International Career Night Participant Bios
Keynote Speaker
David Murphy ’80 is the Associate Dean for Entrepreneurship for the Colleges of Science and Engineering and Director of the Engineering, Science, and Technology Entrepreneurship Excellence Masters program. Murphy graduated from the University of Notre Dame with a degree in economics and earned his MBA from the Amos Tuck School at Dartmouth College in 1984. He served as president and chief executive officer of Better World Books from 2004 to July 2011 and continues to serve on the company’s board of directors. Prior to his tenure at Better World Books, he worked for 20 years in corporate finance, operations, and mergers and acquisitions with firms such as International Paper Company; The First Boston Corporation; Hutchinson SA, a multi-billion dollar French subsidiary of the Total Energy Group; and Transcend Services Inc. He has developed three start-up companies and joined three others in their infancy in a C-level capacity. Murphy has also raised more than $85 million in capital to build and scale multiple organizations in the manufacturing, healthcare services, technology, and online retail sectors.
Session Presenters
Jaimie Bleck is a Ford Family Assistant Professor of Political Science. Her research interests include African politics, comparative democratization, African political parties, political Islam in West Africa, and education and citizenship. Her current book manuscript analyzes how different educational experiences, public/private and secular/Islamic affect citizenship in Mali in the context of expanded access to schooling. Bleck received her MA and PhD from Cornell University and her BA in Political Science from the University of Chicago. Before graduate school, she worked for Winrock International on USAID’s Africa Education Initiative Ambassadors Girls Scholarship Program in Central and Southern Africa. She has worked as a consultant for Freedom House, Winrock International, Care, and the World Bank.
Joseph Bock directs the MS in Global Health program at the Eck Institute for Global Health and serves as Notre Dame’s liaison with Catholic Relief Services. He brings years of practical experience in global health, humanitarian relief and development from South Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Eastern Europe and, most recently, Haiti. Bock has worked as a country representative for Catholic Relief Services, as an executive with American Refugee Committee, and as a consultant with The Asia Foundation. He is an editorial adviser for Development in Practice, a peer-reviewed journal founded by Oxfam Great Britain offering practice-based analysis and research on development and humanitarianism. His most recent book, The Technology of Nonviolence: Social Media and Violence Prevention will be published in July by MIT Press.
Tamo Chattopadhay, Kellogg Faculty Fellow, is an Assistant Professor of Practice and Director of International Educational Development, based at the Institute for Educational Initiatives. His teaching and research interests include linkages between post-primary education and development in a global era, adolescent socialization, youth entrepreneurship, and education innovations in diverse contexts of poverty. Formerly an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, Chattopadhay consults with multilateral agencies on applied policy research in international educational development. He holds a Doctorate in Education from Teachers College, Columbia University, and an MBA in Finance from Bernard M. Baruch College, City University of New York. Prior to academia, he was a Vice President at JP Morgan in New York City.
Anne Hayner is Associate Director for International Development and Alumni Relations at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies. She tracks job placement and career development opportunities for students and graduates of the Kroc Institute, and supports the development of a professional peacebuilding network among more than 1000 Kroc alumni and students around the world. Hayner majored in languages (French, Hebrew, and German) at the University of Michigan and received a master’s degree in peace and justice studies from the Earlham School of Religion. She has been active in national organizations advancing peace studies, cross-cultural training and international education for more than 25 years.
Erin Metz McDonnell is an Assistant Professor of Sociology. Her research focuses on governance and development in comparative perspective, with an emphasis on African states. She is particularly interested in fusing cultural and organizational approaches to understanding state strength. Her book manuscript, Subcultural Bureaucracy, examines niches of effective governance within conventionally weak states in low-income countries. It combines both international comparative approaches and in-depth case study of state administration in Ghana. McDonnell earned two degrees from Northwestern University, her BS.Ed in Learning & Organizational Change and International Studies, African region and a PhD in Sociology. While at Northwestern, McDonnell completed an internship with Baxter International and was hired to work with them after graduation. McDonnell gained a wealth of international experience working in their business ethics department.
Sean O’Brien ’95, ’01, ‘02 joined the Center for Civil and Human Rights in 2005, bringing with him his experience in international and domestic human rights work. He holds three degrees from the University of Notre Dame, most recently graduating summa cum laude from the Center’s LL.M. program in 2002. His experience includes work with the Belfast law firm of Madden & Finucane before the Bloody Sunday Inquiry in Derry, Northern Ireland and litigation with the Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL) in the Inter-American System for the Protection of Human Rights. Immediately prior to his return to Notre Dame, he served as Chief Counsel for Immigration and Human Rights at the Center for Multicultural Human Services (CMHS) in Falls Church, VA, directing a legal services program for survivors of torture and war trauma.
