Meet the Team

Jeannie Rowland is a graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Education (GSE) studying International Educational Development. Previously, she worked in Washington, DC for National Geographic Society as a translator and interned at the Embassy of Spain's Ministry of Education. She studied abroad in Madrid, Spain, and has traveled extensively through Costa Rica and Nicaragua. After her experience in DC, she did a year of service in Syracuse, NY, where she worked as a program coordinator for an after-school program that catered to inner-city Hispanic youth. Jeannie believes that the crux of development and globalization is education. Education opens doors to new opportunities; it has the power to change global perspectives about development. Currently, Jeannie is working on a research project in Nicaragua, evaluating the SAT program, a non-formal rural secondary school program. She is interested in the intersection between education, development, and public health, and hopes to work in the development sector in Latin America after graduation.

"If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together." - Lilla Watson

Jaime Hunter is in the final semester of her Master’s program in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) at the Graduate School of Education (GSE) at the University of Pennsylvania. Since graduating Temple in 2008 with a B.A. in English and Spanish, Jaime has gone on to teach for the Montessori Children’s House of Valley Forge, the Free Library of Philadelphia, the University of Pennsylvania, the School District of Philadelphia/Project Leap, Mighty Writers, Inc., and most currently, the Barrio Planta Project in Nicaragua where she holds the position of Director of Adult ESL Programs. She has spent time volunteering with the Campaign for Burmese Refugees at Southwark School in Philadelphia.  Her work at the university level consists of one year as an international academic writing coach at GSE and an assistant teacher in the Biomedical ESL Program at the University of Pennsylvania. She will return to Nicaragua in May in order to continue to her work in adult literacy development, assisting the growth of the educational initiative, the Barrio Planta Project: barrioplantaproject.org  

Evan Black studied and worked abroad for almost three years throughout Latin America where she developed cultural competency through her extensive international travel and immersion in Mexico, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Uruguay and Peru. She has maintained her fluency in Spanish while working at World Neighbors, Fulbright and the Greater Philadelphia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. In an effort to expand her cultural and linguistic knowledge, Evan immersed herself in Portuguese this past summer at the Middlebury College Portuguese Language Program. Evan is currently a Master’s student in Intercultural Communications at the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania.

Jennifer Margherito is a Master's student at the University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Education studying Education, Culture, & Society. As an undergraduate student at the College of William and Mary she majored in History with a concentration in Global Studies. Although she studied abroad in various places from the Czech Republic to Italy, her own Cuban heritage drew her to focus her studies in Latin America. On campus she sharpened her knowledge of the Spanish language by subtitling documentaries and films for the series Cuban Cinema Classics, while off campus she taught English immersion classes in Nicaragua during her spring breaks. Now as a graduate student she hopes to continue examining the role that culture, history, and society play in education, both here in the U.S. and abroad. 

"No vemos las cosas como son, sino como somos..."

"We don't see things the way they are, but how we are..."