Elise Verdooner

Elise Verdooner, a Fulbright Scholar and returned Peace Corps volunteer, has worked in international development for eight years. She is the former Executive Director of TEEEM, a global nonprofit organization focused on health, education, and economic empowerment in Ethiopia, Kenya, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Cambodia, Mongolia, Slovakia, and Peru. She holds a master’s degree in social work from Columbia University with a focus on social enterprise administration and international social work and a master's degree in global affairs from the University of Notre Dame. As a Fulbright Scholar in India, she is researching international social welfare, corporate social responsibility, and culture. Elise started as a Teaching Associate at Columbia University School of Social Work in 2019 before transitioning to Adjunct Faculty in 2022. As a youth development volunteer with the Peace Corps in Botswana, Elise worked on organizational capacity building, HIV prevention and outreach, and gender equality initiatives. Elise is a member of National Association of Social Workers’ (NASW) New York City Chapter and the Immigration and Global Social Work Committee. She is a member of the Network for Social Work Management (NSWM) and was the 2019 recipient of the NSWM Mark Moses Distinguished Fellowship Award, which is presented annually to one exemplary practitioner or academic working in the field of social work management. She publishes and presents on topics of international development and teaching with technology.