YMUN XXXVII

Kevin Hoffman
Secretary General
kevin.hoffman@yira.org

Kevin Hoffman is incredibly excited to be your Secretary General for the thirty-seventh session of Yale Model United Nations! Hailing from Palos Verdes Estates, CA (a Los Angeles suburb), he's a junior majoring in chemical engineering. He is a seven-year participant in MUN, and aside from that is an active member of Yale's club soccer team and a contributing writer for a sustainability journal called Wheel. Kevin is very interested in energy and sustainability, and hopes to use his scientific background to help solve global environmental problems. He is elated to be working with such a great Secretariat, and is looking forward to a great conference!

Kevin Ho
Director General of Committees
kevin.ho@yira.org

Kevin Ho originally hails from East Brunswick, New Jersey, but is now a junior in Calhoun College majoring in Ethics, Politics, and Economics. This year, for YMUN XXXVII, he is thrilled to be serving as your Director General of Committees and making debate and compromise as fun and exciting as possible. Outside of Model UN, Kevin plays for the Yale club volleyball team and does business development for AIESEC, an international student exchange organization. In his free time, he enjoys eating seafood and watching Youtube videos. Kevin is also interested in public health, social entrepreneurship, and China (he's been trying to painstakingly learn how to write Chinese over the course of his college career).

Bryan Kam
Director General of Operations
secretary@yira.org

Bryan is a rising junior political science major in Saybrook College. As Director General, Admin, he works with the Undersecretaries General Delegations, Conference and Services to coordinate the logistics and administration for the conference. Last year, he had the pleasure of serving as Undersecretary General Services, and has been involved with YMUN for 3 years, and Model U.N. for nearly 7 years now! Australian by nationality, Bryan grew up in Hong Kong where he attended a German and Swiss international school.

Annie Yi
USG Delegations
annie.yi@yira.org

Annie, a sophomore in Calhoun College, welcomes you to YMUN XXXVII! This year, she will be your USG of Delegations. Back home in San Jose, California, Annie founded a small but highly successful MUN program, now in its fourth year. Besides having served on YMUN XXXVI as ASG of ECOSOC, she spends her time in New Haven working at the Yale Center for British Art (amidst one of the best Turner collections in the world), mentoring low-income students as part of a start-up non-profit, and poking her roommate awake at 9 AM to help her with her Russian pronunciation. She is currently a prospective history and Russian studies major, and her guilty pleasures are Bollywood movies, organic pesto pizza, and California sunshine.

Faizaan Kisat
USG General Assemblies
faizaan.kisat@yira.edu

Faizaan Kisat is a Junior in Branford College from Karachi, Pakistan. He firmly believes that when it comes to committees, size does matter!! That's why he's really excited to serve as your Undersecretary General for General Assembly committees. Besides slaving away for YIRA, Faizaan loves to act and has taken part in several plays at Yale, his most memorable moment on stage being when he was attacked and eaten by a bear. Faizaan is also a Peer Liaison for international students and has access to every entryway in Yale College (now that's something even our Sec Gen. doesn't have). When he gets time, Faizaan likes to catch up on watching ABC dramas and late night talk shows; and of course, study for his econ major.

Sibjeet Mahapatra
USG ECOSOC
sibjeet.mahapatra@yira.org

Welcome to YMUN! Sibjeet Mahapatra is thrilled to serve as your USG ECOSOC for YMUN XXXVII--he is a current sophomore in Silliman College, originally hailing from the exotic land of Montvale, New Jersey, and most likely majoring in Economics and International Studies. He has done Model UN since his freshman year of high school, and this will be his sixth YMUN as either a delegate or staff member. When he is not slaving endlessly over making your YMUN experience awesome, Sib reports for the Yale Globalist, serves on the board of the Roosevelt Institute (a student think-tank), hikes and does outdoors-y stuff with FOOT, and goes on trips with MUNTY (the Yale MUN travel team). Come visit him while you are here--he wants to meet you!

Marjorie Berman
USG Specialized Agencies
marj.berman@yira.org

Marj, a sophomore in Calhoun College from the suburbs of Philadelphia, would like to welcome you to YMUN XXXVII! She participated in Model UN throughout high school, and last year served as an Assistant Secretary-General for Specialized Committees. This year she is very excited to serve as the USG Specialized and to plan out a great conference for all of the delegates in attendance. Besides YMUN, Marj also teaches YIRA’s international relations Outreach class to New Haven high school students, perform with Yale Children’s Theatre, and frequent Claire’s Corner Copia. She look forward to meeting everyone in January and being part of the best YMUN to date!

Suzie Jing
USG Conference
suzie.jing@yira.org

Attention delegates--get ready for YMUN XXXVII! As a sophomore in Branford College who's lived in Shanghai, Tel Aviv, Vancouver, California and is now a resident of Cheshire, Connecticut, Suzie cannot stress enough the joys in being a part of the global community. Over the summer, she conducted a soft power study on university students in Shanghai, which will hopefully feed into her planned Political Science and International Studies dual-major. Outside of YIRA, she enjoys drawing and writing, blasting foreign hip hop, and getting lost in Yale's gorgeous nooks and crannies. Having spent her last few birthdays in the Omni Hotel as a delegate of YMUN (and still stuck with the conference in college), Suzie hopes that you too will find out how fun (and valuable) the YMUN experience is!

Vinicius Lindoso
USG Services
vinny.lindoso@yira.org

A rising sophomore in Silliman College pursuing a Political Science major, Vinny is now serving as Undersecretary-General for Services, which means he will be responsible for coordinating the Opening and Closing ceremonies, the Delegate Dance, Yale Day, and and more! In other words, he will be the "invisible hand" behind the wonderful events you will experience throughout the YMUN conference. Originally from Caruaru, a medium-sized industrial town in the Brazilian Northeast, Vinny lived for five years in Recife, on the Atlantic coast, where I graduated in 2009 from the American School of Recife prior to coming to Yale. Vinny's MUN experience goes back to High School, where he headed the Model UN team for two years, and follows into his freshman year at Yale with his membership in the Yale International Relations Association and participation in last year's SCSY and YMUN conferences. He is quite excited to be helping to organize YMUN this time. Vinny's other extracurricular interests include teaching for the Bridges ESL tutoring program, writing for the Yale Globalist, working in political science research, and grading for the Portuguese department. In his leisure time, his favorite thing to do is go have a great meal and enjoy some nice company in one of New Haven's (or, preferably, New York's) amazing restaurants.

Natalie Kotkin
Director of Security
ymun.security@yira.org

After having an exceptional time at the thirty-sixth session of YMUN, Natalie is ready to welcome everyone back to campus for YMUN XXXVII! A senior in Trumbull college, she is double majoring in French and International Studies. Natalie has been involved with the conference for the past seven years, having attended the conference all four years of high school and served on the Secretariat for the past three. Outside of the Yale International Relations Association, she has also served on the board of the Women's Leadership Initiative and works in her residential college's late night buttery. She'd like to wish everyone luck preparing for the conference!