Anita Rees is an Associate Director for Arts and Letters and Graduate students at the Career Center at Notre Dame. She provides career counseling, and programs and workshops to enhance the career development choices of students. Her outreach includes developing alumni and employer relations in nonprofit organizations and federal, state and local governments, including public policy and education to encourage students to seek careers and opportunities in these sectors. Rees also serves as a liaison with deans, undergraduate studies directors, and other faculty across campus to promote a wide array of jobs and post-graduate opportunities for Arts and Letters students.
Steve Reifenberg ‘81 is the Executive Director of the Kellogg Institute for International Studies. Before coming to Notre Dame in February 2010, he worked for more than two decades on international educational, negotiation and development issues at Harvard University. From 1996 to 2002, he served as the Executive Director of Harvard’s David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies (DRCLAS). From 2002 to 2010, he served as the Director of the DRCLAS Regional Office, which managed Harvard’s student programs in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, and Peru, as well as coordinated Harvard faculty research and policy projects in the region.
Reifenberg was the Program Director for Latin America of the Conflict Management Group (CMG), an international non-profit organization created from the Harvard Negotiation Project at the Harvard Law School. He also served for four years as the Director of the Edward S. Mason Program in Public Policy and Management at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. From 1982 to 1984, he lived and worked at a small, privately-run orphanage in Santiago, Chile. He is a graduate of the Kennedy School of Government where he earned a Master in Public Policy. He also holds a Master in Print Journalism from Boston University and a BA in Philosophy from the University of Notre Dame. He lives with his wife and three children in South Bend, Indiana.
Doria Rosen is a career member of the Senior Foreign Service with the U.S. Department of Stat., Ms. Rosen serves as the Diplomat in Residence at the University of Illinois in Chicago and a resource to universities located in Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, Missouri, Wisconsin, North Dakota and Northern Missouri.
Ms. Rosen was assigned as Deputy Principal Officer to US Consulate General Frankfurt on November 1, 2008, coming from the U.S. Embassy in Bern, Switzerland, where she served as Consul General. She was Deputy Chief of Mission (DCM) at the U.S. Embassy in Reykjavik, Iceland from 2001-2004. Prior to Iceland, she served as Director of the Office of Public and Diplomatic Liaison in the Visa Directorate of the Bureau of Consular Affairs in Washington, D.C.
A career member of the U.S. Department of State since 1981, her first Foreign Service tour was as vice consul in Bucharest, Romania. She subsequently served in consular positions in Stuttgart, Seoul, Accra, Manila and Frankfurt. She also served as political analyst in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, Soviet and East European affairs (INR/SOV/EE) and as the political/ military affairs officer in Berlin shortly after reunification of Germany.
Elizabeth Simpson '11 is a special projects research assistant at the Kellogg Institute for International Studies. Since graduating from Notre Dame in May 2011, Simpson interned with the UN World Food Program at the Regional Bureau for Latin America in Panama City, Panama. A Truman Scholar, Simpson's research and work interests regard rural and community development and agriculture policy. She also has worked at the US Department of Agriculture in Washington D.C. While a Notre Dame undergraduate, Simpson initiated and directed the West Side Food Security Council, a council of community persons dedicated to strengthening food security on South Bend’s West Side.
Rachel Tomas Morgan ‘98 is Assistant Director of the Center for Social Concerns and oversees the Center’s international engagement efforts. Morgan designed, implemented, and directs the International Summer Service Learning Program. She works with other Center colleagues on community based learning abroad and with faculty across the University interested in developing courses that include an international experiential or community based learning component and consults on international related initiatives across the University. She received her graduate degree in systematic theology from Notre Dame and has previously worked in the fields of international development and natural disaster assistance, religious studies, and faith-based social outreach. She serves on the working group for international volunteerism with the Brookings Institute and has presented and published on themes related to theological reflection, international service-learning, global education, and civic and political engagement.
Denise Wright is the Program Coordinator for Visiting Fellows and Graduate Student Programs at the Kellogg Institute for International Studies. For Visiting Fellows, she is responsible for all aspects of Kellogg’s signature program that brings prominent and junior scholars in the field of international studies to Notre Dame. As program coordinator for Graduate Student Programs, Wright administers various awards and fellowships offered to PhD students and works to promote graduate student participation in research projects, Working Groups, seminars and lectures at the Institute. She facilitates interactions between both programs and the broader Notre Dame community, encouraging further collaboration and networking. Originally from New Orleans, Louisiana, Wright holds a BA in mass communications from Loyola University New Orleans.
