Our Story
Urban Refuge was founded in 2016 as part of an incubator class at Boston University. The goal of the founding class was to map aid for refugees in Amman, Jordan using an open-source app that refugees can access free of charge. Since then, three female-led executive boards have worked to expand the reach of our app to put aid on the map for vulnerable populations all over the world.
Executive Board
Urban Refuge is run by a team of entrepreneurs all under the age of 24, who have dedicated themselves to social good and innovative entrepreneurship.
Niranjan Ravichandra is a recent graduate from the State University of New York at Buffalo with a major in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. He has over three years of extensive and multidisciplinary experience in a range of fields, from robotics to neuroevolution to satellite controls. He enjoys amateur olympic weightlifting, running and reading in his downtime.
NIRANJAN RAVICHANDRA Chief Technology Officer
Marietta holds a BA in International Relations and a Minor in French from Boston University's Pardee School of Global Studies. She focused her studies on migration patterns and comparative resettlement programs across the U.S. & Western Europe to cope with the global refugee crisis. She found herself immersed in the field of "Tech for Good" from first interning at MIT Solve and then the U.K. Department for International Trade. At MIT Solve, Marietta was on the accelerator-side, and came out with a deeper understanding of building partnerships and creating growth models of her own. At Root Capital, Marietta worked with the East Africa office to conduct surveys and create an impact report on youth engagement and crop diversification programs with individuals in each region Root Capital works in. Marietta is fluent in French and English, which has helped her communicate with individual clients and international organizations in her previous experience with humanitarian aid and protection. Interning at the International Institute of New England gave her first-and experience with individuals working through the resettlement process in Boston. In her down time, Marietta always has a book in hand, and loves practicing yoga and spending time with her pets. Finally, Marietta will be pursuing a year of service with AmeriCorps at the Massachusetts Immigrant & Refugee Advocacy (MIRA) Coalition to help individuals obtain the legal documentation they need to stay secure, especially during the COVID-19 global pandemic. As the Chief Operations Officer at Urban Refuge, Marietta combines her passions to grow this organization to its greatest potential
MARIETTA LA BARBERA Chief Operations Officer
Jessica Baron is a High School Special Education Teacher through Teach For America in Los Angeles. She is a recent graduate from Boston University, where she majored in International Relations. Jessica has fostered her skills in the development and marketing sectors through various endeavors. While living in Cape Town, she co-founded the organization She Is Strong, where she also managed social media sites and hosted fundraising events. She served as the Marketing Director for the Abeona Initiative, a student-run initiative at BU, where she drafted material in both French and English. While working as both a Campus Ambassador and then a Corps Member at Teach For America, she hosted panels and career fair presentations. When not working, she enjoys singing and traveling, having traveled to 22 countries, 5 continents, and having lived in 7 different countries, including France, England, South Africa, Morocco, Argentina, the Czech Republic, and the U.S.
JESSICA BARON Chief Marketing Officer
Board of Directors
The Urban Refuge Board of Directors is composed of Boston University faculty and alumni who have gone on to work in international development and STEM careers, themselves.
noora lori
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AT BOSTON UNIVERSITY
Raina Kadavil
PRESIDENT
Noora Lori is an Assistant Professor of International Relations at the Pardee School of Global Studies, Boston University. Her first book Offshore Citizens: Permanent “Temporary” Status in the Gulf (Cambridge University Press 2019) examines the citizenship and migration policies of the United Arab Emirates, where non-citizens make up 90 percent of the population. Challenging the dominant paradigm of citizen vs. alien, her book shows that not all populations are fully included or expelled by a state; they can be suspended in limbo—residing in a territory for protracted periods without accruing citizenship rights. She has published in the Oxford Handbook on Citizenship, the Asian and Pacific Migration Journal, the Journal of Politics & Society, and for the Institut français des relations internationals (IFRI). She is the Founding Director of the Pardee School Initiative on Forced Migration and Human Trafficking, which she co-directs with Professor Kaija Schilde. At BU she received the Gitner Family Prize for Faculty Excellence (2014) and the CAS Templeton Award for Excellence in Student Advising (2015). She was previously an Academy Scholar at the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies and a fellow at the International Security Program of the Harvard Kennedy School. She received her PhD in Political Science from Johns Hopkins University’s (2013) and her dissertation received the Best Dissertation Award from the Migration and Citizenship Section of the American Political Science Association in 2014.
Raina Kadavil serves as the President of the Urban Refuge Board of Directors. She works as a Manager at Mastercard’s Center for Inclusive Growth, overseeing the company’s CSR platform and data analysis, and supporting the company’s disaster response and STEM programming. She graduated from Boston University in 2019 with a BA in International Relations and from Johns Hopkins Carey Business School in 2023 with an MBA in Marketing and Product Management. She served as CEO of Urban Refuge from 2018 - 2024 and previously founded and ran two other organizations, Global Ambassadors (2008-2015) and Students for the United Nations (2018-2019). She currently serves on the Board of Directors of the United Nations Association of Westchester and is the founder of the “It’s Her Time” College Scholarship for young women in leadership and service. She is the author of “The Voice of Thunder” and a Bollywood choreographer and dancer. An avid traveler, she has visited 55 countries (and counting) and has worked in the United Nations as well as London, Sydney, and Beijing. Her research background includes conducting a three-year, award-winning independent study on climate change’s impact on horseshoe crab populations, and studied the impacts of tech on refugee aid in Istanbul with Urban Refuge. Raina has been recognized for her work by the Coca-Cola Foundation, Zonta International, the Walt Disney Company, and Claes Nobel, among others. In her free time, you can find her lost in a good book or on a hiking trail.
TAYLOR RESTEGHINI
Taylor Resteghini is a founding team member of Urban Refuge, having contributed to the initial research, fundraising, and outreach efforts for the app. She is currently a Photo Researcher working in education publishing, where she procures photography for digital education lessons designed to enhance student achievement. As an international relations major at Boston University, Taylor interned with non-profits and NGOs in Boston, Rabat, and Geneva, working on a range of issues from refugee resettlement, to women’s empowerment, to US foreign policy advocacy. Her passions lie in education, human rights, and healthcare accessibility.
VICKY KELBERER
Vicky Kelberer is a dual graduate from Boston University’s Pardee School of Global Studies, with a BA and MA in International Relations. She was a founding member an Graduate Chair of the Initiative on Forced Migration and Human Trafficking, and served as a graduate teaching assistant for the Urban Refuge course and the app’s first CEO. Vicky has worked in migration research and policy, higher education administration, non-profit development and strategy, and currently leads the Research and Strategy Group at one of the largest non-profit grantmakers in the US.
EVELYN HITT
Evelyn (Ellie) Hitt is the Executive Coordinator for Ambassador Samantha Power who was the United States Ambassador to the United Nations from 2013-2017. She received her B.A. in International Relations from Boston University where she was involved in the Community Service Center as a Program Manager for the Alternative Service Breaks Program and was one of the founders of Urban Refuge, an app designed to map aid for urban refugees. She joined the Belfer Center at Harvard Kennedy School after working for two years as a Refugee Career Coach at Jewish Vocational Service.
meaghan delaney