THE GCY TEAM

US TEAM

Abigail Falik, Founder and CEO

Abigail has dedicated her professional life to creating new opportunities for young Americans to learn about the world. Through work as an educator across the US and throughout the developing world, Abigail developed a passion for using education to promote global social justice and poverty alleviation.

Her vision for Global Citizen Year grew from over 10 years of experience in education, international development and social enterprise. She spent four years at NetAid where she designed and launched a program which empowers high school students to mobilize their peers in efforts to end global poverty. Today, the program is a flagship initiative of Mercy Corps. A recognized expert in Global Citizenship Education, Abigail has served as a strategic advisor and consultant, and has published in leading journals.

For her work founding Global Citizen Year, in 2009 she was awarded the Draper Richards Fellowship for entrepreneurs who are using innovative solutions to create significant social change. She is also a recipient of the Mind Trust Fellowship for education entrepreneurs who are developing system-changing strategies to tackle education’s greatest challenges. In 2008 she was named a Rainer Arnhold Fellow and a Pop!Tech Social Innovation Fellow.

Abigail holds a B.A. and M.Ed. from Stanford University, and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.

Nicole Orillac, International Program Director

Nicole is passionate about the idea of fusing private and public sector boundaries and using interdisciplinary approaches to bring about innovation and positive social change. This passion drove her to live and work in four different continents and accrue a wealth of cross sector management experience that she now brings to the role of developing and growing our international programs.

Moreover, her experience as an Acumen Fund Fellow and working with leaders across the world convinced her of the value of a structured “bridge year” experience in building leaders with the self-awareness and skills needed to lead the changes that our societies around the world need.

Nicole spent last year as an Acumen Fund Fellow in India, where she worked with the management team at a start-up hospital chain delivering affordable care to develop a strategy for rapid scale up. Prior to this, Nicole worked as a researcher for Plan International, and spent over three years in management roles at Frito-Lay Central America.

She holds a B.S. in Engineering from Purdue University, an MBA from the HEC School of Management in Paris, and an MSc in Development Management from the London School of Economics.

Wil Keenan, Program Associate

Wil is passionate about entrepreneurship, social enterprise and organizational development.  While in college, he co-founded a company that sells clothing and accessory products made by Ugandan artisans with a purpose of facilitating micro-savings and investment for its artisan team. His experience also includes volunteering in organizations around the world, interning at Ashoka: Innovators for the Public, and consulting for a health care system based in Nashville, TN.

Wil holds a B.S. from Vanderbilt University with a major in Human and Organizational Development.

Graham Saunders, Executive Assistant

Graham brings his enthusiasm for youth, education, and social change to the Global Citizen Year team.  He recently pursued these interests at the London School of Economics and Political Science, where he received a Masters in Anthropology and Development Management.  His studies focused on the intersection of culture and international development, and his dissertation research investigated the local politics of national education reform in Uganda.  Graham’s further experiences include interning at Research Triangle Institute (RTI) International, leading a research project for the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), and consulting to Private Education Development Network (PEDN) in Kampala, Uganda.

Graham also holds Bachelor degrees in Philosophy and Music from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

David Glasgow, Program Associate – Recruitment

David comes to Global Citizen Year with a passion for education, civic engagement, and grassroots organizing. He recently returned from Venezuela, where he served as a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar. Prior to his time abroad, David worked as a field organizer on the Obama presidential campaign in Missouri and as a legislative staffer in Senator Dianne Feinstein and Congressman Mike Honda’s Washington D.C. offices. He also brings his experience teaching and tutoring at UC Berkeley, the University of the Andes in Venezuela, and public schools in the Bay Area and Washington, D.C.

David holds a B.A. in History and an M.A. in Education from the University of California, Berkeley. While in graduate school, David earned Division I All-American honors and served as captain of the track and field team.

FIELD STAFF

Rachel Petrocelli, Program Manager – Senegal
Rachel comes to Global Citizen Year with a deep knowledge of Africa and a commitment to education. A historian of Africa, she brings a unique perspective on the modern challenges and opportunities in the diverse societies of Africa. She combines this with a passion for spreading awareness in the U.S. about Africa through teaching, writing, and involvement with projects both in the field and the classroom. Rachel’s area of expertise is urbanization in Africa, with a specialty in Senegal, where she has lived for several extended periods of time.

In 2009, she helped launch Smiles for Senegal, a volunteer dental assistance program that carried out its inaugural year in Sangalkam, the region where several of GCY’s Founding Fellows will be based during GCY’s founding year. Before that, she conducted research in Dakar at several intervals between 2004 and 2009.  She has also worked as a policy journalist in Washington, D.C.

Rachel holds a Ph.D. in African History and  a M.A. in History from Stanford University and a B.S. in French from Georgetown University.

Ximena Vidal, Team Leader – Guatemala

Ximena joins Global Citizen Year bringing a fervent belief in the power young people can have in changing the world. Having worked as a teacher and as a researcher for a consultancy project on youth empowerment, she holds the conviction that young people can and will contribute to their communities if given the voice and support to do so.

Ximena also has experience in tourism and corporate philanthropy, which has given her an interdisciplinary outlook on international development and social change. Recently, Ximena participated in a collaborative community health initiative in a northern Amazon community in Peru, where art and theatre are being used as tools for social transformation.

Although originally from Peru, Ximena has lived and worked in four continents, which allows her to quickly embrace the culture of the places and people with which she engages. She pursued her interest in cultural awareness in her masters dissertation, where she examined the impact of the lack of cultural consciousness in the outcome of a development initiative in Bolivia.

Ximena holds a B.A. in Anthropology from Yale University and a Masters in Development Management from the London School of Economics and Political Science.