Hello LSN! 👋 I'm Annie from the University of Toronto, and I am thrilled to be among the 2025 Laidlaw Scholars cohort!  Program: Engineering Science (2T7) -- and in the upcoming fall I'm about to start my third year in aerospace engineering! Finally something interesting after two years of core courses 😵‍💫  Research Topic: gender bias in AI chatbots' responses & how to avoid such bias in AI development 🌟 Now the interests!  Hobbies: climbing beginner (but really enjoys it) 🧗 | video editing 🎬 | journaling 📝 | hiking🚶‍♀️ Enjoys: musicals 🎵 | doctor who 📺 | Comic Con 🎨 Also, for any whovians out there, I am planning to build my first Dalek this summer! Full size, motorized Dalek that will turn up at Fan Expo Toronto this summer 👀 So if you're going too - just send me a message and let's hang out! ✌️

Hi everyone :) 

Hello! My name is Anjelica and I'm a sophomore at Columbia University in New York. My current research aims to look into how language affects our perception of femicide in the media. In my free time, I make podcast videos with people who I find inspiring, I write (and hunt for banger book quotes on Pinterest), I'm currently planning an initiative in my foundation, and I love improv comedy. A quote that I really love as of now is: "When God had made The Man, he made him out of stuff that sung all the time and glittered all over. Some angels got jealous and chopped him into millions of pieces, but still he glittered and hummed. So they beat him down to nothing but sparks but each little spark had a shine and a song. So they covered each one over with mud. And the lonesomeness in the sparks make them hunt for one another." Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God And yes, I love existential questions.

Hi everyone! I'm Jacob and I'm entering my third year at the University of Toronto where I study Financial Economics, Public Policy, and Mathematics. This summer I'm undertaking research on how political campaign strategies influence representation in parliament. Outside of the classroom, I'm an avid reader of just about anything that piques my curiosity. My apartment is nearly bursting at the seams with 481 books (and counting). I love learning new things whether it's a new tune on my tenor saxophone or a new language (I'm currently working on Russian and Italian). You'll also find me outside on my bike or the nearest tennis court when I'm not working at my desk and dreaming up new policy ideas to combat inequality. 

Hello! I’m Jiyon, a third-year student at Georgetown University from New York City. I am studying at the University of Oxford for the 2025-26 school year. I’m majoring in Economics and minoring in Mathematics, with my academic interests lying in public economics, governance, climate policy, and labor economics. In my first summer as a Laidlaw Scholar, I assisted a research project in Georgetown’s McCourt School of Public Policy on identifying causes of heterogeneity in U.S. state tax systems and associating variations in tax progressivity with different infant health outcomes. Separately, I have looked at how different types of public spending across U.S. states can improve social capital for the elderly. I am passionate about finding public policy solutions that improve quality of life, promote effective governance, and create durable socioeconomic institutions. In my second year of the scholarship, I am completing my Leadership-in-Action placement with The School and Family Works in London, where I am seeing firsthand the effect that multi-family therapy sessions in schools can have on student engagement, parental relations, and future outcomes.

Hello :) My name is Ella, a second-year student at the University of Toronto! My research looks at how Chinese slash fiction is used by women to reflect real-life struggles and promote feminist awareness. I focus on why this genre—centered on queer male relationships—is chosen to express female experiences, and how censorship and cultural factors in China influence that decision. In the past, I have researched how coming-of-age narratives are portrayed in Western slash fiction. Outside of academia, I love to snowboard (in the winter) and ride my electric unicycle (in the summer). My favourite pastime is trying new foods and drinks while (sometimes) discussing how certain aspects of fanfiction reflect social justice issues. My (more normal) hobbies include reading—anything except mysteries—with a focus on Asian North American stories, listening to pop and classical music, and playing badminton. I will be studying English and East Asian Studies over the next three years!

Hi everyone, I am Eleanor and I am an undergraduate leadership and research scholar! My project will focus in on the implementation of SDGs into large corporations and analysis using natural language processing and machine learning to compare raw data against what the companies are outputting. This will provide patterns of data on a global scale and will assist in promoting the most effective methods for invoking sustainability.  Sustainability is extremely important to me and I am part of the sustainability committee within my university. Aside from that I am also interested in hiking, climbing, cycling and music.  I am looking forward to my leadership in action project and I am aiming to help establish environmentally sustainable mitigation practices in a community affected greatly by climate change. 

Currently active in volunteering and enjoying collaborative projects.

Hello hello! I'm Jason, a third-year Lebanese student at the University of Toronto, studying Peace, Conflict, and Justice, alongside International Relations. My passion, and research, are heavily intertwined with understanding local modes of resistances, and the deeply politicized mediums upon which they interact with the state; much of this being inspired by a commitment to bring about impactful change in my communities of residence, and in my home country of Lebanon. I will be spending my first-summer in the Basque Country with the intention of understanding how local grassroots movements have reacted to the Spanish High-Speed Rail, in order to bring about about necessary lessons and considerations as Canada embarks on its own rail renaissance. My interests are wide-and-far, though often intersecting with my academic pursuits. I've been deeply involved in the non-profit field where I've helped in the upkeep and operations of Locate Victims Beirut, a grassroots emergency response platform for the 2020 Beirut explosion. I'm also an avid partaker in Model United Nations, having created an online Model United Nations platform during the pandemic aimed at education and youth leadership empowerment in the Middle East.

Hello! My name is Meabh, I'm a second year Geography and Geoscience student in Trinity College Dublin. My main interests are igneous petrology and critical raw materials for green technology!

Hi, I'm Anika! I’m a sophomore at Duke University pursuing a double major in Computer Science and Public Policy. I’m passionate about exploring how emergent technology can be governed, developed, and deployed in a responsible and equitable manner. My Laidlaw Scholars research focused on European platform accountability, where I studied how AI-generated music affects creative democracy, labor rights, and data privacy in the EU and UK. This past summer, I co-authored a white paper titled "The Canary in the Coal Mine: Spotify, Generative AI, and the Future of Cultural Labor," which I presented at Oxford’s Rothermere American Institute alongside my team, while also engaging policymakers from NATO and the OECD throughout the paper-writing process.  Beyond research, I lead Girls for Algorithmic Justice, a nonprofit I founded to address gender equity issues in AI, including explicit deepfakes and algorithmic bias. Through our #StopExplicitDeepfakes campaign, I’ve been involved in advancing policy conversations at the U.S. federal level to expand protections for victims of digital harms. At Duke, I direct Duke Tech for Change, a student organization dedicated to responsible technology, and serve as an officer for Duke Cyber, where I help organize cyber policy opportunities and events. I also serve as a student advisor to the John Hope Franklin Human Rights Center and the Duke Office of University Scholars & Fellows. I'm deeply committed to linking technology with democracy and human rights. Check out my LinkedIn for a more comprehensive overview of what I do! Please feel free to reach out any time at anika.dugal@duke.edu.