UNL alumna Natalie Hahn, deputy director of the Programme Funding Office of UNICEF, has spent her career improving the lives of children and empowering women in developing countries. Working with three agencies of the United Nations she has spent her adult life residing in Italy, Nigeria and Malawi and has completed assignments in 31 countries. This Polk, Neb., native now lives in New York City where she is deputy director of the UNICEF Programme Funding Office.

She was the first woman scientist at Nigeria's International Institute for Tropical Agriculture, where she introduced eleven new food crops to women farmers. In Malawi, she was instrumental in developing a national orphans policy in a country hard-hit by HIV-AIDS. In that nation, she is known as Chifundo, "One who brings mercy."

She was graduated from the University of Nebraska in 1967 with a baccalaureate degree in Home Economics and Journalism. A veteran of 4-H, she credits her interest in international affairs to a 4-H International Farm Youth Exchange Program to New Zealand and a 4-H Teen Caravan to Japan. A friend of the University, she has given a large collection of African textiles and art to the NU State Museum and the College of Human Resources and Family Sciences and has established the Malaika Foundation to help internationalize Nebraska's primary schools and libraries.

Hahn earned a bachelor's degree in home economics and journalism at Nebraska (1967), a master's degree in journalism at Ohio State (1970), and a master's in public administration (1974) and an Ed.D. in administration, planning and social policy (1982) at Harvard.

Hahn received an honorary degree Doctor of Humane Letters from Nebraska at the August 2000 commencement ceremony. Hahn delivered the commencement address to the 775 students who received degrees that day.