May 23, 8:45 AM – 10:00 AM
McCosh Hall, Room 10

Moderator:

Bridget St. Clair
Director, Alumni Education and Travel

Panelists:

Rebecca Graves-Bayazitoglu *02
Senior Associate Dean, Office of International Programs

Carl Walter ’70
Banker

Stephen Humphreys ’80
Special Counsel

Kelechi Acholonu ’05
Court Attorney Referee, New York Supreme Court

Sponsored by the Alumni Association of Princeton University

Participants: 

Bridget St. Clair
Bridget St. Clair brought her extensive background in both international experiential learning and higher education program administration to Princeton in 2015. As director of alumni education and travel, St. Clair oversees a suite of flagship programs including Princeton Journeys, Princeton University Speakers Bureau, TigerSide Chats and Game Day Lectures. Previously, she served as a senior program officer at the Institute of International Education in New York and as an account executive at Travel Weekly magazine in Sydney, Australia. Having lived in three countries and visited 55 more, St. Clair delights in sharing her passion for exploration through Princeton Journeys. An alumna of the University of Miami, St. Clair holds a master’s degree in international studies from the University of Limerick in Ireland. When not on the road, St. Clair is happiest at home with her fiancé, Fred, and their handsome cat, Finn.

Rebecca Graves-Bayazitoglu *02
Rebecca Graves-Bayazitoglu joined the Office of International Programs (OIP) at Princeton in July 2019. As senior associate dean, she oversees and supports the work of all OIP programs (the Novogratz Bridge Year Program, the Study Abroad Program, the International Internship Program and Fellowship Advising) and represents the office across the University and beyond its borders. After completing her Ph.D. in romance languages and literatures (French) at Princeton, she taught at the University of Michigan and Haverford College. She returned to Princeton, where she served as director of studies at Rockefeller College and then as founding dean of Whitman College. In 2016, Graves-Bayazitoglu moved to the McGraw Center for Teaching and Learning as its director, working closely with the staff to support inclusive and innovative teaching, and all forms of effective student learning. With her colleagues in OIP, she works to ensure that all Princeton students have access to international opportunities.

Carl Walter ’70
Carl Walter became a banker out of desperation after a decade of language study in Japan and China. He earned an M.A. in economics from Peking University (1980) and a Ph.D. from Stanford University in Chinese political economy (1981). He authored or co-authored several books, including “Red Capitalism: The Fragile Financial Foundations of China’s Extraordinary Rise” (2011), which was named a book of the year by The Economist and Bloomberg. His 20 years of living in Beijing saw Walter travel the country in search of deals. He was mostly unsuccessful but accumulated lots of friends and stories, both business-wise and gastronomical. Returning to the U.S. in 2011, Walter started biking. His daughter proposed a cross-country trip, and they pedaled the northern tier route in 51 days, blogging every night, with Walter losing 30 pounds. Best thing he ever did for himself and his daughter.

Stephen Humphreys ’80
Stephen Humphreys has spent most of the last three years in Ukraine where he was awarded the Volunteer Medal for Valor by his legion commander. In addition to his service in military training and intelligence, Humphreys has volunteered in numerous other capacities, including war crimes investigations in cooperation with the Prosecutor General’s office and as adviser to the President’s Commission on Legal Reform and the Law Enforcement Committee of the Ukrainian parliament. He lectures in law and history at Taras Shevchenko National University in Kyiv. His collection of photographs of Ukraine opened at the University of Alabama and is on exhibit in the Ukrainian parliament this spring. His lawsuit against Fox News concerning the deaths of its crew members in Ukraine in March of 2022 was featured by NPR, The Washington Post and other major media sources. Humphreys is a frequent speaker on Russian war crimes and criminal organizations.

Kelechi Acholonu ’05
Kelechi Acholonu is an attorney in New York City. Her love of travel began at Princeton, where she had the opportunity to study abroad in Mexico, Europe and Australia. After graduating, she worked with a small human rights nongovernmental organization in Peru before attending law school at Georgetown University Law Center. During law school, she studied abroad at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands and took courses in The Hague. Acholonu used her time after studying for the bar exam and before working as an associate at a large law firm to travel to southeast Asia as she figured she would never have that much vacation time again, and she was right. Despite her full-time job managing alternative dispute resolution programs for the New York Supreme Court, she makes a point to continue her travel hobby. She has traveled to more than 40 countries and all seven continents.