The 1995-96 White House Fellows

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David M. Albala, 39, is an Associate Professor of Urological Surgery at Loyola University. A native of Chicago, he received his MD from Michigan State University. Before graduating, he spent two months in Nepal developing health care programs. Prior to his urological residency at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, Albala spent a year in Pakistan developing community-based health clinics in medically underserved areas. During a subsequent fellowship at Washington University, he helped pioneer a method to remove kidneys using laparoscopic techniques. Albala developed and leads a prostate screening program in inner-city Chicago which adapts international health care approaches to increase domestic access.

David K. "Bob" Edmonds, 38, a Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Air Force, is Commander of the 95th Fighter Squadron. He was a Distinguished Graduate from the U.S. Air Force Academy in 1979. A Guggenheim Fellow at Columbia University, Edmonds earned a Master's in civil engineering, summa cum laude, in 1980. During Operation Desert Storm, he led 47 combat missions as an F-15 mission commander. He has also served as a commander and faculty instructor at the Academy and as a staff officer at the Pentagon. A native of Charlotte, North Carolina, Edmonds coaches youth soccer and baseball, and is active in his church leadership. In 1994, he initiated a Partnership-in-Education between his squadron and a local school.

James J. Eisenhower, III, 37, an attorney with Montgomery, McCracken, Walker and Rhoads, is counsel to Philadelphia Mayor Edward Rendell's Police Advisory Commission. Eisenhower graduated from Temple University and the Antioch School of Law, and he attended Oxford University on a Marshall scholarship. He was an aide to Congressman Bob Edgar. From 1987 to 1994, Eisenhower was a federal prosecutor with the Department of Justice in Washington, DC and Philadelphia. He secured the first federal police brutality convictions in the Philadelphia area in over a decade and handled many narcotics, firearms, corruption and fraud cases. At the Justice Department, Eisenhower received several commendations including the Attorney General's Special Achievement Award.

Michael E. Hatchett
Kokomo, Indiana
Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, U.S. Department of the Treasury

Michael E. Hatchett, 29, is an attorney with the law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell. As a litigation associate, he works on cases involving securities, antitrust and general corporate law. Raised across the world and the U.S. in an Air Force family, he graduated with an AB magna cum laude in political science and ethics from Wabash College in 1989, where he also was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. In 1992, Hatchett received his JD from Columbia University School of Law where he was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar. In the fall of 1992 he helped found The Columbia Academy School Project, a non-profit organization which helps to start neighborhood-based alternative junior and senior high schools in New York City.

David E. Jones, 33, is a Senior Attorney with Legal Services of Northern California, where he has provided free legal services to low-income clients since 1989. He graduated summa cum laude from DePauw University in 1984 and earned his JD with honors from Harvard Law School and an MPP from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government in 1988. He specializes in land use, redevelopment, and affordable housing litigation and legislative advocacy. Jones is an appointed member of housing committees for the Counties of Yolo and Sacramento and the Committee on Mather Air Force Base Redevelopment. Jones also volunteers with the Sacramento Mutual Housing Corporation, the California Coalition for Rural Housing project, and the statewide California Homeless and Housing Coalition.

Teresa Isabel Leger de Fernandez, 35, a partner at Nordhaus, Haltom, Taylor, Taradash & Frye, represents Indian Tribes, tribal enterprises, and claimants negotiating with the Mexican government. A graduate of Yale, she studied international relations at the University of Texas and Stanford. In 1987 she received her JD with distinction from Stanford Law School. She co-chaired the law student-founded East Palo Alto Community Law Project. She also worked in Peru with organizations providing legal services to women and community development projects. She serves on numerous boards including Northern New Mexico Legal Aid, Hispanic Women's Council, the Hispanic National Bar Association, and as past president of La Compania de Teatro de Albuquerque, which presents original works by Hispanic playwrights.

Robert W. Leland, 32, is a computer scientist at Sandia National Laboratories. His research involves application of the most advanced parallel supercomputers to scientific and engineering problems. A native of Williamsville, New York, Leland attended Michigan State University where in 1985 he earned a degree in electrical engineering and was awarded a National Science Foundation Fellowship. As a Rhodes Scholar, he earned a PhD in mathematics from Oxford University in 1989, rowed competitively and studied international relations. Leland resides in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he volunteer teaches, serves in the Concord Coalition, and plays violin in the community orchestra. He enjoys mountain sports and is a member of a swing dance team which competes nationally.

