Scholars of Distinction

The Barbara Silver Horowitz ’55 Scholars of Distinction Program, formerly known as The Barnard Centennial Scholars Program, was established in 1985 to help the College educate extraordinary young women bound for achievement. The Program provides a unique four-year scholarly experience in a cohort with other outstanding students. It offers participants an intellectual community, interaction with special invited guests, occasional special events outside the university setting, funds to pursue research, and a chance under the mentorship of a faculty member or outside expert to create an ambitious final project that will be presented to faculty and peers. The nature of the work produced varies according to the student, as is discussed below, and may or may not be related to their Barnard capstone thesis.

• Scholar cohort events begin in the student’s first year and continue throughout the Scholar’s time at Barnard. During a Scholar's first two years, these events (often sparked by student suggestions) are enfolded in a one-credit per semester course that is intended to foster community and encourage intellectual curiosity. Activities include attending scholarly events and seminars on campus, visiting off-campus cultural institutions and events, and social gatherings. Scholars often invite relevant faculty to participate in outings and discussions.
• Every Scholar selects a faculty mentor by the spring of her second year and will work closely with this mentor to define and then plan her research project.  
• Scholars receive funding to utilize during the summers after their sophomore and junior years. This funding allows them the freedom to conduct research or implement their ideas, either on campus or as far afield as they like, depending on the nature of their project.
• In their third and fourth years at Barnard, Scholars attend some seminars in which they workshop their ideas, research methods, drafts, and presentations with their more junior Scholar colleagues. Most of their work, however, will be undertaken in conjunction with their mentor. To acknowledge the work that goes into creating a polished and original final project, scholars will earn 1.5 credits each semester.

 

Benefits: Community and credits

Scholars enter the program in a cohort and interact closely with their fellow Scholars throughout their time at Barnard. For their first two years, Scholars participate in a 1-credit per semester seminar that is designed to foster community, intellectual curiosity, familiarity with various methods of inquiry, and connections with potential mentors. Scholars meet two or three times a month and often provide input on readings, guest speakers, and outings. Students are expected to attend all events and meetings.

During their third and fourth years, Scholars take part in some seminars, social events and outings. The emphasis, however, is on holding regular meetings with their mentors and self-directed study. For this they will receive 1.5 credits a semester. More advanced Scholars will also workshop projects in progress and receive feedback on their ideas and presentations. A Scholar’s time at Barnard will culminate in a formal presentation of her project.

 

Benefits: Mentorship and guidance in project development 

Mentorship is a key component of the Barbara Silver Horowitz ’55 Scholars of Distinction Program. With the assistance of the program directors, mentors are selected and recruited by the students at the end of their second year in the program. Typically chosen from the Barnard faculty—or occasionally from individuals outside the College who have expertise valuable to the Scholar—these individuals are compensated for their participation. Mentors serve as intellectual counselors and guides and are responsible for overseeing a project from its inception to its completion. Mentors and Scholars are expected to meet at least once a month. Initial meetings between a Scholar and her mentor focus upon the development of a project prospectus, budget, and timeline. In later meetings, a mentor will advise the Scholar and oversee the implementation and development of her project.

Benefits: Summer funding to help in project development 

A Scholar’s final project may dovetail with her senior capstone thesis or it may focus on something completely unrelated. In order to encourage Scholars to be as bold and creative as possible in envisioning their project, each Scholar may receive as much as $9000 (not to exceed $4500 in a single summer). With the approval of her mentor and the Program directors, the Scholar may use the stipend in any manner that contributes to furthering or enriching her project. Possible uses include travel, facilitating research opportunities, subsidizing collaborations or production expenses, and the purchase of equipment, lessons, etc.

Responsibilities:

• To maintain good academic standing throughout their time at Barnard.
• To regularly attend seminars as well as events scheduled outside of class time (which will normally be determined prior to the start of classes).
• To compose meditations on select events for the Scholars’ blog. See some examples here.
• Juniors and Seniors are expected to meet regularly with their mentors, to attend seminar sessions and social events when requested, and to develop an ambitious and creative project.
• Status in the Scholars Program is contingent on a student meeting the above expectations and providing evidence of their maturity and self-direction. If there are areas of concern, a committee will evaluate the student's continued status as a member of the program.

