PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT WITH KEVORKIAN CENTER ALUMNI

Kevorkian Center Alumni Professional Development and Networking Event

Jan 19, 2020 / 12:30-2PM (NYC/EST) / Zoom signup

This event will feature an informal panel discussion with two alumni from the Kevorkian Center’s MA program. Current and former Kevorkian students will meet and discuss life after Kevo and receive career advice from Mara Kronenfeld (UNRWA USA) and Vanessa H. Larson (The Washington Post). The panelists will share how their experiences at Kevo helped launch their careers, and answer questions with our students and alumni.  

This event is open to students and alumni from the NYU community, but registration is required: bit.ly/NYUKevoPD119.

Mara Kronenfeld joined UNRWA USA in February 2020 as its new Executive Director. In this role, Mara leads a team of 8 in the United States to educate the American public about the plight of Palestine refugees and raise funds for UNRWA’s critical programs in the Middle East.

Having focused most of her career on international development, Mara has over 15 years of experience designing, implementing, and leading youth development programming in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Mara has extensive leadership experience in youth development with a strong focus on program design and development, organizational capacity strengthening, and multi-sectoral partnership cultivation and collaboration.

Mara previously served as Regional Director of MENA and Eurasia programs at the International Youth Foundation (IYF) where she worked for over a decade. She earlier held positions at AMIDEAST and the American University in Cairo. At AMIDEAST, Mara managed corporate, foundation, and individual fundraising efforts and managed the Fulbright scholarship program for students from the MENA region. Mara was a U.S. Fulbright grantee to Syria herself between 2001 and 2003 and while in Syria, managed a U.S. State Department-funded teacher training project and UNRWA’s English Language Club for Palestinian vocational students.

Mara holds a Masters Degree in Near Eastern Studies from New York University and a Bachelors Degree in Anthropology from Stanford University.

Vanessa H. Larson is a copy editor at The Washington Post and a Washington, D.C.-based writer specializing in Middle Eastern art and culture. She previously worked as a digital copy editor at Foreign Policy magazine, and has also written for The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, The Art Newspaper, Hyperallergic, Time Out Istanbul and other publications. 

After completing the joint master’s program in Near Eastern studies and journalism at NYU in 2006, Vanessa spent nearly seven years living in Istanbul. In Turkey, she did a stint as the English-language correspondent for the German news agency dpa; contributed to four editions of Fodor’s Turkey guidebook; served as the launching managing editor of the food site Culinary Backstreets; and worked as a writer, editor and/or translator at several bilingual Turkish/English-language publications. Vanessa is fluent in Turkish and holds a B.A. in anthropology from Smith College.