The Social Impact Fellowship is a new venture for Columbia World Projects (CWP) that gives selected students the opportunity to participate in a six-week summer intensive at the Manhattanville Campus on a wide variety of social issues with global impact.
Throughout the 2022-2023 academic year, the eight fellowship recipients will remain engaged with the program through meetings with top scholars and leaders from CWP and Columbia’s Obama Foundation Scholars Program. Fellows will also be paired with mentors to guide their studies, participate in hands-on learning opportunities, and attend a capstone event where they will present their experiences as Social Impact Fellows.
Fellowship recipient Peter Brown is a political science major at Columbia. He plans to work in public policy after graduation to help safeguard access to public resources and fight inequality. As a Social Impact Fellow, Brown hopes to learn more about career opportunities in the social sector and how he can work to help those impacted by poverty.
Majoring in political science, Julian Melo’s journey to obtaining US citizenship as an immigrant, dealing with mismanagement and the possibility of deportation, led him to become an advocate for immigration reform. Melo hopes that the Social Impact Fellowship will provide him with opportunities to focus on drawing intersectional solutions to social issues with professionals in various fields.
Machaela Parkin, a transfer student at GS, majors in human rights. Parkin is a first-generation college student with a significant history of working with immigration advocacy organizations, and is especially interested in working with unaccompanied minors and immigrant survivors of trafficking and domestic violence. Over the course of the next year, she hopes to use her time as a Social Impact Fellow to build skills for a career in the field of public interest law.
Fellows receive a stipend, are offered six weeks of summer housing, and the cost of travel to and from New York City for the summer session is covered.
After the six-week summer intensive, students will remain engaged with CWP during the 2022-2023 academic year as they receive mentorship, participate in hands-on learning opportunities, and meet thought leaders and social impact innovators.
More information about CWP and the 2022-23 Social Impact Fellows can be found on their website.
