenheim, the O. Henry, the Bobst Prize, the Graywolf Nonfiction Prize, and three New York Foundation for the Arts awards, and taught at Columbia, William and Mary, the New School, and elsewhere.
Tamara Nemirovsky,
MFA
Award-winning filmmaker, animator, and educator Tamara Nemirovsky has achieved international recognition for her stop-motion films and, more recently, for the documentary Second Chances, which follows four individuals attempting to recover from addiction during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Laurie Sheck,
MFA
Laurie Sheck has written three novels and five books of poems and published in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Paris Review, and elsewhere. She’s been a Guggenheim Fellow, a Radcliffe Fellow, and a Cullman Center Fellow and has taught at Princeton, Columbia, Rutgers, and the New School.
Rathin Kanji
​
Rathin Kanji has held shows and exhibitions around the world: Hong Kong, Miami, Dubai, Rome, New York, Paris, Istanbul, and elsewhere. His works can be viewed at UMMA Museum of Art, Michigan, Museum of Bengal Modern Art, Kolkata, and AMAC, France, and Bank of America in London.
Abdelghafour ben
Lahbib, MA, PhD
With research interests spanning cultural identity, literature, history, media, power, and representation, Dr. Lahbib has served as a high school educator, a reviewer for the Journal of North African Studies, and a contributor to The DateKeepers Blog.
Youssef Armouz,
MA, PhD
Dr. Armouz teaches English, writes and presents on numerous factors impacting EFL learning, and conducts research with the Discourse, Creativity, Society, and Religions Laboratory at Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University, Fes-Sais, Morocco.
Peppur Chambers
​
Author, educator, and entrepreneur Peppur Chambers has written, directed, produced, and performed in films and plays for radio and stage, published two novellas, and contributed to many publications. The creator of Brown Betties™, she strives to help women learn how to be.
_edited.jpg)
Hashi Jayasinghe
MA, PhD
In addition to serving as an educator and instructional designer, Dr. Jayasinghe writes and publishes on a range of issues including postcolonialism, cultural studies, and methods for teaching global feminism in rhetoric and composition classes in hybrid and online settings.
Tri Murniati, MA, PhD
​
Dr. Murniati teaches English Language and Literature at Jenderal Soedirman University in Banyumas, Indonesia, where she also serves as an administrator. Her research centers on the lived experiences and written narratives of Indonesian domestic workers in Singapore and Hong Kong.
Ariana Lippi, MA
A fierce believer in art’s capacity to bring people together and give rise to meaning, meditation justice, and joy, Ariana Lippi strives to synthesize their expertise on Spanish literature, sustainability, and environmental policy in service of a better future.
Geghie A. Davis-
Tillie, MA
When not discharging her duties as a Fulbright Alumni Ambassador and President of Fulbrighters with Disabilities, Geghie offers her clients a robust array of “human-centered” digital products, synthesizing expertise in web-building, UX/UI, branding, and graphic design.
Laurence Warner, MA
​
Jack-of-all-trades Laurence Warner has made his mark as a singer-songwriter, coder, web-builder, filmmaker, and stage performer. His music blends elements of pop, hip-hop, and alternative rap and explores the intersection of technology, media, culture, and human wellbeing.
Jamila Morcel
​
Jamila Morcel is a children’s book illustrator with a background in graphic design and experience in everything from UX, design to digital illustration. Her passion for book illustration is grounded in her 13 years as a kindergarten teacher. She is also the proud designer of the DateKeepers logo!
Science & Technology
Paresh Samantaray,
MSc, PhD
With expertise in the synthesis, characterization, and application of polymers, Dr. Samantaray enjoys charting new structure-property-function relationships for diverse applications such as aerospace shielding, packaging, wastewater treatment, desalination, and heavy metal remediation.
Valeriia Poliukhova,
MS, PhD​
Dr. Poliukhova has contributed to creating high-performance photocatalyst synthesis targeting water purification and hydrogen production, and to optimizing Mxene synthesis for large-scale manufacturing. In her free time, she savors reading, yoga, coffee, meditation, art, and mesmerizing sunsets.