 

Director
Professor Paige West

Paige West is The Claire Tow Professor of Anthropology at Barnard College and Columbia University. Her broad scholarly interest is the relationship between societies and their environments. Since the mid has worked with indigenous people in Papua New Guinea. She is the author of three books and the editor of five more. Dr. West has written about environmental conservation and international development, the aesthetics and poetics of human social relations with nature, and the creation of commodities and practices of consumption. She is currently writing about climate change.

Dr. West is the founder of the journal Environment and Society, the chair of the Ecology and Culture University Seminar at Columbia University, a fellow (and past chair) of the Association of Social Anthropology in Oceania, and is the past president of the Anthropology and Environment Society of the American Anthropological Association.

In addition to her academic work, Dr. West is the co-founder, and a board member, of the PNG Institute of Biological Research, a small NGO dedicated to building academic opportunities for research in Papua New Guinea by Papua New Guineans. Dr. West is also the co-founder of the Roviana Solwara Skul, a school in Papua New Guinea dedicated to teaching at the nexus of indigenous knowledge and western scientific knowledge. She is also the volunteer anthropologist for the PNG NGO Ailan Awareness (AA), a marine-conservation NGO.

Find out more about Professor West’s work here: http://paige-west.com

 

Co-Director
Professor Ellen Morris

I am currently an Assistant Professor in Ancient Studies at Barnard, where I teach a First Year Seminar titled On Dreams and Nightmares as well as lectures and seminars on Ancient Egypt, Nubia, the Southern Levant, and other areas of the Ancient Mediterranean. Fittingly, I began my studies at Barnard, earning my undergraduate degree in Ancient Studies. I went on to pursue a Ph.D.  Egyptian and Near Eastern Studies in the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. My work centers on Egypt’s empire, which in the New Kingdom stretched from Syria to Sudan. I have published two books on Egypt’s imperial dynamics: The Architecture of Imperialism. Military Bases and the Evolution of Foreign Policy in Egypt’s New KingdomBrill, 2005) and Ancient Egyptian Imperialism Wiley-Blackwell, 2018). In addition, I write state formation and political fragmentation, sexuality and sacred performance, retainer sacrifice, island theory, and divine kingship. Most of my articles can be freely accessed from academia.edu. At the moment, I am working on a book that examines Nilotic rituals, especially the material culture produced by Egyptians as they celebrated good floods or, conversely, enacted crisis rituals to avert famine.

 

Scholars

Candy Chan '21

I was born in Singapore, but I grew up in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Some of my most meaningful memories are of the times my mother taught me about censorship as we read the Vietnamese newspaper; I’ve been determined to pursue a career in journalism and to defend journalists’ rights since. I’m an avid reader, and I was fortunate enough to grow up immersed in a weird and wonderful world that straddled the line between fiction and nonfiction. I think a lot about storytelling and how I can produce writing that is both innovative and grounded in the experiences we share as human beings.

The landscape of journalism is constantly in flux. Though it frightens me that the fourth estate has been in recent years, I am confident that the journalists defending truth will prevail. My thesis will center on the evolution of journalism and how institutions are responding to different political rhetoric, a decaying print industry and social media. 

I’m majoring in History with a concentration in War and Revolution. On campus, I am the Features Editor at The Eye, Spectator’s long-form journalism magazine.

Read the articles I wrote for The Columbia Daily Spectator.

 

Kena Chavva '22

I was born and raised in New Jersey and am the proud daughter of two Indian immigrants. I am lucky to have grown up in an environment where all of my passing interests were nurtured and taken seriously--that encouragement has turned me into someone with a myriad of academic interests. I'm particularly interested in building more ethical, equitable societies through interdisciplinary studies. I am majoring in English with a History minor, and have a strong interest in film and media studies as well. Beyond academics, I work as a Writing Fellow at the Barnard College Writing Center, I am an avid movie-watcher, and I try my best to take advantage of all the wonderful cultural opportunities that New York City offers. In the past, I have interned at the Maysles Documentary Center and New York Public Radio. Ultimately, I hope to develop a creative writing project that explores the Indian diaspora through the Scholars program!

