Remembering Maren Castro Villagrana Jakobsmeier

The SIPA community mourns the passing of alumna Maren Castro Villagrana Jakobsmeier MPA ’18.

Maren graduated from SIPA this past May with a degree concentration in Economic and Political Development and a specialization in Gender and Public Policy. She was active in several student organizations, including serving on the boards of the Education Collaborative and Women in Leadership.

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Maren had moved over the summer to Malawi, where she was working as a research associate on a World Bank-funded education sector improvement project. Over the weekend she was involved in a serious road accident and did not survive.

“I know many current and former SIPA students knew Maren well,” wrote Dean Merit E. Janow in a message to the community. “Today we join with her family, friends, and colleagues in expressing our condolences for this heartbreaking loss. As many at SIPA can attest, Maren was a motivated, caring, and engaged member of our community as a student, and was poised to make many valuable contributions to the international development field and to the promotion of gender equality.”

Update (October 29, 2018)

When Maren interned at UNCDF Tanzania in summer 2017, she worked with Ivana Damjanov MIA ’93, who shared this reminiscence:

I loved working with Maren. Every day was filled with new stories, discoveries, and insights. She was a constant source of ideas and acquaintances, and her passion infected and motivated us all. She was never satisfied to sit and wait for inspiration to come to her, but instead pushed the barriers of convention and opened herself up to what life had to offer.

Although she left a mark on all of our projects, she was most passionate about our work in the refugee camps and it suited her strong spirit perfectly. She didn’t have to spend entire days in the refugee camps and could have worked out of an office, but she chose to go with our partners and meet as many refugees as she could, even the children and youth who were not involved in our program.

Maren’s family is honoring her memory by raising funds for an NGO working with children, refugees and education in Malawi and Tanzania. Learn more here.