Hello! I am a junior in the College of Arts & Sciences at Cornell University. I study cognitive science, with interdisciplinary interests in data science and across the social sciences. As a Laidlaw scholar, I am working on a transdisciplinary project dealing with the socioecological impacts of Indonesia's national capital city relocation from Jakarta to Nusantara. Through the K. Lisa Yang Center for Conservation Bioacoustics, I assist in combining bioacoustic technology and ethnographic research methods to study human and "more-than-human" communities in East Kalimantan and how they are affected by Nusantara's construction. In the summer of 2025, I traveled onsite for my LiA to work directly with community partners at Mulawarman University and led the development of materials preserving the ecological and cultural heritage of this area amidst cultural change. Outside of academics and research, you can find me paddling on Cayuga Lake, reading speculative fiction, or making art. Please feel free to reach out to me here or at kcr53@cornell.edu!

Hi! My name is Jimena Alvarez and I am a Peruvian second year student in Trinity College Dublin. I currently concluded my second year studying Political Science and Economics. My research project is titled "Exploratory research into the support worker’s perceptions of the integration experiences of Ukrainian refugees in Ireland".  The purpose of the research is to gather relevant and comprehensive data about support worker’s perceptions of the integration experiences of Ukrainian refugees in Ireland. I will be conducting a focus group and individual interviews with 12 support workers in the field of refugee aid.  I am very excited to connect with other Laidlaw scholars regardless of how different our research projects may be. I am always interested in learning from people with different backgrounds and interests. Feel free to contact me. See you all soon in the Laidlaw annual conference here in Trinity College Dublin!  

Hello! My name is Ananya and I am rising junior at Barnard College, majoring in Urban studies, specializing in Environment and Sustainability, with a minor in Architecture. The world is in a constant state of change. Whether it is the ever-changing nature of sustainable urban design, climate and world events, or new methods of organizing communities in urban spaces. With change comes meaningful action, a step I want to undertake.  Having studied and experienced a multitude of cultures, I have learned a lot about community, and how it forms to bring people together in various contexts. My ongoing degree at Barnard College inspires me to explore the idea of community through urban studies, environmental sustainability, architecture, and design in a multifaceted manner.  I am excited to step out of my comfort zone and adapt to new environments. I am ready to learn a variety of skills to transcend the boundaries of design and community and coalesce them for a more productive and inspiring future. My research interests include sustainable urban planning/design, and their connections to general local or environmental policy practices across Southeast Asia. My laidlaw research aims to look at neighborhood designation in Singapore and its connection to street/mural art narratives and community representation.

Avigail spent her first Laidlaw summer researching solar grids in Kenya, and will spend her second Laidlaw summer on the ground working on sustainable development initiatives in Tanzania. Her interest in both international relations and climate change adaptation in under-developed areas led her to pursue work on sustainable development in East Africa from both an international policy perspective and a logistical/local perspective.

I am a sophomore from Seattle, WA studying History on a pre-law track. My research interests lie at the intersection of human rights, migration, and environmental justice. I am also passionate about language and writing. My research for Laidlaw is a historical case study of legal protection gaps for climate-displaced people, specifically targeted legislation and U.S. refugee provisions in the mid-late 20th century. In my free time, I enjoy reading and hiking. 

https://barnard.edu/laidlaw

Hi, my name is Aleena Mehta and I am a sophomore at Barnard College, majoring in Economics with a minor in Political Science. I grew up in Jammu and Kashmir, India, and hence have always been fascinated by the field of geopolitics. My research at the Laidlaw Foundation would revolve around extrapolating a relationship between state sovereignty and civil rights violations in the Kashmir crisis. This includes understanding the threat to the autonomy and stability of non-state actors in periods of territorial conflicts while investigating the recent socio-economic developments in the region.

Avery Lambert is a student at Barnard College majoring in Medieval and Renaissance Studies with minors in Political Science and Classics. Her research focuses on political theory in 1260s England and the Second Barons' War.

