STUDENT PROFILES

Ayantu Tibeso is originally from Minneapolis, and has an undergraduate degree from St. Cloud State University, where she served as a student leader in various departments, including Residential Life and Career Services. She was also an active volunteer in her community, and one of her most rewarding experiences was serving as a dialogue facilitator in a peace service learning project which facilitated dialogue among religiously and culturally diverse local high school students.

Her research interests include migration, African diaspora, violence against women, peace communication, and issues of identity. After finishing the CommDev program, she plans to continue on to a PhD program.

Outside of school, she likes to attend slam poetry contests, cook with friends, and read for fun.
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Camilo Perez Quintero comes from Medellin, Colombia, where he was born in 1978. When he was little he liked to listen, observe, and pay attention to the small details of life - so it is not a great surprise to hear that he has many years of experience as a visual anthropologist. In Medellin, he worked extensively with youth using audiovisual methods to give new meaning to their experiences as citizens of a city beset with violence.

In 2003, he co-created a project (which later became a social organization) called Pasolini en Medellin (PEM). The aim of the project was to promote social transformation of local communities towards nonviolence, civic participation, self-expression and representation. For the last seven years, PEM has worked with young people from urban areas to explore, through the medium of filmmaking, critical thinking and storytelling about their lives and about Medellin and its urban realities. PEM has since been included in local and national studies on new approaches to communication for social change, and it is also considered an innovative practice in visual anthropology.

Camilo has also worked as a research associate and professor in audiovisual techniques and visual anthropology at the University of Antioquia, where he received his undergraduate degree. He has contributed to 67 participatory videos and documentaries in Colombia, some of which have won local and national awards.

At Ohio University, he hopes to explore the role of citizens’ media - video, in particular - in resisting violence, and how images and communication can be used to understand local contexts and derive local solutions to social problems. Outside of class, he enjoys independent films, photography, and spending time with his wife and two kids.

Claudia Nieto comes from Bogota, Colombia, and received her undergraduate degree in Social Communication and Journalism from Universidad de la Sabana. Before coming to Ohio, worked for almost 10 years with Fundacion Imaginario, a Colombian NGO focused on promoting communication interventions based on the principles of Communication for Social Change. For most of that time she was part of the Latin American team of The Communication Initiative, a strategic partnership and virtual community aimed at providing knowledge, ideas, and interactive capacities to individuals and organizations working in communication for development field.

Between 2005 and 2011 she worked as Communication for Development Professor at Universidad de la Sabana, where she had the chance to be involved with the design and implementation of edutainment projects in local community radio. In 2010 she was engaged with the Edutainment and Mobilization Strategy for Social Change, a national effort aimed at preventing teen pregnancy in Colombia. Her academic interests are in the designing, implementation, and evaluation of health communication strategies, especially at the community level. She is currently working with the Tropical Disease Institute in the Healthy Living Initiative, a community intervention aimed at controlling Chagas disease in Loja, Ecuador.

After finishing the CommDev program, she hopes to have the opportunity to share her knowledge and experiences with communities located in as many places as possible around the world. Of course, she says, Latin America is still the place that makes her heart beat harder!

Outside of school, she enjoys dancing, traveling, taking pictures (particularly of the sky) and sharing a drink with her friends.

 Cynthia Hannah comes to Ohio with an eclectic background – she has worked in documentary film, graphic design, community-based political organizing, commercial construction and even fishmongering, in addition to an entrepreneurial stint or two along the way. However, she brings with her a persistent enthusiasm for project-based, hands-on work and creative company. While in the CommDev program, she plans to develop a better understanding of the role communication plays in the lives of individuals and communities that have experienced violent conflict. She is particularly interested in exploring practices that contribute to healing, resiliency, and a sense of self-efficacy in individuals who are struggling to function well in their post-conflict lives.

After graduating, she hopes to have the opportunity to employ the knowledge gained through the program in community-based, participant-driven endeavors that address the psychosocial needs of individuals and communities impacted by violent conflict.

Cynthia is originally from Cincinnati, and received her undergraduate degree from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. In her free time, she enjoys image making and consumption, politics, being outdoors, and live music.

Mohammad Shafiq Hakimi, or Shafiq, is a media development specialist with more than ten years of experience in educational radio production in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Shafiq had the experience of working with the BBC World Service Trust’s Afghan Education Projects (AEP) beginning in 1999, where he progressively held a range of writing, production and editorial positions before becoming the project’s Director in 2009. He went on to serve as a Management Consultant for AEP, assisting with the organization’s transition to become an independent Afghan NGO.

Before coming to Ohio University, he worked for six months as Director of Programs with Internews Afghanistan, a part of USAID’s Afghanistan Media Development and Empowerment Project (AMDEP).

