MEET THE STAFF

Jennifer Chang - Founder, Chairperson
Jennifer's interest in world cultures prompted her to start The Worldly in 2001. Aside from learning about foreign people and places, Jennifer's interests include wildlife conservation, fine teas and coffees, Fleming's James Bond novels, and Batman comics. She graduated from UCLA with a degree in Mass Communication Studies and East Asian Studies, and currently works as an editor, author, and broadband television producer.

Gilad Chudler - Editor in Chief
Gilad recently graduated from UCLA in 2007 with a degree in Global Studies. He is hoping to go to graduate school one day to study documentary making. In the meanwhile he plans on spending the next two years of his life in Latin America appropriating his time between writing, surfing, taking photos, and learning how to farm organically.

Katherine Paradero - Board Member
B.A. - UCLA, 2006. Philosophy, with a minor in Cognitive Science. Relevant coursework: Analytic Philosophy, Cognitive Psychology, and Linguistics.

Send me your art, opinions, and your stories. Take us to where you've been.
Looking forward to working with everybody!

Roxy Varza - Board Member
Roxy is a UCLA graduate from Northern California. She speaks Farsi and French and is addicted to sushi. Her interests include contemporary art, the World Social Forum, and Asian religions. Growing up, she did various types of dance, namely Latin and ballet, and competed in figure skating. Now, she somewhat plays the piano and secretly wishes she could play the accordion.

Habeeb Shalloum -
Senior Global Correspondent
Habeeb is a Canadian author who grew up in Saskatchewan. He joined the RCAF during WWII, and then worked for the Canadian Department of National Revenue for 36 years. He has been a full-time, freelance writer and author for the past 22 years, specializing in culture, food, history, and travel. Aside from the 6 books and 18 chapters in other books, he has had hundreds of articles published with the Toronto Star, the Globe and Mail, the Western Producer, Vegetarian Journal, and Saveur.

Stephen Duclos - Staff Writer
Stephen Duclos is from the San Francisco Bay Area, where he is currently teaching English as a Second Language. He has lived in Mexico City on 2 separate lengthy occasions and once in Russia over 3 years. Before becoming a teacher, he was a pilot for 17 years, much of the time in Portland, OR - a heavenly place. His first career, as a radio announcer, was spent in the Washington D.C. area during 7 years. He considers himself a citizen of the world, melding the cultures of his foreign residences into his own. Aside from speaking English correctly ,a lost art in America as revealed by Henry Higgins in "My Fair Lady," he speaks Spanish and Russian. He is a published author and accomplished guitarist.

Brahim El Guabli – Staff Writer
Ouarzazate, Morocco
Brahim holds a MA in Applied Foreign Languages (Arabic, English and French) and Business Studies from Bordeaux3 University in France. He is working as a primary school teacher in the High Atlas Mountains, and also teaches English for Specific Purposes, as a part time job, for Cinema and Audiovisual Production Management Students, and Cinema Techniques at the university in Ouarzazate.

Brahim spends the majority of his free time writing, translating and volunteering to develop the lives of his co-citizens in the poor, mountainous villages in his region. He is involved in a lot of community development activities as a civil society member.

His next goal is to gain a PhD in development studies.

Alex Budak - Staff Writer
Alex is a fourth year Political Science and Geography double major at UCLA. He enjoys photography, writing, and UCLA Athletics - not having missed a single home basketball game during his time at UCLA, and having camped out for most of them. With a strong sense of wanderlust, his travels have taken him from Iceland to Russia, and the Galapagos Islands to Amsterdam, though his best travel experience so far has been to Indianapolis to watch UCLA in the Final Four.

California Kay - Staff Writer
California hails proudly from LA and is currently on long-term assignment, lost somewhere in the sunbeams and oranges in Florida. He enjoys studying new cultures, animals, plants, places, histories, and saving women in distress between all his adventuring. Mr. Kay is on duty 24/7, trekking through every inch of the world, through all weather, conditions, dangers, in hopes of writing another letter to his beloved friends back at home before a giant anaconda swallows him whole one day. If there is adventuring to be done, or a giant anaconda to be fed, there is always one man to count on. His name? California Kay!

Alexis Meilland - External Communications (Paris Liason), Staff Writer
Alex is from Paris, where he is currently pursuing a masters degree in
computer science at a leading engineering school. He spent summer
sessions in UC berkeley and Stanford, loves horseback riding and going
out with friends. Bonne lecture!