I am a rising fourth-year at Barnard College of Columbia University studying Economic & Social History with a minor in Science & Public Policy.

Although I am from Mexico City, I have lived abroad for most of my life in places such as London and São Paulo. Now, I am part of the Class of 2026 at Barnard College in New York, and my prospective majors are philosophy and economics. I am interested in understanding abstract concepts to then investigate their concrete manifestation in every-day life, hence the interdisciplinary nature of my research and leadership. Being the granddaughter of immigrants who fled from both the Spanish Civil War and the Cuban dictatorship, I am constantly drawn to the complexities of how people's identities, beliefs and economic realities shape their contribution to local communities. Ultimately, I am passionate about helping marginalised communities and contributing to a more egalitarian society as a whole.

My name is Hannah Ramsey (she/her), and I am a senior at Barnard College studying neuroscience and English, though my research is interdisciplinary in nature, drawing heavily from the fields of medical anthropology, sociology, and narrative medicine. Currently, I am researching how clinicians' reliance on body composition indicators (BCIs) in health assessments may contribute to the stigmatization of bodies. My intention with this work is to illuminate how moral and aesthetic biases within healthcare teams can negatively influence patient outcomes as a result of the stigmatizing effects associated with body-centric paradigms of health promotion. The goal of this research is to begin conceiving alternative approaches to promoting patients' physical health and subjective well-being that are both body-affirming and size-agnostic. Apart from this research, I also have personal and academic interests in creative writing, writing pedagogy, and advocacy as it relates to the neurodiversity movement. In my spare time, I enjoy writing poetry, playing guitar, and taking long walks outside!

Hi, I'm Eliana! I'm from Northern California and I am a protective Linguistics major at Barnard College of Columbia University.   My research project is about how educational policies in the United States can be used to contribute to the revitalization of Indigenous languages. I am particularly invested in how support for minority language speech communities can be a facet of restorative justice for Indigenous communities. Due to the legacy of colonial assimilationist policies inflicted on Indigenous groups during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (as well as failings of the modern public education system), the speakership of minority languages has severely declined during recent decades. Although language revitalization is a difficult process, revitalization projects can have incredibly positive impacts on minority language communities.  I chose this project because I want to use my technical skills in the field of linguistics to do research that can have a meaningful difference for the hundreds of Indigenous speech communities in North America.  Language rights are an often overlooked part of human rights, so I'm very grateful that I have the opportunity to study a subject that is shrouded with misconceptions. Outside of Laidlaw, I am involved with Model United Nations at Columbia, where I contribute to both running conferences and competing as a delegate at conferences across the US. I also love graphic design and digital art, and I am a Creative Director for the Barnard Bulletin, Barnard's oldest student publication! I look forward to meeting more students from the Laidlaw community!

I’m Eliora Riebling, a sociologist. As a Laidlaw Scholar I research white supremacist trajectories, specifically I am looking to identify a combination of social factors that shape women’s mindsets and prompt them to join organized white supremacy. I hope to identify impetuses for women’s participation in this extremism. As a leadership project I intend to contribute to counter messaging and deradicalization programs. I hope to use my findings to inform which messages are useful to the initiatives that weaken white supremacist organizations by preventing and sinking their membership. 

Jasmine is from Santa Cruz, California and pursuing a combined major of Medical Anthropology and Women's, Gender & Sexuality Studies at Barnard College'25. Her interests in public health and reproductive justice have led her to research on the changes in US maternal morbidity rates after the Supreme Court ruling of Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, which took away the constitutional right to abortion.

Hello! My name is Aimar Rosario Ávila and I am a third-year student at Barnard College majoring in Urban Studies with a  concentration in psychology and a minor in education. I’m from Puerto Rico and my research aims to investigate how the categorization of social spaces can reflect an interplay of political, historic, and cognitive developments through an intersectional lens.