Perhaps Nina McKee ’16 was fated to be involved with the Madeleine Korbel Albright Institute for Global Affairs.

“Madeleine Albright was always this figure in my life because I was a young redhead who liked negotiating and wanted to be a diplomat,” says McKee, who became the Albright Institute’s program director in December 2022. “My parents called me ‘Little Madeleine Albright’ when I was like 4 years old.”

McKee has had a peripatetic life. She was born in Japan and spent her childhood in the United Kingdom and throughout North America, moving with her mom up and down the East Coast of the U.S. while her dad moved around Canada.

When McKee began looking at colleges in 2011, her godmother, Karla Brom ’85, sent McKee a 2010 article from this magazine about the newly established Albright Institute, which inspired McKee to apply to Wellesley. At the College, she majored in political science, minored in Middle Eastern studies, and was a senior year captain of Blue Crew. Her junior year, she was accepted to the institute as an Albright fellow.

“At Albright, I felt at home intellectually,” McKee says. “Multidisciplinarity and global thinking always interested me, and so being in a place where it was present every single day validated my own interests and my desire to venture out into the world of international work.”

After her senior year, McKee “bolted from Wellesley like a greyhound out of the gate.” She even began her first post-Wellesley job—as an experiential education program leader in Guatemala—during senior week 2016, briefly returning to campus for commencement. For two years, McKee ran programs supporting community development through experiential education in Guatemala, Ecuador, Palestine, and Israel. McKee then shifted to humanitarian work in Greece, helping asylum seekers on the island of Chios. Then she earned two master’s degrees—one in Switzerland in humanitarian action and one in Italy in transnational crime and justice.

In 2022, the previous program director, Rebecca Gordan ’01, asked McKee to lead a committee of former fellows to help create an Albright mentorship program. They decided to pair each current Albright fellow with a former Albright fellow, who would serve as a mentor during the student’s summer internship abroad. “[It was] exciting and inspiring and hopeful to think about how to connect the fellows to make this network,” says McKee. “Part of my excitement about the program director role was to carry forward the concepts we discussed in the process of creating the mentorship program, but couldn’t put into place last year.”

Since becoming the institute’s program director, McKee had the challenge of shaping the first Wintersession since the secretary’s passing in March 2022. Each year, Albright would return to campus to have tea with the fellows, provide feedback on their research and presentations, and take part in Q&As. Even in 2021 and 2022, when the institute was remote due to COVID, Albright Zoomed in.

“I think that it’s impossible to replace the magnanimous presence of the secretary,” says McKee. “But what we can do is continue to ensure that the institute embodies the principles she really cared about, like empathy and creating curiosity across disciplines.”

This past Wintersession, fellows attended guest lectures, discussed global affairs, and worked in small groups on assigned research topics, culminating in presentations given in front of the entire cohort and the distinguished visiting professor (DVP). This year’s DVP was Marie Yovanovitch, former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, and Armenia. In keeping with Albright’s tradition, Yovanovitch listened to each presentation, asked thoughtful questions, and gave feedback.

This year, McKee and the Albright staff also asked Winifred “Wini” Shore Freund ’59—Albright’s closest Wellesley friend—to join the fellows for “Storytime with Wini,” during which she shared memories about the secretary. Freund also delivered a charge to the fellows during the closing ceremony, telling them that Albright always said “Hell yes!” to every opportunity that came her way.

“Saying ‘Hell yes!’ to opportunities is my modus operandi. Getting this job was no different!” says McKee. “I’m really grateful to be back at a place I love, while keeping a foot in the international sphere. I look forward to helping other Wellesley students make their ways in the world.”