main-bkgrd-img
UCLA International Institute Globe Logo
Top
background

  • Winners of the Global Development Lab's 2025 Project Incubator competition, the design team behind Kids Innovating Through STEM (K.I.T.S.), from left: Allyssa Lessinger, Caitlin Nguyen, Manasi Vartak and Claire Chen.

  • Dali Salami, Izzy DeLeon and Georgiana Morris give highlights of the speakers who presented educational workshops as part of GDL's Global Lab in 2024-25.

  • Clarissa Damesyn, Ella Morris and Caleb Sharman describe the work of several intern teams who worked with Nutrition Education International over the past year.

  • The Project Incubator team who designed the H.E.R. UCLA project: Riley Labrach and Evan Lopez.

  • The Project Incubator team who designed the Reel Futures project: Marcel Najjar, Nadine Ismail and Maxwell Jenkins.

  • The 2024-25 GDL Board of Directors (from left): Clarissa Damesyn, Isabel Veit, Dami Salami, Isabella Patton, Bryn Bowser, Maher Salha, Katherine Brezoczky and Nick Sharifi.

  • The 2025-26 GDL Board of Directors, from left. Back row: Eliza McGlashan, Ella Morris, Nick Sharifi, Katherine Brezoczky, Isabel Veit, and Maxwell Jenkins. Front row: Michelle Phan, Izzy DeLeon, Ivana Prokopenko, Clarissa Damesyn and Caleb Sharman.

Annual GDL event includes review of past year's activities, plus Project Incubator showcase

Sharing Tools

Link copied!

By Peggy McInerny, Director of Communications

At a recent evening event hosted by the UCLA Global Development Lab, student members gave presentations about the lab's educational workshops, on-site internships and the community projects developed by Project Incubator participants over the past year.


UCLA International Institute, June 6, 2025 — At the annual year-end UCLA Global Development Lab* (GDL) event on May 12, 2023, three undergraduate student teams presented community projects for potential GDL funding at its Project Incubator Showcase, while other members spoke about the educational workshops and community internships pursued by members of the student association over the past year.

Moderation for the proceedings was provided by several members of the current GDL Board of Directors, including Isabella Patton (UCLA 2025, human biology and society), executive director; Clarissa Damesyn (UCLA 2027, IDS and geography/environmental studies), director, media and marketing; Dami Salami (UCLA 2025, IDS), director, career development; Nick Sharifi (UCLA 2026, political science and economics) and Katherine Brezoczky (UCLA 2026, political science and business economics), co-directors, Project Incubator. The latter two GDL members replaced the previous Incubator director, Maher Salha (UCLA 2025, international development studies, or IDS, and political science).

Vice Provost Cindy Fan opened the evening by saying, “I don’t know if you know, but the Global Development Lab is very famous at UCLA.” She related that GDL had been an inspiration for faculty and students when writing one of the pillars of the current UCLA strategic plan: to expand UCLA’s outreach as a global university.

“The group was inspired by two things that you do,” continued Fan. “One is that this is a student-led community of teaching and practice. [The second] is that you encourage and incentivize group project proposals dedicated not only to academic collaboration, but also to practice- and solutions-oriented activities.”

General Lab workshops

GDL members Dami Salami, Izzy DeLeon (UCLA 2027, political science) and Georgiana Morris (UCLA 2027, political science) highlighted a number of lectures offered by the student association’s General Lab in 2024–25. Each year, these educational workshops offer GDL members expert information on diverse aspects of international development that is sustainable, culturally relevant and aligned with the needs of targeted populations and their community partners.

Over the past year, workshops included presentations and question-and-answer sessions by UCLA faculty, outside speakers and alumni, as well as joint sessions with such UCLA student associations such as the Mock Trial Association of the UCLA School of Law. “[These workshops are] a really great opportunity to get our members thinking critically about grassroots interventions to solve real-life issues, and also a way to apply theoretical concepts that they might be learning in UCLA classrooms to very practical, real scenarios,” said De Leon.

Among the 2024–25 speakers were Paula Tavrow of the Fielding School of Health, who spoke and answered questions on implementing sustainable, globally-led public health interventions abroad; and Steven Kwon, president of the nonprofit Nutrition and Education International, who discussed NEI’s work in introducing sustainable food cultivation and value chains to address protein deficiencies among women and children in Afghanistan and other countries.

Jeffrey Janis, Peace Corps campus recruiter at UCLA, related his experience working for the Peace Corps in Ukraine; Gayle Northrop of the UCLA Anderson School of Management and founding president of Northrop Nonprofit Consulting, spoke about strategic planning and organizational development in the nonprofit sector; and several GDL and UCLA alumni gave presentations (and, separately, career talks), including Govind Srivastav (UCLA 2019, economics and IDS), who described his work as director of capital solutions for the nonprofit Miami Homes for All and his work at the local level in other countries.


GDL internships

The evening then turned to the work of GDL interns at Nutrition and Education International (NEI), whose headquarters are located in Pasadena. Since GDL became acquainted with NEI President Steven Kwon two years ago, it has provided the nonprofit a cohort of students drawn from its General Lab and Project Incubator to serve as interns every year.

