Rachel is a young leader with a history of supporting efforts to meet the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, contributing to 100+ projects with 112 organizations across 35 countries. Rachel’s enthusiasm for the SDGs is second only to the causes she cares about within the Goals’ scope. In her entrepreneurial pursuits, Rachel founded the SDG advocacy youth organization Global Futurist Initiative™, the community development consortium Project Energy for Life Cameroon, and her consulting practice. Through consulting, she has worked for institutions such as Sesame Workshop, Johnson & Johnson, Fashion Community Foundation, and Friends of the Global Fund U.S. to foster strategic partnerships for advancing their SDG-aligned objectives. In one of her recent effort as the Foundations Partnerships Consultant for UNICEF USA, Rachel supported a $242 million portfolio by working with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, and UN Foundation, among others, to align on safeguarding children’s and youth rights worldwide.
Rachel has held appointments that have also enabled her to promote the SDGs including the IMF, U.S. Global Leadership Coalition, Foreign Policy for America, AFS Youth Assembly, and United Nations Association of the USA. Rachel currently holds a Visiting Associateship of Policy & Practice at the University of Notre Dame Pulte Institute for Global Development where she is conducting U.S. policy research on the SDGs. Receiving numerous appointments and 31 awards, Rachel is a sought-out speaker and actively contributes to publications on matters concerning youth, sustainable development and human rights.
Born and raised in Northwest Indiana (colloquially referred to as The Region), Rachel received her BS in Chemistry and MBA from Purdue University as well as a MS in Global Health from the University Notre Dame. Receiving the 2023 Purdue Rising Professional honor as a Distinguished Alumna, she is becoming one of Purdue University’s most decorated young alumni with over 10 honors and scholarships throughout her Boilermaker journey.
Small-scale innovations to reduce energy poverty
Prioritizing youth issues in the SDGs
Convening youth to achieve the United Nations SDGs
Mobilizing resources for sustainable good
It is with a heavy heart that my Global Goals Ambassador partner Dr. Chandra Pauline Daniel passed away July 15, 2024. Chandra and I became close from serving together at UNA-USA over the past year and just recently she presented in my place for an event in New York. We were also planning an event together to be held in September, and she invited me to be part of the G100 women this year.
Chandra was a remarkable person, passionate advocate, and kind soul. She put 110% into everything she did while still making it fun and filled with laughter, and her drive was inspiring to all around her. I chose this photo of her because not only did we connect professionally but clicked personally. Recently, my beloved pet cat passed away, and when I told her about it she deeply felt my pain as she was also reminiscing the loss of her beloved pet guinea pig, Fluffy. We shared our grief together. Chandra was, and will always be, my friend.
I will do everything to carry her legacy in my work. I am truly going to miss her so much.
This year marks the fourth anniversary of the IMF Youth Fellowship program, and in celebration, I was invited as an alumna from previous years for discussions and activities that align with the IMF's vision and strategic priorities for future generations.
Leveraging this professional background, passion, and experiences, my participation aims to enrich IMF conversations and contribute valuable perspectives and innovative ideas through the pertinent topics of climate, gender, and AI as the agency commemorate its 80th anniversary.
This past weekend, I had the incredible experience of sitting alongside two amazing leaders, Ose Ehianeta Arheghan and Sophia Kianni, on the National Vision for 2100 Intergenerational Townhall who each had critical wisdom to share that came from lived experience, demonstrating their diligence and passion for solving issues that face current generations today and future generations of tomorrow.
Commending the work that United Nations Association of the United States of America, United Nations Foundation, and Our Future Agenda has done to enable us this opportunity, this townhall was exemplary of intergenerational action where participants also got to craft solutions surrounding 12 ideas for future generations. We the panelists facilitated round table discussions and not only shared what our tables crafted but *radically!* listened to what many groups created as pathways forward towards our shared vision.
Working with the US Global Leadership Coalition has been an extraordinary learning and impactful experience on my advocacy career. Proud to work alongside my Indiana state advisory committee members who each have unique backgrounds and perspectives to send a clear message across all of Congress: we must continue our legacy of bi-partisan, accountable, and effective legislation in supporting our International Affairs Budget that serve all Americans and the world.
