Justice and Peace Studies Summer Stipend Recipients

The Justice and Peace Studies program offered its students a stipend to support their work during the summer months.

Rachel Rochford (SFS ’27), an International Politics major and Justice and Peace Studies minor from Waterford, Michigan, spent her summer interning with the Cultural Resilience Informatics and Analytics Lab. In her work, Rochford documented damage to culturally significant sites in Lviv, Ukraine and examined the impact of Bakhmut, Ukraine’s destruction on industry. Rochford’s stipend aided her in completing the Institute for International Criminal Investigation’s foundational open-source intelligence course, which was crucial to ensuring her research was both credible and correctly conducted. With Rochford completing her internship in Frankfurt, Germany, she had the opportunity to speak with her office mates from Lviv about their experiences and learn more about the human impacts of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Oluwatomiwa Oluwasola (CAS ’27), a Justice and Peace Studies major with minors in Law, Justice, and Society and Spanish from Irvington, New Jersey, interned for an organization that focused on policy used to support advancement in the areas of education, employment housing, and healthcare. Oluwasola contributed as a government affairs intern for the National Multifamily Housing Council (NMHC) conducting policy research focused on Low-Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC) and Source of Income laws across the country. With a lengthy commute, she utilized her stipend to purchase monthly transportation credits. Oluwasola had the chance to learn about the value of communication and genuineness in the workplace, as well as gain a better understanding of how economic barriers affect access to human rights.

Raphaella Alioto Grace (CAS ’28), a Justice and Peace Studies major and Psychology minor from San Francisco, California, interned at Parliamentarians for Nuclear-Proliferation and Disarmament. Using her stipend, Grace traveled to New York City to attend a number of events hosted by the United Nations, including the 2026 Future Forum. During this time, Grace had the opportunity to sit in on a meeting discussing global environmental sustainability, a field of study she has wanted to further explore.

Recent graduate Lily Odenwelder (CAS ’26), a Global Health major with minors in Justice and Peace Studies and Global Human Development from Arlington, Virginia, focused her summer on celebrating her graduation and planning for her future endeavors. With her stipend, Odenwelder earned her Teaching English as a Foreign Teacher (TEFL) after completing a 120-hour online teaching program. This fall, Odenwelder will be moving to Singapore to intern with Transient Workers Count Too, a NGO that provides support and counsel for migrant workers. She hopes that her new TEFL certification will allow her to find a part-time job to fund her internship. Odenwelder hopes to continue using her certification as she works to grow her global understanding and solidarity, whether that be teaching English abroad or continuing to volunteer with Washington English Center.