Clarissa Damesyn, Caleb Sharman (UCLA 2027, public affairs and IDS) and Ella Morris (UCLA 2025, global studies) took turns describing the work that different teams of GDL students have been doing in four functional areas at DEI: strategic marketing and fundraising; grant funding and research; revitalization of presentation materials; and crowdfunding.

Noted Sherman, “NEI is an international NGO that primarily helps combat malnutrition overseas in Afghanistan, the Philippines, Bangladesh, India and Uganda. Their goal isn’t necessarily to be the solution, but rather, integrate themselves into these communities and create long-term solutions for them so [NEI] can eventually pull back and these communities can become self-sustaining in combating malnutrition.”

Working at NEI has been an incredible opportunity for GDL members, he continued. “Students can apply a lot of the education that we are learning, both in the classroom and in GDL, in a practical setting … and make contributions to DEI’s day-to-day work that have an impact for communities in need.”

Project Incubator: Community projects presented for seed funding

The evening then turned to the Project Incubator Showcase, at which three student teams presented a local community project that they had researched and designed in response to a crucial social need. Those projects were:

• H.E.R. UCLA, a program to provide prenatal and women’s health education in Dari and Pashtun to female Afghan refugees living in Los Angeles in collaboration with the LA office of the International Rescue Committee. GDL team: Evan Lopez and Riley LaBrache.

• K.I.T.S. (Kids Innovating Through STEM), a program to provide free, re-usable STEM learning kits to high-poverty elementary schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District. GDL team: Allyssa Lessinger, Claire Chen, Manasi Vartak, Caitlin Nguyen.

• Reel Futures, an educational program for formerly incarcerated high school students aimed at imparting knowledge and skills relevant to employment in the L.A. film industry. GDL team: Maxwell Jenkins, Nadine Ismail and Marcel Najjar.

The proposals were considered by a team of four judges: Jennifer Jihye Chun, academic chair of the IDS program of the International Institute and professor of Asian American and labor studies at UCLA; Kevan Harris, department vice chair and associate professor of sociology; faculty member, IDS program; and a speaker in the 2024–25 General Lab; Jeffrey Janis (see above); and Joseph Wright (UCLA 2023, Ph.D., international & comparative education), adjunct assistant professor of community health services and researcher, UCLA Fielding School of Public Health; lecturer, UCLA International Institute; and a speaker at the GDL General Lab this past year.

The winning proposal, K.I.T.S., received GDL seed funding in the amount of $1,000, based on the judges’ evaluation of the anticipated viability of all three projects. “Schools themselves are the best site for these type of activities… rather than somewhere on the outside,” said Harris in announcing the decision and congratulating all the teams on all the research and care they had put into their presentations.

In their presentation, the K.I.T.S. team members stressed that equity in STEM education was important for several reasons. High-paying STEM jobs are predicted to increase by 31% in the coming years, a STEM background can help increase performance in non-STEM jobs and STEM education can increase the number of students graduate from high school and pursue college. The team of four UCLA Bruins designed the project to give students a choice in which kits they wished to work with, as well as to give teachers the options to use UCLA volunteers to introduce the kits, introduce the kits in their classrooms themselves, or create an after-school STEM program with the kits.

The reusable STEM kits will be made in the UCLA Samueli Makerspace of the Samueli School of Engineering, and K.I.T.S. will be created as a student association of the school.


Project Incubator judges, International Institute leaders and the 2024-25 GDL Board of Directors. From left, back row:
Joseph Wright, Cindy Fan, Immaculada García-Sánchez, Jennifer Jihye Chun, Kevan Harris, Jeffrey Janis. Front row:
Bryn Bowser, Isabella Patton, Dami Salami, Katherine Brezoczky, Maher Salha and Clarissa Damesyn.

 

All photos by Peggy McInerny/ UCLA.

* * * * * * * *

About the Global Development Lab, or GDL: GDL was founded as a student association by UCLA alumni Joan Hanawi (UCLA 2016, IDS), David Joseph (UCLA 2016, microbiology, immunology and molecular genetics), Noah Lizerbram (UCLA 2017, global studies) and Jessa Culver (UCLA 2017, international development studies) in order to give Bruins hands-on experience in international development.

Now in its 10th year of operation, GDL has built a self-renewing community of undergraduates on campus with a deep interest in international development and community engagement. Many students spend four years at GDL while also serving as officers of the association.

Students qualify for the Project Incubator showcase after becoming GDL members and attending its General Lab. The training provided by the General Lab and Project Incubator are both offered as for-credit courses. The incubator is a two-quarter course that includes research, readings, discussion sessions and skills workshops conducted by international development and community organizing professionals.

Both sets of activities help students develop skills in needs assessment, project design, project monitoring and evaluation, impact assessment and sustainability planning. Members of the student club pursue majors in diverse disciplines, ranging from the humanities and social sciences to life sciences, engineering and public policy.



Published: Friday, June 6, 2025