FACULTY & STAFF

KELLY CLEARY
Director

Prior to joining the program in May 2018, Kelly served as the Dean of Career and Professional Advising at Haverford College. She is delighted to return to Penn, having supported students as a Senior Associate Director in Career Services from 2007-2013. She has also worked as a trainer for the U.S. State Department’s Irish Peace Process Cultural & Training Program in Belfast, Northern Ireland and Washington, D.C., and held advising roles at Stetson University, the University of Iowa, and George Washington University. Her first job was as a teaching intern at the Marymount International School in Rome, Italy. She has a B.A. in English from Wake Forest University, an M.A. in Community Counseling from George Washington University, and an Ed.D. in Higher Education from Penn, with a research focus on interning abroad on career development.

OSMAN BALKAN, PhD
Associate Director and Program Director of Curriculum, Experiential Learning, and Innovation

Osman Balkan is Associate Director and Program Director of Curriculum, Experiential Learning, and Innovation at the Huntsman Program in International Studies and Business. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Pennsylvania and a B.A. in Political Science from Reed College. Dr. Balkan’s research and scholarship focuses on borders and migration, race and ethnicity, identity and inequality, and the politics of collective memory. His first book, Dying Abroad: The Political Afterlives of Migration in Europe was published by Cambridge University Press as part of its LSE International Studies Series.

At Huntsman, Dr. Balkan offers instructional support for the first-year seminar, INSP 1001: International Studies and Business- A Global View, and oversees the senior year integrative research by students both in theses and in the capstone projects, working closely with seniors to advance their independent research. He is also responsible for designing and facilitating experiential learning initiatives, including the Huntsman Global Immersion Course, that extend educational opportunities beyond the classroom through off-campus excursions and collaborations with community partners. Additionally, he works hand-in-hand with numerous research centers and institutes at the University of Pennsylvania to enhance curricular programing and promote intellectual exchange, discussion, and debate.

Dr. Balkan has extensive experience in the field of international education having served as Director of the Europe Regional Program and Faculty Coordinator of the Global Immersion Program at the Lauder Institute of Management and International Studies at Penn as well as Resident Director of the U.S. State Department’s Critical Language Scholarship Program in Turkey. He has held faculty positions at Cornell University and Swarthmore College, where he worked to promote the academic, interpersonal, and professional success of students from a wide range of backgrounds including international, first-generation, low income, and minority students. Prior to his academic career, he worked in arts and culture, helping produce the Contemporary Istanbul Art Fair and New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival as well as the International Center of Photography’s Infinity Awards.

SARVELIA PERALTA-DURAN
Associate Director and Program Director for Intercultural and Global Initiatives

Prior to joining the program, Sarvelia served as the Administrative Director for the Jerome Fisher Program in Management and Technology where she managed the program’s operations and provided key services to students including academic advising and co-curricular programming. Prior to joining M&T, Sarvelia directed the Wharton Global Consulting Practicum, a cross-functional course and embedded consulting practice for MBA and Executive MBA students. Sarvelia co-founded The Blue Door Group, a training and education consulting practice focused on designing, facilitating, and teaching interactive processes for learning and capacity building. She also taught Experiential Learning Design, a core course for the Intercultural Communications master’s degree at the Graduate School of Education at Penn.

Sarvelia attended The University of Pennsylvania as a First-Generation, Low-Income (FGLI) international student and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts with a double major in Psychology and Fine Arts from the College of Arts and Sciences. She holds a Master of Arts in Intercultural Service, Leadership, and Management from the School for International Training Graduate Institute. Prior to attending Penn, she completed one year of Psychology coursework at the University of Vienna, Austria. Originally from Mexico, Sarvelia is a passionate interculturalist and global citizen having resided in Mexico, Singapore, Austria and the U.S.

ELLA STRAUSS
Associate Director, Communications and Programming

Prior to joining the program in November 2021, Ella worked at the Free Library of Philadelphia Foundation as the Major Gifts and Planned Giving Coordinator. At Wharton, she will be returning to working with college students.  For three and a half years, she held multiple positions at Campus Philly, a non-profit working to help Philadelphia college students fall in love with the city. Before coming back home to Philadelphia, Ella lived in Charlotte, NC and worked in Alumni Relations at her alma mater, Davidson College. She has a B.A. in History from Davidson and spent a semester abroad in India. In her free time, Ella enjoys basketball, checking out the newest restaurants and planning her next trip. She is already at 65 countries and counting.

Jeffrey Babin
Affiliated Faculty

Jeffrey is Professor of Practice and Associate Director Engineering Entrepreneurship in the School of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS) at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the inaugural Engineering Faculty Director for Venture Lab and leads the development of co-curricular and extra-curricular technological innovation programming. Jeffrey works with Venture Lab faculty and staff to support a wide range of programs in technology-driven entrepreneurship, including the Berkman Opportunity Fund, Miller Innovation Fellowship, and Engineering Entrepreneurship’s student intellectual property programs. Jeffrey is the advisor and curriculum developer for Venture Lab’s Venture Initiation Program (VIP), Penn’s largest and most diverse incubator & accelerator program. Jeffrey is a leader of the Penn Innovation & Entrepreneurship Group (PIEG), a grassroots collaboration among all the innovation programs across the University of Pennsylvania innovation ecosystem.

Prior to his appointment in Penn Engineering, Jeffrey was a lecturer in Entrepreneurship for the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and held an appointment as lecturer in the Marketing. He has been a leader in many of the innovation co-curricular programs at the Wharton school: he was the co-director, senior project advisor, and regional manager for the Wharton Global Consulting Practicum, an embedded consulting practice in the Wharton School, which served global companies.

Jeffrey Babin is a managing director and founder of Antiphony Partners, LLC, a strategy consulting firm that specializes in helping companies create sustainable value through innovation. Jeffrey led the development of the company’s proprietary Relaunch® methodology, through which Antiphony works with senior executives to successfully develop innovative business models, bring new products and services to market, and build profitable operational infrastructures.

Jeffrey earned an MBA from the Wharton School and a BA in Physical Anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania.

Jaeho Kim
Teaching Assistant

Jaeho Kim is a second-year Ph.D. student in management at the Wharton School. He conducts research on strategies for fostering technological innovation by entrepreneurial individuals, firms, and ecosystems. His present work addresses the structures for interfirm collaboration in innovation ecosystems and the practices for the development of human capital in technology firms. Prior to joining Wharton, Jaeho worked as a research associate in the Strategy Unit at the Harvard Business School.