Jared Katseff

Jared Katseff is currently a candidate for an MBA at Harvard Business School as well as a Master in Urban Planning at Harvard Graduate School of Design. He is pursuing both degrees because he is interested in realizing transit oriented development by making the financial case for walkable urbanism. Originally from Manalapan, New Jersey, he graduated Magna Cum Laude from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania with a major in Finance and Real Estate. After college, Jared worked for three years at McKinsey & Company, where he focused his time charting economic development strategies for cities in North America, the Middle East and Southeast Asia.

 

 

Tessa Hamilton

I am a recent graduate of the University of Arizona, where I completed my degree in Psychology. As an undergraduate I was actively engaged in research projects as well as community projects related to youth empowerment, mental health, and educational equity. I am currently studying Prevention Science/School Social Work at the Ed school and I am especially interested in promoting leadership and participatory improvement efforts amongst low-income Latino populations. Outside of school, I am passionate about nutrition and fitness. I am an avid socializer. Currently, I serve as a Senator on the Student Council Association at the Ed school and as a member of the Association’s Diversity Committee.

Amal Elbakhar

I grew up in an immigrant culture in which educational achievement was difficult to obtain, and this has always served as a source of motivation for me. Thus, as an eager New Yorker, I spent my college years immersing myself in every aspect of my community, attending events as well as leading them. Experience after experience, I realized that – academically – women’s issues are the most important to me. I am intrigued by the concept of using the law and policy to affect social change in a way that serves a greater societal purpose. In fact, I am driven by any topic that is innovative, fun and challenging – and yet, moves an important societal discourse forward.

Rita Chung

Originally from Hong Kong, but growing up between Vancouver, Hong Kong, Duino (Italy) and London, I am now pursuing her Master in Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School (HKS). My interest is in energy and water policy. Prior to HKS, I worked for Earthwatch Institute in their Hong Kong office, developing and managing employee engagement projects on climate change and freshwater scarcity research across the Asia Pacific region for large corporations. My work at Earthwatch led to my interest in energy and water resource distribution conflicts, and I am passionate about finding more equitable and sustainable ways of distributing energy and water resources around the world. In my other lives, I have worked in investment banking in London, campaigned for human rights issues in Canada and Israel, and launched a magazine in Shanghai. 

Yasser Jeelani

I am a physician from London, England, training in Neurological Surgery and currently here at Harvard doing a postdoctoral research fellowship in Minimally Invasive Pediatric neurosurgery at HMS. Being orphaned at a young age of 8, and being left to tend to myself and to my siblings, challenges demanded not only solving challenges for myself, but also to lead my siblings to survival. Since then, I have been capitulating on those instincts by utilizing them in all walks of life, academics included. At my current position, I have been instrumental in establishing the first Neurosurgery cadaver laboratory for minimally invasive and skull base neurosurgery at Harvard, where we will be training neurosurgeons and fellows besides conducting some ground breaking research in attempting novel approaches to relatively inaccessible areas of the brain.

Desmond Lim

Desmond Lim previously worked for Bank of America Merrill Lynch and UBS in a wide variety of sectors including financial institutions, energy and power, and retail. He has ran an education non-profit, Choson Exchange, teaching business skills to over 200 North Koreans in Pyongyang, Beijing, and Singapore. He has also previously co-founded a Thai cuisine restaurant, started up a clothes trading company, and was an infantry officer with the Singapore Armed Forces for 2.5 years. He has played competitive basketball for over 15 years and represented the Singapore National Team in the Southeast Asian Games. As a Research Affiliate at MIT, and a University Fellow at Harvard University, Desmond pursued research in entrepreneurship, development, and innovation. Desmond is a current graduate student at Harvard University, and completed two bachelors degree in 4 years in Business Management and Accounting (Magna Cum Laude). Desmond has lived in Singapore, China, United Kingdom, Korea, and the US, is fluent in Mandarin, and proficient in Korean.

Tuba Rashid Khan

Tuba is currently in the child advocacy track at Harvard. She is a strong advocate for increasing opportunities, access and early identification for special needs children. A doctor with also a public health degree from Harvard, she has worked on numerous projects on child development in Pakistan, UAE, Kenya, US and Nigeria in association with MIT and Boston Children’s Hospital. Having completed the leadership concentration from HSPH, her other leadership experiences include being a teaching fellow, instructor and leading special needs projects in Bangladesh. She also happens to be a scrabble fanatic and loves to jet ski.

Benjamin Summers

I’m an active duty Army officer, current MBA candidate at Harvard Business School and will return to West Point in 2015 for a 2-year teaching fellowship in the Department of Social Sciences. I live with my wife, Chrissy, in Cambridge (and we’re expecting a new member to our family in September). After graduating from West Point in 2006, I attended the Army’s flight school and was qualified in the Blackhawk helicopter. After flight school, I deployed twice with the 101st Airborne Division. Whether leading a company of Soldiers during a deployment to Afghanistan or leading an aircrew during a Blackhawk helicopter combat mission, I’ve found that successful leadership often means trusting, empowering and developing the people around me. That realization is what brought me to HBS and what makes the idea of teaching and mentoring cadets at West Point so fulfilling. Serving on the Board of Advisors with the LIHC would match with these passions towards leadership development.
I currently serve as a VP for Admission for the Armed Forces Alumni Association at HBS, as a planning officer for the Harvard Veterans Alumni Organization and as a member of the Social Enterprise Club.