Esther Brot Simmons

Esther Brot Simmons ‘14 is an Associate Director of Pre-Professional Initiatives at Beyond Barnard, where she advises students and alumnae preparing to apply to health professions programs, law school, MBA programs, and other professional and graduate degrees. Esther came to Beyond Barnard in June 2026 from Columbia University Irving Medical Center, where she spent several years advising predoctoral students, including MD/PhD candidates, on competitive fellowship applications and developing institutional programming that dramatically increased student engagement. Prior to that Esther worked in the UK providing academic advising to undergraduates and supporting international students applying to US universities. After attending Barnard for her BA in European History, Esther attended the University of Cambridge for her MPhil in Early Modern History, and obtained her PhD in History from King’s College London. Esther grew up in New York and is a longtime New Yorker, currently living on the East Side of Manhattan.

What is your favorite part of your job? 

Honestly? Learning from the very students and alums I work with. I've always thought of advising as a two-way street; every person I work with teaches me something new, whether it's a research area I'd never encountered or a completely unexpected path toward a long-term goal. That's what makes this work feel so alive.

If you could speak to your college self, what advice would you give her? 

Your journey is not a competition. It's so easy to get caught up in what everyone around you seems to be doing, but the more you focus on other people's paths, the more you risk missing the experiences that are actually available to you. And those experiences? They're the ones that will show you who you are and what you actually want: in your career, yes, but also just in life!