 

Mia Cucufate '23

I was born and raised in Inglewood, a city located in southwestern Los Angeles County. As a daughter of two Salvadoran immigrants, I was exposed to the hardships that many Central Americans faced as a result of US imperialism and right-wing regimes. As a result, I grew interest in learning about colonialism, imperialism, immigration and diaspora in Latin America. I am a projected sociology major, and I am considering in minoring in Spanish or Latin American studies. During my free time, you can find me visiting art museums, checking out fashion pop ups, thrifting, or at a concert. I also enjoy journaling, reading Marxist philosophy, and writing letters to my pencils. 

 

 

Maggie Forsyth '23

I was born and raised in upstate New York, just outside of Albany. As a child, I was engrossed in the workings of other cultures and societies, and became almost obsessed with studying how people of the past lived and interacted. This interest in the workings of societies eventually shifted from past to present as I learned about current events and the problems most pertinent to modern society. As I grew older, I also became increasingly passionate about art and how self expression manifests in its different forms, all dictated by the creator. In particular, I became fascinated by film and the making of a story.

When faced with the question, what do you want to study, or even more daunting, what do you want to be when you grow up? — it took me awhile to come up with an answer. Studying at Barnard gives me the perfect groundwork to become who I truly want to be when I grow up. By combining film studies with Anthropology and Human rights, I hope to help tell the stories of real people in a way that facilitates a more interconnected and understanding world.

 

Brenda Huang '22

Born in NYC to a Chinese-American family, I grew up all over the United States, taking more road trips than I could count, before settling down in Pennsylvania. Throughout these travels, my cultural identity and family has always remained vital to me. I’ve continued to explore its representation, as well as my ambitions for a career in law, through Columbia’s Women of Color Pre-Law Society. In addition, I’ve always been passionate about how social activism intersects with visual arts. Between that and my love of storytelling, I’m naturally attracted to comics—both consumption and creation. This manifests itself in my endless piles of sketchbooks, storyboard drafts, and my eagerness to approach nearly everything with an open mind and artistic perspective. At Barnard, I am majoring in Economics with a Sociology minor, and I work as a Speaking Fellow at the Barnard College Speaking Center. You can find my illustrations at The Columbia Daily Spectator, where I am an Illustrations Deputy Editor, as well as my artwork as part of the Bring-Your-Bottle campaign around nearly every water fountain on campus.

 

Harpreet Kaur '23

Born in India, I moved to America when I was four years old. Ever since then, I have moved all around settled Long Island. I was lucky to grow up with a fusion of American and Punjabi cultures, which truly shaped me into the person I am today. As a practicing Sikh, creating a more equitable and just world has been a major desire of mine. I plan to major in Sociology Barnard with a career in law in the future.

As a first-generation American, I believe that it is my duty to help other Americans, who have struggled to gain their footing in our society. I have been strongly influenced by this sense of duty, shaping my plans for a career in law. Beyond academics, I am a lover of books, cafes, and beach trips. Being from Long Island, I have developed a keen appreciation for nature and the world that surrounds us. I also love exploring various cultural aspects of Punjabi culture just so that I can feel connected to my roots.

 

Rivka Keshen '22

I was born in a small town in Northwestern Ontario and moved to Beijing when I was eight to be closer to the Chinese side of my family. Growing up amongst First Nations in Canada and seeing firsthand how they were deprived of their basic rights instigated my desire to pursue human rights with a specific focus on indigenous rights. I have also found a passion in theatre ever since my parents signed me up for a Shakespeare play to get rid of my lisp when I was seven. Over the years, I have discovered that theatre can be used for far more than entertainment and that performance holds the potential to retain culture, to be used in a therapeutic manner to help children with mental disabilities, and to push the boundaries of perspectives regarding social issues. These combined interests are what led me to pursue a double major in human rights and theatre with a minor in psychology.

At Barnard, I’m part of the Connection Club, bridging my Chinese and Jewish cultures and bringing together Chinese and Israeli students on campus. You’ll also find me sleeping a homeless shelter on Wednesday nights through Housing Equity Project where we have many initiatives to take responsibility for the gentrification in Harlem.

 

Rachel Krul '23

Born and raised in Upstate New York, I was adopted when I was days old my wonderful parents. I’ve had an interest in public policy for years, and I’ve been involved in activism against gun violence and for voter registration in my own community. My deepest passion and interest, however, lies in refugee and immigrant empowerment. I love learning about different cultures’ approaches to issues relating to our collective shared humanity. I hope to study political science with an international focus along with human rights in order to eventually practice immigration or a non-profit organization.