I am honored to have organized this panel that featured youth leaders who have consulted in the UN Summit of the Future as well as other high-level spaces, sharing their perspectives on their experiences advocating for and with youth and future generations and share insights for engaging in high-level spaces.
We expect participants to experience the event not as a one-time effort, but as part of the first steps of a journey that helps them actualize positive, youth-inclusive change for their communities that also safeguards future generations. To continue their impact journey, participants are encouraged to stay in touch with our network as part of a growing movement of changemakers developing groundbreaking solutions to tackle the world’s greatest agenda.
Water-stressed regions like Kenya rely on saline water sources, which can pose serious health hazards if not treated. While desalination is a burgeoning solution, safe disposal of desalination brine is often infeasible or too expensive. To circumvent this disposal challenge, we examine the maximum desalination recovery ratio (RRmax) for which desalination brine can safely be reused for many agricultural applications.
On behalf of the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Education, Sport and Youth, I was invited to participate to the UNECE FORUM on ESD: Empowering Youth for Sustainable Futures - Entrepreneurship Education and Youth Engagement that will take place from 27 to 28 June 2024, in Limassol, Cyprus. More than 500 High-level officials, youth, representatives of the public and private sectors from international and regional organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and other stakeholders from the countries of the UNECE region are expected to attend the UNECE ESD Forum.
Excited to be a 2024 UNCSC champion for influencers! One issue that will always be a core part of my work is on youth and future generations. I have been incredibly humbled to have been invited throughout my career to speak up about equity for youth (or SDG18 for the fans of Global Futurist Initiative 😉) even down to its very definition of what young people mean by being heard.
Often drawing back to the United Nations Youth Office's "Be Seen Be Heard" campaign, this conference is a pivotal moment for young people to shape what the next SDGs and global agendas will look like, and I am looking forward to seeing how the Summit of the Future will deliver on its commitments.
I am honored to have organized this panel that featured expert and youth leaders who will share perspectives on their experiences and insights on advocating for environmental rights in recognizing that environmental rights as equal to human rights through which society of today and future generations of tomorrow cannot exist sustainably without the protection of the planet on which we live. This event also aims to be a connecting point for the environmental activist and youth movement to network and empower one another for taking global action through localization.
This was my first time participating in a United Nations consultation where I spoke on behalf of Global Futurist Initiative. This consultation session was for Youth and Indigenous groups on the Summit of the Future. It was very humbling and exciting to see so many youth rising to the occasion to safeguard future generations through their voices. Additionally, UN Youth Delegate of Switzerland Arlinda Ramqaj spoke on behalf of our Informal Youth Working Group community of 300 young leaders representing 75 countries.
I was selected as one of six finalists to compete for the AFS Young Global Citizen Award sponsored by DHL and presented by AFS Intercultural Programs. The AFS Award for Young Global Citizens recognizes young people for their commitment to improving the global community and whose actions contribute to a more just, peaceful, and tolerant world. The Award will be awarded to a Youth Assembly delegate who demonstrates how their project is successfully addressing a pressing global issue, tackling one or more of the challenges outlined by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, and what this translates into in real-life impacts.
I was recently selected to join the Pulte Institute's Policy and Practice Visiting Associates Program to collaborate on addressing today's most compelling global issues. Visiting Associates can visit campus or participate in a variable-length hybrid residency, which includes a short campus visit. Visiting Associates works with the Pulte Institute to write evidence-based, strategic publications to positively influence global development policy and practice. My work will focus on H.Res.30 Supporting the United Nations SDGs.
Learn what metrics of success I use to communicate an initiative's efficacy.
Always advocating for a cause, listen to efforts I support and speak out about.
Creating opportunities for new engagements, insights sharing, and more.
Sharing information and highlighting important topics for action.
See the programs my experience as a leader has enabled me to implement.
Strategically aligning to mutual goals for deliberate, evidence-driven impact.
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