On Friday, October 18, Temitayo Ifafore-Calfee ’99, a division chief at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), received the school’s Community Service Award, given to alums who “have made significant contributions in their fields and earned the recognition of their peers on a national or international level.”
Mrs. Ifafore-Calfee received a B.A. in anthropology from Yale University in 2003 and an M.A. from the University of Michigan School of Public Health in 2005. She then completed a fellowship in International Healthcare Management at the Yale School of Public Health from 2006-2007.
Established in 1992, the Community Service Award honors alums who “have brought honor and distinction to themselves and Hotchkiss through their achievements” and made a significant impact on their community, the nation, and the world.
Each year, the Nominating Committee of the Board of Governors of the Alumni Association selects an alum who meets the criteria and invites them to campus to accept the award and address the community.
Mrs. Ifafore-Calfee accepted the award in Elfers on October 18 and sat down for a fireside chat interview with her former coach, Dr. Richard Kirby, instructor in chemistry. She said, “I started volunteering because my mom told me it would help get me into a good college. You start doing things, and you think, ‘This brings a lot of satisfaction.’ One step led to another.”
Mrs. Ifafore-Calfee previously worked as Director of Operations for Johns Hopkins Medicine International in Panama and as Regional Director for the William J. Clinton Foundation HIV/AIDS Initiative in Ethiopia, where she helped Liberia recover from an Ebola outbreak from 2014-16.
She is currently a Health Workforce Technical Advisor in the Office of Population and Reproductive Health at USAID. She said, “My hardest choice isn’t waking up every day deciding to do the work that I do. The hardest thing for me is the question, ‘Am I part of a system that is hurting others, that is continuing a dynamic that is leading to some people continuing to have and some people continuing to go without?’ I ask myself that every day.”
Mrs. Ifafore-Calfee has traveled to more than 45 countries. Her passion for travel was ignited by the school’s international travel program. At Hotchkiss, she participated in summer programs in Mexico and Costa Rica. “The experiences taught me a lot about how to behave in circumstances that were different from what I was used to,” she said.
Dr. Richard Kirby said, “Her speech inspired me to look more into the service opportunities I can take a part in.”