_edited_edited.jpg)
Luis Quijano, MEd, PhD
​
Working at the intersection of fashion and biotechnology, Dr. Quijano strives to develop new textiles using biomaterial substrates, such as bacterial cellulose, to reduce waste and improve sustainability across the fashion industry.
Sinan Morcel, MS
​
Software architect and entrepreneur Sinan Morcel has extensive experience in robotics, greenfield & brownfield development, and cyber security. He offers consultations to clients interested in launching software-powered businesses and, with his brother, is boot-strapping a software-building business of his own.
Aditi Lele, MS, PhD​
​
Dr. Lele’s field research has elucidated key relationship between gray hornbills and ecologically important tree species in the Anamalai Hills of the Western Ghats in Kerala, India. She now serves as an EducationUSA adviser helping students realize their American dreams.
Sebastian Giaocomino​
​
Spurred by a lifelong interest in marine life, PhD candidate Sebastian Giacomino is working to develop stable carbon and nitrogen isotope landscapes from the pelagic baselines of two commercial and touristic gulfs in Argentina's Córdoba region.
Policy & Law
Teferi Abate Adem,
MA, PhD
Currently a research anthropologist at Yale University, a member of the Yale Council on African Studies, and a Visiting Professor at Bahir Dar University in Ethiopia, Dr. Adem has spent decades studying how farmers and communities pragmatically mobilize grassroots responses to crop failures and food insecurity brought on by climate change.
Taylor Farr, ESQ
With broad-ranging expertise spanning corporate transactions and litigation, immigration law, and food law and policy, Taylor Farr has served the prestigious firm Conner & Winters and now provides legal analysis and assistance at the US Courts of Appeals.
Sara Lynn Thelen
​
Fluent in French and ASL and proficient in Spanish and Persian, Sara now serves as Operations Manager at a global security think tank in Washington, DC. She also holds BEI certification, has interpreted in medical, mental health, and higher education settings, and continues to offer freelance ASL interpretation.
Ellen Weintraut, ESQ
​
Fluent in English and Spanish, Ellen Weintraut owns Northwest Immigration Law and has spent over 17 years working directly with clients on cases relating to family immigration, citizenship, asylum, and humanitarian immigration.
Shoghik Mikayelyan,
MA, MEd
In addition to publishing two landmark books on school bullying, Shoghik serves as Executive Director of the Nor Luyce Mentoring Center for Youth in Gyumri, the first such NGO in Armenia to provide skills-building and career planning services exclusively to socially vulnerable girls. ​
Aicha Adoui, MA, PhD
​
Dr. Adoui studies the intersection of soft power, diplomacy, and international higher education and has worked closely with several nonprofits, government initiatives, and agencies. Her book International Higher Education and The Rise of Soft Power as Cultural Diplomacy is now available to read.
Gaurav Misra, MA
​
India's first UN-recognized life skills coach, Gaurav Misra, brings to the table an international network of professional connections, an interest in gamification, and a passion for helping young people transform themselves into productive, successful, and employable human beings.
Hsu Thadar, MPH
​
With expertise encompassing epidemiology, HIV/AIDS, malaria control, and COVID-19, Hsu has made significant contributions to research, monitoring & evaluation, and program management at leading institutions including the WHO and the UNFPA.
Toby Usnik, MS, Phil
​
Author of The Caring Economy and host of a podcast by the same name, Toby Usnik draws on 30+ years of leadership experience in the UK government, Christie's, American Express, Philanthropic Impact (π), and The New York Times to inform his pioneering work on corporate social responsibility.
Mila Rosa Librea-
Carden, MS, PhD
Dr. Librea-Carden’s scholarship centers on expanding access to the sciences. She has published in leading science education journals, including the International Journal of Science Education and Research in Science Education, and has taught in the US and the Philippines.
Dom Caristi, PhD
​
Named Professor Emeritus of Media at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, Dr. Caristi also sits on the Board of Directors of the Indiana Chapter of the Fulbright Association. He is a co-author of the book Communication Law: Practical Applications in the Digital Age.
Richard Vogel, PhD
​
A passionate promoter of media literacy, Dr. Vogel has given talks and contributed to K-12 curricula across the US and southeast Asia. He’s also produced a skit comedy show and served as a consulting producer for the award-winning, hyperlocal programming provider Communication Research Institute.