Vanessa Sandoval

As a first-generation college student, the daughter of Mexican immigrants, and a member of the Otomí Indigenous community, I have found that my experiences have shaped my commitment to advancing educational opportunity and equity. Growing up in rural Maryland's Eastern Shore and navigating the public education system exposed me to the challenges many students in rural and underserved communities face, while also demonstrating the transformative power of education. I am a student at Cornell University pursuing a B.S. in Public Policy through the Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy, with minors in Education, Inequality Studies, and Latino Studies. My academic and professional interests center on education policy, with a particular focus on improving educational outcomes and expanding access for rural and Indigenous students. I firmly believe that education is a fundamental human right and that every student deserves access to affordable, high-quality K–12 education, regardless of their background, geography, or socioeconomic status. I am always eager to connect with individuals and organizations working to advance educational equity and opportunity. Feel free to reach out at lm953@cornell.edu.

At Cornell University, students across disciplines are passionate about changing the world. Open to first- and second-year students, the Laidlaw Leadership and Research and Program provides generous support for student research, offers hands-on leadership development and reflection, and encourages students to reinvest their knowledge to help others succeed. Laidlaw Scholars are part of an international network of like-minded leaders.

Hi! I'm Sophia, an aspiring scientist and philomath. I love learning about everything and anything and delight in spending time with people who are passionate about the things they love! I am really interested and curious about how we can use chemistry to improve processes and products to help society. For example, my research project is looking into the possibility of turning struvite, a mineral which is a by-product of waste-water treatment processes into slow-release nitrogen and phosphorous fertilisers, which would be a green source nitrogen and phosphorous fertilisers and help achieve goals of zero-waste.  If you are researching something similar or are interested in learning more about the project, please reach out! I am super happy to talk about the project and meet other who are doing something similar and possibly collaborate! 

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 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 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.