Outside of those goals, I’m interested in film, literature, art history, and acting (specifically in Shakespearean plays). I am also fascinated by anthropology and ancient cultures, especially how the latter our culture today. In my spare time I can usually be found attempting to teach myself a foreign language or finding any excuse to spend time around dogs. At Barnard, I aspire to pursue all of these interests in unique ways and foster new ones as well. 

 

Jazmin Maco '21

I was born and raised on Long Island, New York, to a sprawling Caribbean family. I spent my childhood jumping from the arms and homes of one grandmother, cousin, or friend to the next— across Kingston, Brooklyn, and back again to Uniondale. It was from these foundations that I discovered my interest in and passion for questions surrounding creative writing & visual art as theory, therapy and practice, post-colonial education & community building, as well as & queer theory, and liberation. During my time at Barnard I have been able to interrogate these questions through my Africana Studies major, by pursuing a thesis exploring the physical demarcations of social life for Black lesbians in New York City, using oral histories and GIS mapping. This thesis is supported by my membership in a cohort of Mellon Mays scholars, an organization created to increase diversity in the faculty ranks of institutions of higher learning. Additionally, through the Scholars of Distinction program, I have been able to pursue my passion project, an excavation of generations of women’s histories in my Caribbean family. Through this project, I hope to explore themes of home, migration, and immigration in order to delve into their often mutually dependent and constantly growing meanings and significances. As a deeply creative person, this project allows me to engage the personal with the intellectual by constructing an archive that includes voices— such as my grandmother's, my mother's, and my own— that are primarily left out of the historical record.

You can see my exploration of these conceptions in my creative work, as displayed in Ratrock Magazine for my April 2019 Featured Artist Exhibition:

http://www.ratrockmagazine.com/april-19#/jazmin-maco/

 

Camille Marchini '22

I was born in NYC and raised in Tarrytown, New York. I declared the fall of my sophomore year as an art history major thanks to the incredible departments at both Barnard and Columbia. In addition to art history, I have an interest in fashion and its many forms like editorial writing, styling, and design. In high school, I was the costume designer for the theater program and currently design or for some of Barnard’s shows. Besides design, some of my other passions include musical theater and horseback riding. Riding is a sport I've participated in since I was eleven, and I’m currently the Columbia University Riding Team! Other ~cool~ topics I find interesting are psychology, political science, studies, and French literature.

 

Ruba Nadar '21

I was born and raised in London but am of Lebanese and Egyptian descent. I am a rising junior studying Art History and Visual Arts, with a potential minor in Middle Eastern Studies. I am deeply interested in contemporary Middle Eastern art and my studies paired with the Scholars program allow me to explore this in a variety of ways. I am currently looking at the work or practicing artists outside the Middle East that exhibited at the Biennale this year. This summer, with the help of the scholar’s program, I spent six weeks in Venice, Italy a class on the art at this year's Biennale. It was a brilliant experience and helped me my passions for contemporary art and the artists behind it. I wrote for the Arts section of the Columbia Daily Spectator, and I was a featured artist for Ratrock Magazine this past December. Out of the am on the D1 Columbia Women’s Rowing team, training from September through May. I love studying and living in New York and am so thrilled for the next two years at Barnard, with the scholar's program and beyond. 

See I wrote for The Columbia Daily Spectator can be viewed here. My profile on Karen Green, The Columbia Curator for Comics and Cartoons, was inspired by one of our Scholars' events.

My featured art can be found here and here.

 

Yasmin Attar Olyaee '23

I was born in Iran and immigrated to Washington State as a fifth grader. I was amazed by how different the political environment in the United States was from what I had experienced in Iran. Here I’ve seen the power the people have to create change in their government and society. Acting as a page in the Washington State Senate and being a member of the ACLU club in my high school fostered a passion in me for politics. I have chosen to express my beliefs in politics through my art, for example by creating a number of paintings that showcase the myriad of communities that are in the United States–where minorities have a disproportionately small representation in the media in comparison to what is true in society. I have also chosen to express my beliefs outside of school, I’ve had opportunities to work with my local teen center as a part of their youth board to strengthen the community through events such as diversity movie nights, fundraisers for local animal shelters, and art shows for students. These interactions have inspired me to use diverse approaches to have an impact, and I’m more than excited to continue this journey.  

