Cornell University

I'm interested in learning everything about how the working class and common people of the world can work together to make their lives better. My main focus is developing skills to be an effective labor organizer and union leader.  I also have experience with policy research, legal advocacy, and statistics. 

Hello! My name is Victoria Dai, and I'm a second year at Cornell University, located in New York, majoring in Biology and Society on the pre-med track. I am passionate about working with local communities and people of all ages, from children in Head Start programs to elderly adults in hospice care. For my Leadership-in-Action project during the summer of 2026, I partnered with makesense Americas to collaborate with Picacho Con Futuro, a local NGO in Comuna 6 of Medellín, Colombia. Founded in 1987, Picacho Con Futuro was initially founded in response to violence, displacement, and a lack of opportunities. Today, their primary focus is strengthening the community through culture, education, art, communication, and social participation. Through my LiA, I, along with three other Liadlaw scholars, designed a proposal for a new cultural café for Picacho Con Futuro, designed to serve as a welcoming community space and support local social and economic development. This cultural café will be a huge milestone for Picacho Con Futuro, and hopefully Barrio Mío will be built and enjoyed by the local community within the next couple years. Outside of Laidlaw and academics, I enjoy singing in an a cappella group, playing tennis and the piano, and spending time knitting. I love visiting new countries and trying different global foods! I would love to meet more people so please don't hesitate to reach out! 

Hello!! My name is Jiayi (she/her), and I major in Design and Environmental Analysis at the College of Human Ecology at Cornell University. I also pursue a minor named Healthy Futures, which examines how to use design to integrate health and hospitality into our daily experiences. I am fascinated by the interdisciplinary nature of design research, and I hope to apply the frameworks and tools of design and system thinking to environmental education in the future. For me, design has the powers of creativity, communication, and action, which can fuel social innovation greatly. Currently, I am researching young children's understandings and feelings about climate change, focusing on children in the US (where I study) and China (where I'm from). I really want to learn more about how to conduct effective environmental education that leads to pro-environmental actions. My passion for environmental actions and social change also brought me to engage in LiA: Mexico City with NGO Make_Sense. I love meeting people and learning new things - I would love to connect with you!

Jahir is a junior majoring in Quantitative Economics with a Graduate Certificate in Business from the Fletcher School at Tufts University.

Hello! I’m Trisha, a graduate of Cornell University from Texas, USA. I majored in Environment and Sustainability with a dual focus on food systems and wildlife conservation, and minored in International Relations. My interests in combining my enduring passions for writing and wildlife conservation have driven me to explore multiple perspectives on highly-controversial issues such as trophy hunting, retaliatory animal killings, and illegal wildlife crime. Thus, during my first summer as a Laidlaw Scholar and as a member of the Morally Contested Conservation team, I wrote a literature review on the interconnectedness of climate change and human-wildlife conflicts in East and southern Africa. In June and July 2024, I furthered this research by traveling to the University of Oxford and to the Burunge Wildlife Management Area in Tanzania, and returned to Oxford and Burunge in June and July 2025 to report my results.  As an aspiring conservationist, I am passionate about making technical scientific information more accessible to the general public. I speak Marathi, Spanish, and Swahili at varying levels of fluency and plan to continue to grow my language skills to communicate conservation challenges across continents and cultures.  The Laidlaw Scholars Program was an invaluable component of my undergraduate experience. The friendships I made, as well as the research and language skills I began to develop, encouraged me to continue to ask and seek answers to complicated questions about global affairs and environmental science. If anyone has questions about the Laidlaw Program, is interested in collaborating, or just wants to say hello, please feel free to email me at trisha.bhujle@gmail.com!

Jensen Njagi is an undergraduate student studying International Agriculture and Rural Development/ Global Development; Economics and Development Concentration, with a Minor in Global Health. Guided by a global perspective, he hopes to apply his expertise to improve healthcare systems globally and address issues of global health inequality through multidisciplinary approaches. He’s particularly interested in making a difference by addressing global health issues through a combination of compassion, the generous support of friends, colleagues, and mentors, and a deep understanding of the interconnectedness of geopolitics, economics, technology, and health His very non-linear and non-traditional path to global health and healthcare has truly enriched him. And he, therefore, looks forward to joining forces to improve, build and foster inclusive systems designed to achieve health equity, create wellness, and ultimately improve population health as well.

Research and Academic Administration

I grew up in Upstate New York, near Albany, NY, and spent my freshmen year at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. I’m studying Information Sciences with a concentration in Data Science I hope to help make sustainable changes in the world through data analysis and research. In my free time, I enjoy painting, crocheting, and making clothing.

Hi! My name is Lia, and I am in my final year at Cornell University. I'm majoring in Government and pursuing an independent major that combines politics, international studies, and sociology. My first-year Laidlaw project was focused on researching Russian political parties in the lead-up to the country's 2021 parliamentary elections. During my second summer, I traveled to Choma, Zambia through the Laidlaw centralized project with Columbia University.