Starting Out: Isabel Pike ’11

Public-information assistant at the World Food Programme’s West Africa regional office in Dakar, Senegal, through a Princeton-in-Africa fellowship. Princeton major: anthropology.

What she does: Pike and her supervisor coordinate communications efforts for the World Food Programme (WFP) in 19 countries in West Africa. She helps write press releases, respond to media queries, write articles for the WFP website, and manage a Twitter account. She also helps organize press ­conferences — including two on the food crisis in the Sahel, the belt of land that stretches across Africa just south of the Sahara desert. 

What she likes about it: “One of the most interesting things for me has been to watch the food crisis in the Sahel evolve and how WFP deals with it and how you communicate a crisis,” says Pike, who grew up in Uganda. 

Next steps: Her fellowship is over in July. She’s not sure where she will head next, but she is looking for another job in communications. She would like to pursue further studies in demography and work in that field.