Recent Alumnae Section
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!
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.
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.
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.
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!
Kathryn Cherven '23
I was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan (Much love to the Mitten). My interests were diverse throughout my educational journey, but in high school, I found love for theatre and began working as a stage manager. Since then I’ve pursued this passion and intend to work professionally in theatre after graduation. Alongside this work, I devote my time to learning about contemporary issues and historical context. Hence, while I am majoring in theatre, I plan to double minor in history and race/ethnicity studies. My Scholars' project combines these disciplines: a historical analysis of Black women's place and roles in America's musical theatre canon.
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 an interest in learning about colonialism, imperialism, immigration and diaspora in Latin America. I am majoring in Spanish and Latin American Cultures and minoring in Anthropology. My research explores how intergenerational trauma is transmitted in Salvadoran families and how collective memories are constructed. During my free time, you can find me visiting art museums, thrifting, or sourcing clothing items for Barnard's Hoot Magazine!
Maggie Forsyth '23
Hailing from Albany (New York’s oft forgotten capital), I grew up surrounded by much to explore in the natural world and built environment that first sparked my curiosity for understanding the world around me and how we find our place within it. At Barnard I’ve been able to combine my most fervent passions by pursuing a joint human rights and anthropology major (specializing in the political ecology track).
My scholars’ research first began with a fascination with tree-sitting in direct environmental action, and has now evolved into an archival project documenting contested forest domains as expressed through signage at the theatre of Fairy Creek in British Columbia. Through the program, I was able to travel to Vancouver Island to take these photographs and scavenge around through the landscape, as well as develop my original scholars project into my senior thesis exploring the role of whiteness in environmental solidarity activism at Fairy Creek. The political ecology track within anthropology has allowed me to critically engage with the tensions and fraught nature of much of the (important) work of environmentalism in an attempt to understand how we can create space to imagine new futures with an awareness of the harmful structures and systems that complicate our attempts to do so.
Aside from my academic interests, you can find me bumping to DJ sets in Brooklyn, narrowly avoiding noise complaints whilst screening movies with my roommates, and staying up into the late hours of the night sculpting, drawing, and tinkering with the latest creative project.
Harpreet Kaur '23
My name is Harpreet Kaur and I am a sophomore at Barnard College, planning to major in Economics and potentially pursuing a combination Human Rights degree and a Philosophy minor. I grew up in Long Island, New York but hail from Punjab, India, culturally. I grew up in a diverse community, where the seeds for my interests in economics and philosophy were planted. My passion for economics really developed from my curiosity about the socioeconomic disparities presenting themselves in various ways in American society. Considering current developments in societal behaviors, where racism, gender inequality, and discrimination are being thought about and challenged in new ways, I am super intrigued to learn more about the consequences on consumer behavior as economic decision-making from the corporate to individual level have significant effects on the lives of consumers, inevitably.
On campus, I am involved with CU Sewa, a social justice organization based on Sikh values. We work to educate the Columbia community about Sikhism while performing Sewa, selfless service, and to create a welcoming community for everyone through all walks of life. I also am involved with Smart Women Securities, a club dedicated to educating women about financial literacy with various avenues such as investing in the stock market.
My email is hk3089@barnard.edu, so feel free to reach out if you have any questions or would like to connect!
Rachel Krul '23
Born and raised in Upstate New York, I was adopted when I was days old by 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.
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.
Eliana Shapere '23
I was born and raised in Lexington, Kentucky, the horse capital of the world. I discovered a love of poetry and writing early on thanks to my middle school English teacher, who had us write one short story per week. I received an International Baccalaureate diploma from Tates Creek High School. At Barnard, I am an ethnomusicology major with a focus on electronic composition and sound studies. I host a weekly show (Bleep Bloop Broadcast) on Barnard's radio station, WBAR, where I also do tech support and sound engineering. During my radio show, I bring beginner DJs into the studio for mixing workshops, and also facilitate a DJ and music production workshop called Signal Flow on campus. I work at the Columbia University Computer Music Center, taking care of the modular synthesizers. Along with taking any chance I can to perform, I really love organizing live music events through WBAR and around the city.
Being a Scholar of Distinction has been the highlight of my academic journey. Throughout 2021, I completed a research project entitled "History and Practice of Electronic and Punk Music in New York City." Thanks to the generosity of the program, during the summer of 2022 I am travelling to Berlin, Germany where I will be researching rave culture, experimental music, and exploring the long nonlinear history of electronic music across borders. I am interested in comparing nightlife in Berlin and NYC, as well as the intersection of mutual-aid, collectives, and dance music. I will be talking to community organizers, artists, rave participants, and scholars about issues of accessibility, funding, diversity, healing, and true experimentation. I will also be performing, DJing, and collaborating with artists and writers.
If you are interested in getting involved with my research or collaborating, my email is ess2227@barnard.edu. You can find a selection of my music here: https://soundcloud.com/djsevrin.
Emily Stone '23
I grew up in Southern California, where a passion for the environment was instilled in me from a young age. At Barnard, this interest has translated into a double major in environmental science and human rights along with a minor in Spanish, studying not only the ways in which we shape the world, but also how the world shapes us. I have done research into paleoecology and organic geochemistry, but as a Scholar of Distinction I have been investigating urban ecology through the lens of bird biodiversity in New York City. I have found it immensely fulfilling to have been given the chance to create and work on this self-directed project with my research mentor.
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 at Barnard. Pursuing dance allows me to balance my studies with a different type of creativity, and I love having so many opportunities to see professional shows in New York. In my (very limited) free time, you can find me exploring restaurants downtown or just watching cheesy movies with my friends. After Barnard I plan to attend graduate school, continuing to expand my Scholars of Distinction project.