Youness Robert-Tahiri (He/Him)

Colleen manages the Laidlaw Scholars Leadership and Research Programme at Georgetown University. Through her work, Colleen aims to increase accessibility in fellowships advising for all Georgetown students with a special focus on reflective practices intended to help students identify and develop personal and career goals. Prior to joining Georgetown University, Colleen served as the Assistant Director for Early Career Initiatives with NASPA- Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education, where she managed professional development programs for undergraduate student, graduate student, and new professional members. Colleen holds a master’s degree in Student Development in Higher Education from the University of Maine and bachelor’s degrees in Women and Gender Studies and Anthropology from the University of Delaware.

Hi! My name is Ashley, and I am a third year student at Duke University studying Public Policy and Global Health with a Markets and Managment Certificate. I am passionate about advancing ethical, evidence-based solutions at the intersection of health and compliance. I also find interest in conducting research focused on ethical research practices that better serve underrepresented communities. My experiences across public health, compliance, and policy have shaped my interest in using policy to promote social responsibility, sustainability and health equity.

I’m curious about how people’s values — faith, fairness, and community — shape the way societies work. Studying Industrial and Labor Relations helps me understand systems, while my interest in religious studies and sustainability keeps me focused on the human side of change. Through Laidlaw, I’m exploring how culture and belief can inform more ethical approaches to leadership, especially in Latin America and the Near East.  I want to bring that combination of analysis and empathy to a career in the Foreign Service.

I work primarily within the field of procedural generation and parametric design. Please talk to me if either of these interest you!

Hey! I'm Nicole, an oncoming third-year law student at Durham. I have a wide legal and political interest, specifically land law and trusts! I was born in the States but spend most of my childhood in Schiedam, and I have a soft spot for languages and different cultures. 

Hi! I’m Grace and I’m a first year medical student at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. For some time now I’ve been interested in the mechanics of cancer and how the inner workings of a tumour affect a patient’s diagnosis, prognosis and treatment.  We are fortunate to live in a time of ever-growing research, and with as many as one in two people being diagnosed with some form of cancer in their lifetime, there’s an urgent need to bring this research into a clinical context so that patients can benefit from it. This interest is what has compelled me to look into the presence of certain biomarkers and their relation to immune cells within tumours, which I will start researching during my first summer as a Laidlaw scholar this year. In an effort to make this as relevant as possible to patient care, I will use this data to develop an AI algorithm which will aim to predict patient prognosis by analysing tumour samples.  Alongside my studies I’ve enjoyed being the President of our Oncology Society, which has allowed me to set up a number of awareness and fundraising events such as breast and blood cancer awareness evenings and MacMillan coffee mornings! Outside of medicine I love to sing and spend every spare moment I have in chapel singing choral music with the university’s chapel choir, although I have been known to spend hours singing along to Les Mis whenever I get the chance. 

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.

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. 

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!