CCNY undergrads in various fields earn summer scholarships and fellowships

Five City College of New York undergraduates have won prestigious scholarships and fellowships that enable them to pursue their academic research this coming summer. They are:

Sophie Davis School of Biomedical Education freshman Moyosola Adedoyin, who is a Fulbright U.K. Summer Institute selection;

Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership senior Alison Holst, a political science major, who is a Hudson Institute Political Studies summer Fellow in political theory and practice;

Division of Science junior Marina Milea, a biology major and chemistry minor, who is a Goldwater Scholar;

Colin Powell School and Division of Humanities & the Arts junior Ishika Nawar, an economics, political science, and philosophy major, who is a Roosevelt Network Emerging Fellow; and

Colin Powell School senior Zakia Safsaf, a political science and international studies major, who is a Public Policy & International Affairs Fellow.

Moyosola Adedoyin

Though always interested in science, Adedoyin was active in social justice issues throughout her high school career, working for nonprofits concerned with issues such as youth leadership and community involvement, gun violence, and civil liberties. She also conducted research at York College.

She will spend three weeks at the University of Bristol, exploring the intersection of arts, activism, and social justice. “I want to connect healthcare and social justice,” she said. “There's no way I could become a physician if I don't understand why I have these patients to begin with and what communities they're coming from. It's very crucial to understand the social reasons as to why someone even becomes a patient to begin with.”

Alison Holst

Holst chose the Hudson Institute Fellowship due to its focus on the works of Plato and Machiavelli.

“The first time I read Plato...made me rethink things that I thought were already given,” she said.

Holst first became interested in political theory in the first political science class she took as an undergraduate.

“Immediately, I just felt like it was something that was really important and worth studying,” she said. “It opened my mind up to thinking about the world in different ways. I was just really drawn to it as a way to engage in ideas.”

During the six-week program in Washington, she will participate in Socratic seminars in the mornings with a different theme each week. Afternoon sessions will feature seminars, prominent speakers and visits to landmarks such as the National Mall, the Gettysburg National Military Park and Arlington National Cemetery.

Marina Milea

The Queens-born daughter of immigrants -- a mathematician father and an English teacher mother -- Milea “fell in love” with science as a high school senior in London, where she interned at the Institute of Cancer Research. Diagnosed with a rare form of endometriosis shortly after returning to the U.S. to attend CCNY, she began to reorient her professional ambitions more toward research. “We need more people doing research to develop cures and treatments that doctors don't have time to do,” she said, receiving an S Jay Levy Fellowship for Future Leaders to intern at Columbia University's IICD Summer Research Program.

Combining her interests in research, teaching and writing, and women’s health, she is now exploring pursuing a doctorate in the relatively new field of genomics, specifically single cell RNA sequencing. This summer, she will spend 10 weeks at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass.

Ishika Nawar

A Bangladeshi immigrant, triple major Nawar has been passionate about protecting free speech since high school in Astoria, Queens, where she founded a civics course, Your Rights Right Now, that promoted awareness of legal frameworks and methodologies that facilitate this. Developing her interest in policymaking and advocacy as a Moynihan Fellow at the Colin Powell School, she was a democracy protection intern at Human Rights First, monitoring threats to free speech, particularly on college campuses.

The yearlong Roosevelt Network Emerging Fellowship, which meets for five hours each week, will enable Nawar to research policy issues and, potentially, to publish her work in the Network's journal.

“As an aspiring attorney, I value the concept of making advocacy accessible to everyone,” she said. “Based on my experiences as an immigrant, I'm very much leaning towards immigration law. Given the fact that I'm so invested in First Amendment rights protections that are entailed by free speech, I'd be equally open to constitutional law.”

Zakia Safsaf

A Moynihan Public Service Fellow, Safsaf earned this competitive opportunity through her commitment to public service, global engagement, and policy leadership. The PPIA Fellowship provides intensive graduate level training, mentorship, and professional development, preparing her to continue her work advancing equity and social change.

She will attend the PPIA’s seven-week Junior Summer Institute at the University of Michigan’s Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, completing graduate-level coursework, strengthening her quantitative and policy analysis skills, and collaborating with peers and faculty to tackle real-world policy challenges.