Shafiq has also been involved in the field of theatre for social change, working with Exile Theatre in Kabul from 2005 to 2008. After acting and writing for a year, Shafiq became the group’s Managing Director and Trainer, developing a training curriculum exploring the role of theatre in peace builing and conflict resolution. He also organized productions with international partner organizations.

More recently, Shafiq began to produce English language radio features highlighting some unexpected Afghan initiatives. Two of his stories have been selected for broadcast as part of a new global affairs series, “Latitudes,” on WAMU public radio, Washington, D.C.’s NPR affiliate.

He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Journalism from Sayed Jamal-u-dine Afghan University in Peshawar, Pakistan, where was a refugee.

Nenden Novianti Fathiastuti Tjahjadi comes from Jakarta, Indonesia. She has a degree in Communication from Gadjah Mada University, Yogyakarta, Indonesia, and worked for many years as a journalist for online media. Nenden also served as an official journalist with the website of the President’s Spokesperson Office of the Republic of Indonesia.

She was selected to be one of the cyber-journalists invited to the United States for the International Visitor and Leadership Program by the US Department of State in 2008, and worked as an embedded blogger for Secretary Clinton’s official visit to Indonesia in February 2009.

Nenden’s background as an online journalist has informed her research interests at OU - she plans to focus mainly on ICT (information communication technology), online media, citizen journalism, and community development through blogging. After finishing the CommDev program, she hopes to work as a Communication Specialist for development, with ICT as her specialization.
Her interests outside of school include traveling, tweeting, and reading.

Santina Maria da Cruz comes from Dili, Timor-Leste, where she obtained her undergraduate degree at the Universidade Nacional Timor Loro Sa’e. Before coming to Ohio, she worked for five years at a USAID agency within Timor-Leste’s Ministry of Health called Timor Leste Asistensia Integradu Saude (TAIS), serving as district technical officer.

In this role, she facilitated health training, coordinated health service activities, and performed monitoring and evaluation of health activities with her colleagues. This position increased her interest in communication as a tool to change knowledge, attitudes and practices of people in different situatons.

She is particularly interested in maternal and child health communication, and she plans to focus on community mobilization, mass media and entertainment education. After receiving her degree, she hopes to return to her former agency to provide assistance in designing messages and health promotion. She enjoys photography.

Yan Zheng, known to her friends as ‘Judy,’ comes from Nanning, a city in southwestern China. She holds a B.A. in Editing & Publishing from Wuhan University. Judy has worked as a part-time journalist for local newspapers in Wuhan, China, and has also interned for China Daily. From 2008 to 2009, she served as a voluntary receptionist for the sixth China-ASEAN EXPO and as a delegate during the first Vietnam-China and Cambodia-China Book Fairs, which spurred an interest in international and intercultural communication.

Besides researching online communication and virtual communities while at Wuhan University, she published several academic papers in Chinese journals as well as presented a paper at an international conference, which focused on microblog marketing and book-trade between China and Southeast Asia. As a Research Assistant, she is currently enjoying her research in health communication.

Judy likes Chinese folk dancing and enjoys watching horror movies. In future, she hopes to promote communication between China and the rest of the world.

Yukina Hino comes from a small rural town in Mie prefecture on Honshu island in Japan. After receiving her degree in International Studies from Chubu university, she enrolled directly in the Communication and Development Studies program at Ohio.

In her research, she plans to explore the potentiality of community currencies (supplemental currency that is issued and circulates within a community) as a treatment for fiscal deprivation in rural communities. After finishing the program, she hopes to return to Japan and work in finance, specifically, small company loans. She finds that cooking and cleaning help her to concentrate as a graduate student

Zulfia Zaher is from Marzar-e Sharif city in Balkh province, Afghanistan. As an undergrad at Balkh University, she served on a voluntary basis as the writer and editor for the university’s biweekly newspaper. In her final year, she was awarded a short term fellowship to India. She also volunteered as an English and Math teacher to teenagers and youth for six years.

Zulfia has worked as a producer, reporter, editor, news broadcaster, and analyst for local radio and television stations and newspapers for seven years. She also served as an administrative officer in the Independent Women Rights Union and as a project assistant, translator, interpreter, and trainer with UNIMA, FAO, and BRAC.

Her research interests include child marriage in Afghanistan, violence against women, and media communication, documentary and research on human trafficking and she hopes to continue on to a PhD program after receiving her master’s degree - she has not yet decided whether she would like to focus on gender or psychology. Outside of school, she enjoys attending community events and meeting new people, cooking for family and friends, reading, following national and international news, and watching television.