Peter Lawrence Levin, 33, is an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts. A native of New York City, he received his doctorate in 1988 from Carnegie Mellon University. Levin is the author or co-author of 35 scientific publications on subjects ranging from the global positioning system to supercomputer applications, and his software is used for research and education in eleven countries. During his recent sabbatical as a Humboldt Fellow at the Technical University of Darmstadt he lectured, in German, on technical topics and the Jewish Diaspora. The National Science Foundation honored him in 1991 as a Presidential Young Investigator for his work in computational electromagnetics.

Cynthia Lillian McCaffrey, 29, has worked with income-generating projects in Brazilian favelas and has implemented programs serving Mozambican refugees. She earned a Master's from the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas in 1995. At the Johnson School she received an NSEP Graduate Fellowship, the Miller Government Intern Fellowship, and a State Department internship. McCaffrey began her work in international development while studying at Vanderbilt University. After earning her Bachelor's degree, she worked for the International Rescue Committee's overseas programs. McCaffrey organized Vanderbilt's Big Buddies program and is completing the process of becoming a Big Sister in Austin, Texas.

Tanya E. Oubre, 30, is an attorney specializing in energy regulation at the Southern California Edison Company. She is responsible for the company's nuclear licensing and waste disposal matters. Oubre worked previously as a corporate associate at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, and as a mathematics instructor for Upward Bound, preparing disadvantaged students for college. Raised primarily in Miami, Florida, she received her Bachelor's degree in economics in 1986 and her JD degree in 1989, both from Duke University. During law school, she served as director of the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program. Since 1990, she has taught music, dance, drama, and Sunday school to children at an inner-city ministry and has volunteered as a tutor and mentor for at-risk youth.

Kent Pekel, 27, is a teacher who has taught in urban and suburban high schools in the U.S. and at the university-level in China. He currently teaches global studies at Jefferson High School in Bloomington, Minnesota, where he also chairs the school district's Inclusive Education Committee. In 1990 he graduated from Yale University magna cum laude with a degree in East Asian Studies, after which he taught for two years in Huazhong Normal University in Wuhan, China. While at Huazhong Pekel co-wrote and edited an innovative English language and American studies curriculum now in use at other institutions in China. In 1993 he earned an EdM from Harvard University. Pekel has led summer study-abroad programs in China for American high school and college students.

Anthony D. So, 34, a general internist, is Senior Medical Research Associate at the American College of Physicians. Trained as a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar, he directs a research and professional education program that translates clinical guidelines into physician practice. As adjunct faculty, he teaches at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School. He has served as a trustee of the American Medical Student Association and was named a trustee for the Commission on Professional and Hospital Activities. So's health fair work for Asian-American immigrants earned him the AMA/Burroughs Wellcome Resident Leadership Award. From the University of Michigan he received his BA in philosophy and biomedical sciences and MD degrees. He earned his MPA from Princeton University as a Woodrow Wilson Scholar.

Julia Vindasius, 33, is founding director of Good Faith Fund, a community-based, self-employment loan fund. GFF provides lower income residents in distressed rural communities access to credit and business assistance. In February 1988, she was honored as one of Arkansas's Top 100 Women by Arkansas Business and, in 1993, Small Business Advocate of the Year by the Small Business Administration. A 1993 graduate of the University of California at Berkeley, Vindasius received a Master of City Planning degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1986 with a specialization in international developing areas. She has served on the boards of directors of the Association for Enterprise Opportunity and the National Association of Community Development Loan Funds.

E. Kinney Zalesne, 29, is an Assistant District Attorney in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. After graduating magna cum laude from Yale in 1987, she volunteered on an Israeli kibbutz and worked at the Commission of the European Communities in Brussels, Belgium. In 1991, she received her JD, cum laude, from Harvard Law School, where she directed the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau. Born in Philadelphia, she returned for a federal clerkship with the Honorable J. William Ditter, Jr. She is currently revitalizing a small urban synagogue there and serves as cantor. She is a member of Philadelphia's Police Advisory Council, designed to improve community-police relations, and of the Baldwin School's National Board of Advisors, which promotes women's education.