2023-2024 Athena Fellows

The Fall 2023 Fellows cohort consisted of eight students from diverse majors and class years. The fall Athena Fellows community of practice took place from September 8 to December 8.

The Fellows Program is a semester-long community of practice for changemakers seeking to tackle challenges alongside their peers and with the support of the Athena team, our unparalleled community, and faculty advisors. Fellows met every Friday for training, peer-to-peer feedback, and mentorship, as well as independent work time. They examined their challenge from multiple perspectives, analyzed and built on existing efforts, and identified and seized opportunities for meaningful action. The work Fellows do is self-directed; the approach they take is creative, collaborative, and conscious of impact, both on others and ourselves.

Jacqueline Artiaga '25 | Urban Studies

Explored the remodel of the 116th subway station with women at the forefront of the design process.

Intervention: Created a 3D model of a subway platform with the design improvements. Various sources informed this model, and she plans to continue gathering data from the public, eventually leading to the presentation of this model to the MTA.

Spencer Davimos '26 | English

Explored the hidden financial and cultural barriers students, parents, and ESL students at CUNY face and proposed solutions to improve graduation rates within those communities.

Intervention: Created a digital resource bank, which took the form of a shared Google Drive that highlighted different non-profit organizations tailored to the needs of student parents. Condensed information about these non-profits into resource guides and put them into three different categories: family services, familial services, and academic services.

Carol Davis '26 | English and Dance

Addressed food waste and insecurity, two interconnected challenges that impact both the Barnard community and greater New York.

Intervention: Came up with a proposal for Barnard to upload their food waste/donation data to the dine-on-campus website and implement new food pathways.

Abby Jack '25 | Urban Studies

Addressed how bike safety access around New York City changes based on demographics like race.

Intervention: Created a StoryMap displaying empirical data on race and bike lane safety and a case study following Greenpoint, Brooklyn, and its challenges with implementing a protected bike lane.

Gulshan Meem '24 | Computer Science

Explored building a centralized, up-to-date digital platform with all kinds of quantitative and qualitative information pertaining to accessibility of restaurants in NYC.

Intervention: Developed a high-fidelity prototype for an app named Ease Eats using Figma. The app offers detailed descriptions, interior and exterior photos, testimonials via guided prompts, and Google Street Views. Users can access restaurant information to ensure it accommodates their needs. It also has filtering options for more personalized searches. Additionally, the app facilitates real-time updates through crowdsourced information and has community forums for discussions related to dining out and accessibility.

Loyca Jean '26 | Neuroscience

Explored the creation of a storybook that translates principles of neuroscience into different languages for children whose first language isn’t English.

Intervention: Wrote a graphic novel that explains some basic concepts of neuroscience in a way that children will understand and enjoy. Loyca plans to have page-by-page translations in Haitian Creole for children learning English or wishing to become more proficient in either language.

Nia Tomalin '26 | History & Human Rights

Aimed to provide equitable sustainability access and raise awareness about the importance of sustainable lifestyles.

Intervention: Worked on raising awareness and developed a how-to kit for organizations so that they can implement small changes that make big impacts in the long run.

Ana Victoria Serna '25 | History / WGSS

Challenged the archival story about Filipino migrant workers in New York City, questioning how their story is told.

Intervention: Planned an installation, "pagpapagaling," which takes the balikbayan box as a literal and theoretical framework of conceptualizing transnational care. This installation is comprised of larger imperial histories, photography, and oral history interviews across the diaspora, which highlight the resilience of a fractured, violently diasporic community and their effort to maintain familial ties in the face of empire.

Nine Barnard students from diverse majors and class years participated in the spring 2024 semester. This cohort explored a wide array of challenges and interests, from bolstering media literacy in our communities to better understanding how studying defense spending can help us understand the foreign policy to imagining more liberatory education methods.

Tal Bloom '26 | English and Human Rights

Interested in how change is made in NYC public schools, and how antiracist, generative, research-based writing pedagogy can be integrated into middle and high school classrooms.

Natalie Boettle ‘26 | Art History

For over four decades, Iran’s repressive Islamic regime has denied women their rights, and there is more to be done by people around the world to support courageous women taking a stand within Iran.

Elizabeth Crate '27 | Undecided

The challenge I have decided to address is to provide the Barnard community with accessible and detailed information about sustainable art and clothing options.

Summer Ana Jones ‘25 | Religion

I want to address the myriad harms of punitive discipline practices in schools.

Mahabuba Masud '26 | Urban Studies, Public Health Concentration

I hope to review the existing food policy for middle and high school students and create improved food policies through pedagogical interventions.

Ananya Natchukuri ‘25 | Economics, Middle East Studies

I'm interested in exploring and deconstructing the role of the Military Industrial Complex in shaping US foreign policy.

Patience Sithole ‘26 | Undecided

My objective is to develop pragmatic approaches for raising mental health awareness across diverse economic backgrounds, with a central emphasis on comprehending the root causes of depression and advocating that addressing these underlying issues is pivotal to effective solutions.

Lauren Woodroffe ‘26 | English

Rachel Yuan ‘26 | History

I am tackling the issue of media literacy within my immediate community, especially in the context of news in this increasingly digital age.