In honor of Sharon Davie, the founding director of the Women’s Center, our Davie Fellowship supports the professional development of a PhD student at UVA who is exploring a non-traditional career path. Eniola Afolayan, this year's Davie Fellowship recipient, is an Anthropology PhD candidate interning with Vital Voices Global Partnership. Vital Voices is a US-based, international organization that serves as a “venture catalyst,” identifying leaders with a daring vision for change and partnering with them to make that vision a reality by providing connections, increased capacity, a peer network, financial support, skills training, and increased visibility for their work on the world's greatest challenges.

Eniola's work with Vital Voices grows out of her participation in UVA's PhD Plus program as well as her research on the experiences of civil servants in Nigeria and the time she spent serving as a corps member for both Nigeria’s National Youth Service Corps and AmeriCorps prior to graduate school. She is eager for the opportunity that this fellowship will provide her to leverage and grow her existing research, teaching, and grant-writing skills - and to extend those skills from her previous experiences in governmental agencies and classroom settings to a non-profit setting.