Members of the Board 2023

Born and raised in Hong Kong, Spencer Leung (Chula Class 15) is based in Bangkok, Thailand. In 2015, after graduating from the Rotary Peace Fellowship Program, Spencer set up a social enterprise in Thailand, focusing on supporting smallholder farmers toward sustainable organic farming. The social enterprise works with hotels, restaurants, families, individuals, and other social enterprises and NGOs, to create an effective marketplace for farmers to sell their organic produce. In 2020, Spencer founded GO Organics Peace International, a not-for-profit organization in Hong Kong, promoting peace education and sustainable, regenerative agriculture across Asia.

As a gender equality and peacebuilding practitioner, Regina Mutiru Mwendwa (Bradford Class 14) has spent the last decade of my life working with the Kenyan Government in supporting policy development for peace and cohesion building in the country. I have specifically focused on Women’s Peace and Security, dialogue facilitation, and Prevention/Countering Violent Extremism (P/CVE). Beyond my 8-5 work, I also work towards strengthening the voices of women and girls in marginalized communities to access education and challenge the status quo. “Work hard and play hard” is my mantra. I believe a relaxed mind is able to deliver better.

Florence Maher (ICU Class 17) is a social scientist at the OECD in Paris, France, where she works to advance international cooperation on gender equality and safety culture in the peaceful use of nuclear energy. Prior to her current position, she was a 2018-2020 Rotary Peace Fellow at the International Christian University (ICU) in Tokyo, Japan, researching multi-stakeholder dialogue on policy processes. From 2011-2018 she was a career foreign service officer with the US Department of State, with assignments in Mexico, Italy, Honduras, and Washington, DC. She holds a Master’s degree in public policy and social research from ICU and Bachelor’s degree in economics and political science from Howard University in Washington, DC.

Priyanka Borpujari (ICU Class 18) is a widely published, award-winning journalist reporting on issues of human rights across Japan, Argentina, Bosnia-Herzegovina, El Salvador, Indonesia, and India. She also covered business in the Indian capital of New Delhi, and crime for Mumbai Mirror, including the 26/11 terrorist attacks. She was named the 2012-13 IWMF Elizabeth Neuffer Fellow for her journalism on the forceful acquisition of land owned by Indigenous peoples. In 2015, she was one of the India-Germany Media Ambassadors and a guest journalist with the German political weekly Die Zeit. In early 2016, she was a Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence at Nazareth College in Rochester, NY, where she taught a course on media and human rights. She was a Rotary Peace Fellow at the International Christian University from 2019 to 2021 and took an active part in the first two RPFAA Global Peace Conferences. She was the Co-Chair of the third RPFAA-GPC. She is currently based in Ireland, where she is pursuing her Ph.D., researching the intersection of gender, aging, and social media. She loves big dogs, painting, seaside walks, 80s and 90s music, and sage tea.

Rukmini Iyer (Chula Class 15) works at the intersection of business, leadership, peacebuilding, and systems design. Over the last two decades, she has worked across the globe with corporate organizations, the development sector, communities, and individuals through the modalities of consulting, facilitation, coaching, and dialogue. Her consulting practice Exult! Solutions was set up in 2008 after having spent the first few years of her career in employment in India and Singapore with leading corporate organizations and educational institutions. The inspiration to be an entrepreneur came from her need to integrate her work in conscious leadership and organizational development, and peacebuilding, and to create a bridge between these spaces. Apart from being a Rotary Peace Fellow, she is also a Vital Voices Visionaries Fellow, Emerging Leaders Fellows (from the Inner Climate Academy), and a Positive Peace Activator by Institute for Economics and Peace and Rotary International. She currently serves as a Core Team Member at Disom – The Leadership School in India and is a Member of the International Committee of Creators of Peace International.

Born in Moldova and a citizen of Poland, Natalia Sineaeva (Chula Class 25) comes from a background in social sciences and Holocaust studies. Her research deals with genocide distortion and identity in Eastern Europe. She has many years of experience in the field of reconciliation and dealing with the past both in Europe and Asia. Her recent experience includes work at the POLIN Museum of the History of the Polish Jews in Warsaw, Poland, as well as cooperation with the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and other museums and sites of memory. She has also worked with organizations monitoring racism and xenophobia such as the NEVER AGAIN Association. In 2018, she acted as a European Holocaust Research Infrastructure Fellow at the Elie Wiesel National Institute for the Study of the Holocaust in Bucharest, Romania. In 2022, she co-chaired the Rotarian Peace Projects Incubator, a gathering that aimed to develop peace projects addressing urgent community needs. She speaks Polish, Russian, Romanian/Moldovan, and English, and is learning Khmer.

Based in Chicago, Illinois, Kathleen Doherty (Chula Class 25) is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW), and a Certified Domestic Violence Professional (ICDVP) serving as the head of the Gender Unit at LeMayian Hospital in Kitengela, Kenya. Kathleen comes from an extensive background with experience leading NGOs focused on the intervention and prevention of sexual and gender-based violence, HIV/AIDS, and child protection and welfare. In 2018, Kathleen completed her Rotary Peace Fellowship at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand. In 2020, she was selected as a Positive Peace Activator by Rotary International/Institute of Economics & Peace, where she co-founded the Racial Equity Project addressing the critical link between diversity, equity, inclusion, and peacebuilding. Kathleen also has professional certificates in mediation from the Center for Conflict Resolution (CCR) and Northwestern University, as well as certificates in Unarmed Civilian Protection from Nonviolence Peaceforce, and Refugee Protection and the Rights and Process of (Re) Settlement from Northwestern University. In 2020, Kathleen was a core organizer of the RPFAA Global Peace Conference, and in 2021 served as the Global Peace Conference African/MENA Committee Co-Chair. She is currently on the planning committee for the RPFAA Leadership Retreat 2023, and the RI/IEP Peace Activators’ Leadership Summit 2023.

Rotary Peace Fellowship Alumni Association