NEXT GENERATION

During her tenure, she assisted millions of victims of wars and natural disasters throughout Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and parts of eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.

In recognition of her work, she received the World Food Prize, known as the “Nobel Prize for Food and Agriculture” in 2003. Rather than accept the prize money, she established a trust that provides grants to local organizations around the world that improve access to training and education for women and girls.

Three years later, when she joined Maxwell, Bertini saw an opportunity for a symbiotic relationship. While the WFP could benefit from the support of Maxwell’s graduate students, the students themselves would have yet another means to gain invaluable experience and fulfill a degree requirement—international relations students must complete an internship abroad.

Students who attained internships with the WFP say her support was vital, though Bertini downplays that. “I gave advice to students on how to get internships,” she says. “They took it from there.” continued on page 18 continued from page 17

In one case, a regional director for the WFP asked Bertini to recommend two interns to help as an influx of Syrian refugees moved into Jordan. She offered up two top students, Edgar Luce ’12 M.A.I.R. and Ryan Beech ’12. Following those internships, both stayed on to work for the WFP.

Beech, who received a master of arts in international relations, was hired by the WFP shortly after his internship. He worked in Jordan for five years, gained field-level experience in cash and voucher programming and then moved to the organization’s headquarters in Rome where he is now a programme and policy officer. He develops guidance, strategies and learning materials and provides direct support to field offices.

“While I dreamed of working for institutions like the United Nations, even in high school, I never thought I would have that opportunity, or at least I couldn’t see a clear pathway to it,” he says, pointing back to Maxwell and his former professor, Bertini.

Her legacy can be seen in the organization even at a technical level, Beech says. At the WFP, Bertini focused on empowering women. “A key part of our strategy for cash and voucher programming is to give money directly to women while focusing on their greater financial inclusion, access to financial products and services and economic empowerment,” he says. “I run into WFP staff all the time who reflect positively on the period that she served as executive director.”

Back at Maxwell, Bertini also encouraged student Emily Fredenberg ’16 M.P.A./M.A.I.R. Her internship was part of the United Nations Network for Scaling Up Nutrition Secretariat, hosted by the WFP in Rome.

As was the case with Beech, it turned into a career. Before ending up in the Rwandan capital Kigali, where she has been the WFP’s head of external partnerships and communications for Rwanda since 2019, Fredenberg first spent several years in Beirut, Lebanon, helping the organization as it dealt with the influx of refugees fleeing the devastation of the Syrian Civil War.

In the chaos of human suffering and scale of the efforts by the WFP and other organizations trying to feed, clothe and shelter people fleeing Syria, Fredenberg says she couldn’t have managed there if it weren’t for her Maxwell classes: simulations, for example, that got students to grapple with real world scenarios in a classroom setting.

“That was one of those moments when we’re responding to a humanitarian crisis and here I am on the ground, the one doing this thing, thinking ‘These simulations, this is what actually happens in real life,’” says Fredenberg.

While working in Haiti in late April, Meghan Sullivan received word of a new opportunity with the United Nations, a post that would bring her back home to the States and allow her to put more focus on development, an interest she discovered while studying at Maxwell and working with the World Food Programme.

Sullivan was offered a highly competitive position as associate programme management officer in the U.N. Secretariat’s Department of Economic and Social Affairs. In simple terms, the position provides support to development projects “to enhance the capacities of developing countries” in priority areas, she explains, adding, “It is the right step for me at the right time, and I’m excited to be working in international development and to see how another part of the U.N. system works.”

Bertini, meanwhile, spends some of her time in her hometown of Homer, New York, while also frequenting Chicago, where she serves as a distinguished fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.

She retired from Maxwell four years ago, around the