Long Ning Chan

Hi, I'm Alba! I'm terrible at writing bios so if you have any suggestions or are interested in discussing research, I'd be delighted to chat! 

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!

Hello! I’m a psychology researcher and the founder of HaHaHelps, a nonprofit organisation developing and delivering a comedy-based psychosocial programme designed to support young people in residential care. I am currently completing an MSocSci in Psychology at the University of Cape Town, where my dissertation examines the feasibility of HaHaHelps programme with adolescents in South African child and youth care centres. My broader interests include youth mental health, psychosocial intervention development, implementation, participatory approaches, and the use of humour and play to support connection, emotional expression, self-efficacy, and coping with uncertainty. HaHaHelps grew out of my Laidlaw Leadership-in-Action project at SOS Children’s Villages in Cape Town, where I designed and facilitated an improv-comedy programme for adolescents. Since then, I have continued developing and delivering the programme with young people in residential care and am now studying how it can be refined, evaluated, and ultimately adapted for use in other communities and settings. Before this, my Laidlaw research at the University of Toronto examined relationships between childhood adversity, aggression, and self-regulation. I’d love to connect with other Laidlaw Scholars and alumni interested in youth mental health, social impact, intervention development, social entrepreneurship, or simply finding creative ways to turn research into something useful in the world.

Hello! :) I'm Ravleen, a 2nd year Pharmacy student at UCL. In the last year, I was introduced to pharmaceutics: a scientific basis for the formulation and manufacture of safe and effective medicines. Even the most effective medicine doesn't work if the patient refuses to take it. A study found that 79% of children stated that the taste of medicine made them unwilling to take it. Moreover, children are commonly unable to swallow neutral tasting pills, which makes dosing them a challenge. For my research project, I explored the development of child-friendly, palatable formulations called orodispersible films using a method called electrospinning. This involved hands-on laboratory work to develop prototype formulations at the UCL School of Pharmacy and interviews with paediatric, oncology patients at Great Ormand Street Hospital to improve the treatment of chemotherapy-induced nausea & vomiting. Feel free to reach out!