 

Julie Seager '21

As a native New Yorker, I have loved having the opportunity to spend four more years exploring the city as a Barnard Student and Scholar of Distinction. I’m currently a rising senior studying Economics, Math, and Computer Science. Despite my heavily STEM major, my interest in these fields is due to my interdisciplinary passions. I’m fascinated by the economic dimensions of gender, class and educational inequality, and committed to using my hard skills to analyze and generate policy solutions to these issues. Barnard was a natural choice for me, since we are lucky to have an Economics department focused on investigating many of these exact dilemmas. first summer of research I worked with Professor Rajiv Sethi to use hybrid forecasting, the combination of human forecasting methods and machine models, to predict geopolitical events. After getting my hands dirty in economics and computer science research and witnessing many of the brightest minds in my classes get poached to work in finance and big tech, I’ve taken an interest in researching the tech industry itself. This summer I will be living in Silicon Valley trying to get up-close and personal with the of this work and the rhetoric of the “perk-economy.” I’m particularly interested in the ways in which tech companies disguise their reliance on low-wage labor. In my free time I love to go to cafes, babysit, play chess, walk around new neighborhoods and meticulously track the books I read on Goodreads. I’m also currently studying abroad in Barcelona, Spain.

 

Hannah Seibold '22

I was born in Frankfurt, Germany and lived there until I was nine when my parents decided to relocate to Singapore. After finishing middle school there, we moved to New York, where I attended Marymount School. These moves have exposed me to many political systems and ideologies, which sparked my interest in business and diplomacy. I have interned with a New York Senator’s Office, a Global Impact Investment Fund and a Financial Trading Platform. As of now, I am an economics and political science double major, with a minor in leadership studies at the Athena Center.

When not in class, you are likely to find me working with Professor Remez as a research assistant in his Speech Perception Lab. There, I have worked on several different studies relating to speech synthesis and the perceptual organization of auditory stimuli. Apart from these academic pursuits, I am a big fan of podcasts, Central Park runs and Art History. I was lucky enough to explore the latter more seriously during my time in New York, thanks to my school's proximity to some of the world’s greatest museums, which I still visit whenever possible — I highly recommend the Wallace Wing as well as the Storage Rooms Met!

 

Eliana Shapere '23

I was born and raised in Lexington, Kentucky, the horse capital of the world. I grew up hiking, playing music, and taking road trips with my family. I love writing poetry and short stories, learning languages, and finding connections between my interests in history, literature, philosophy, and religion. While at Barnard, I discovered a passion for looking at the world through an anthropological lens.
I attended a Spanish immersion school for nearly 7 years, and continue to practice in casual conversation and by reading poetry. I study French at Barnard, and enjoy watching French films and learning about Francophone culture. I love to draw humans, create abstract paintings, and make jewelry. I have a radio show on WBAR, Barnard’s radio station, where I play techno and adjacent genres of electronic music, on Saturdays from 6-8 pm. I also work at the Columbia Computer Music Center, and I hope to use my new skills to create multimedia installations.
During my gap year, I worked as a lifeguard and interviewed members of the University of Kentucky Physics Department. I also did grassroots organizing for Amy McGrath for Congress, canvassing all sorts of areas in my home state for 3 months. Over 7 months, I backpacked solo through Cuba, 11 countries in the EU, and Russia. I hope to take my research as a Scholar abroad.

 

Emily Stone '23

I was born in Los Angeles, grew up in Santa Barbara, California, spend summers in England with my family, and who knows where I will end up after this chapter of my life in New York City. Academically, I have always had an interest in the societies - both past and present - that surround us, and more recently, that curiosity has expanded to include the ways in which we shape the world and the world shapes us. I plan on majoring in both environmental sustainability and human rights, but am also drawn to a wide variety of other subjects such as anthropology, psychology, and Spanish. I greatly value the opportunity to pursue my varying interests through the Scholars of Distinction program, because I believe it is imperative to promote diversity in thought and action.

Outside of academics, I love to dance. I have been doing ballet since I was three, and continue to take classes and participate in performances here at school. Pursuing dance allows me to balance my studies with creativity, and I love having so many opportunities to see shows here as well. In my very limited free time (because I love to pack my schedule full of way too many things at once), you can find me exploring restaurants downtown, finding new things to try on campus, or just watching cheesy movies with my friends.