Natasha Christensen, Periclean Scholars Class of ’07, to be honored with Elon Alumni Service award
The Elon Alumni Service award is presented to an alumnus or alumna who has given extraordinary service to his or her community. The Elon Alumni awards have been presented annually to alumni and friends of Elon University since 1941. This award is one of the highest accolades conferred by the
Getting “coined” by general Flynn
Office of Alumni Engagement. As a recipient of this award, Natasha has demonstrated significant professional success, made a difference in her community, and been a loyal supporter of Elon. She will be the tenth recipient of the Alumni Service Award and by far the youngest to be honored.
Natasha will be here for Homecoming to receive this award. Her deployment in Afghanistan ends on November 4th and she will be in transit nearly the entire time when she arrives her at Elon on Friday the 8th of November.
Presently Natasha is with ISAF Joint Command as a Senior Subject Matter Expert (SME)/Governance Analyst and is providing expert-level understand of national and sub-national level governance issues to support the Commander ISAF Joint Command. She is currently forward-deployed and based in Kabul, Afghanistan. Here are a list of her responsibilities:
- Serve as SME and Senior Analyst for multinational team of six within the governance cell of ISAF Joint Command.
- Respond directly to tasks and requests for information from COMIJC, a three-star command.
- Liaise with the NATO SCR, ISAF HQ, and provide secondary support to COMISAF, a four star command.
- Provide substantive briefs to COMIJC and senior leadership on cross-cutting issues pertaining to governance, security and development.
- Provide timely and substantive analysis pertaining to the functioning of the Afghan government, respective line ministries, and sub-national governance and leadership to include regional powerbrokers.
- Liaise with the intelligence community and develop and maintain in theatre analyst-to-analyst contact, communications and exchanges of information with operational and tactical consumers of products in Afghanistan in support of COMISAF goals and expectations.
- Coordinate and serve as senior editor for all production from the Governance team for the Information Dominance Center within IJC.
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From my nomination letter:
Natasha has risen to a supervisory level in the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), part of the Department of Defense, and elected to serve in Afghanistan initially for a tour of 6 months but recently volunteered to serve a full year in Kabul. She is in a leadership position with Operation Outreach. She has had a meteoric rise in her career, and all of it has been devoted to serving others in the world; she remains the prototype exemplary global citizen and Periclean Scholar. In her current position -for which she volunteered- she is serving at an extraordinarily high level as a civilian working with the US military in the most extreme location in the world at the moment. Not only has she won awards for her leadership and service she has been promoted into a very high profile and profoundly important role presently.Please see supporting documents and below. She has been a mentor to countless friends and associates and to many, many both current and alumni Pericleans. She is ceaselessly serving others at the highest possible level; there is no quit or “can’t do” in this young woman. As she says, (paraphrase) “comfort zones are for the uncommitted.” In addition to her “normal” duties in Kabel, she I works with Operation Outreach in Afghanistan which works to support help bring relief to Afghan families. While back in D.C. she worked in hospitals and in raising money and organizing drives for clothes and supplies for families in need. Natasha also I supports the Wounded Warrior Project through BAE and has organized events in support of veterans and veterans issues through her work with BAE. She also supports a number of other organizations to include Anka Rising (which works to fight human trafficking) and Miriam’s Kitchen (a food bank in DC) and volunteers with the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the Washington Performaing Arts Society. From her c.v.: ISAF Joint Command – Senior Subject Matter Expert (SME)/Governance Analyst DECEMBER 2012 TO PRESENT Provide expert-level understand of national and sub-national level governance issues to support the Commander ISAF Joint Command (IJC). *Currently forward-deployed and based in Kabul, Afghanistan. • Serve as SME and Senior Analyst for multinational team of six within the governance cell of ISAF Joint Command. • Respond directly to tasks and requests for information from COMIJC, a three-star command. • Liaise with the NATO SCR, ISAF HQ, and provide secondary support to COMISAF, a four star command. • Provide substantive briefs to COMIJC and senior leadership on cross-cutting issues pertaining to governance, security and development. • Provide timely and substantive analysis pertaining to the functioning of the Afghan government, respective line ministries, and sub-national governance and leadership to include regional powerbrokers. • Liaise with the intelligence community and develop and maintain in theatre analyst-to-analyst contact, communications and exchanges of information with operational and tactical consumers of products in Afghanistan in support of COMISAF goals and expectations. • Coordinate and serve as senior editor for all production from the Governance team for the Information Dominance Center within IJC.
The Class of 2007 was under the mentorship of Dr. Jim Brown and their country of focus was Honduras. Natasha and other ’07’s traveled to Honduras in January of 2007 as part of their Class partnership.
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