Rachel Leven

Rachel was a first-generation leader of NIMEP, serving as a co-chair of the group and editor and chief of the journal for two years. She also traveled to Lebanon, Egypt, the West Bank, and Israel. In Egypt she discovered a passion for waste management and the people and communities who are often pushed by society to the margins, literally picking through trash. 

After coming back from Egypt she wrote one of the first/few academic accounts of the Zabaleen and continued her work, bringing her research to India where as a Fulbright scholar she wrote "The Economics of Trash" for Foreign Affairs Magazine. More importantly, in a waste pit on the top of the mountain in the Himalayas, she met her future husband who she now lives with in Chicago with their four-year-old daughter. 

After working at Foreign Affairs Magazine, as a Fulbright Scholar, and in the Chicago Mayor's Office (among other positions), Rachel is now a policy consultant. You can find out more about her work to support a healthier democracy in the US, reproductive health, and state and local government at rl-insights.com. Rachel holds a BA in International Relations from Tufts and a Masters in Public Policy from Duke University.