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This cash prize is awarded to the rising Columbia College senior majoring in Human Rights who submits the best proposal for a summer or term-time human rights internship, and is intended to be used to help defray the expenses of the internship.
This prize is awarded annually to the Columbia College student majoring in human rights who has the highest grade point average and a superior record of academic achievement in Human Rights.
This cash prize is awarded to the rising Columbia College senior majoring in human rights who submits the best proposal for a summer or term-time human rights internship, and is intended to be used to help defray the expenses of the internship. Applications are accepted on a rolling basis throughout the year, with priority admission dates of December 1 for Spring term submissions, and April 1 for Summer submissions. Alternatively, for general research or internship funding, students should review ISHR's undergraduate financial resources page. Please apply here: APPLICATION: Myra Kraft Human Rights Prize
Hikari Shumsky is originally from Tokyo, Japan and graduated from Columbia College in May 2022. She studied Human Rights with a specialization in East Asian Studies and completed a concentration at The Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race. During her time at Columbia, she specifically pursued studies in collective memory and historical consciousness in postwar Japan and throughout East Asia. Her senior thesis, "Emotion, Identity, & National Memory: The Problem with Japan's Historical Awareness Problem" applies a psychoaffective analysis to historical statements made in postwar Japan in order to better understand the role of emotion in Japanese historical discourse. Outside of the classroom, Hikari was a Clinic Coordinator for Students for Sanctuary, a student-run migrant-rights organization that works with asylum seekers in NYC to navigate the federal immigration system. Hikari currently resides in NYC and now works in international baseball as a Coordinator for National Team Operations at Major League Baseball. She is now enjoying travelling the world through baseball and settling into post-grad life in NYC.
Grace Miner graduated from Columbia University in 2021, where she majored in Human Rights and specialized in History. Her undergraduate thesis focused on the use of grassroots truth-seeking processes to ensure accountability for past human rights abuses, referencing the first truth commission addressing racial injustice in a U.S. city, The Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission, as a case study. During her time at Columbia, she worked as a program assistant with the African American Redress Network, a collaboration between Columbia’s Institute for the Study of Human Rights, and Howard University’s Thurgood Marshall Civil Rights Center. She also served as an intern with the Post Conflict-Research Center located in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Rhode Island General Assembly, and Congressman Jim Langevin’s Washington, D.C. Office. Grace recently completed her Master of Public Policy (MPP) degree at the University of Oxford and contributed to research on the international crime of aggression for the Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law, and Armed Conflict. She currently sits on the Board of Directors of Plan International USA, an international nonprofit organization that advances children’s rights and equality for girls.
Meghana Bharadwaj is a May 2020 graduate from Columbia University, holding a degree in Human Rights. Her coursework has focused on children's rights, criminal justice reform, and socioeconomic inequality more broadly. Her independent research as part of the thesis seminar focused on the tension between rehabilitation and due process rights in prosecutorial practice in New York's Family Courts. Off campus, she is the Founder and Executive Director of Just For Kidz, a youth-run national non-profit with the goal of serving marginalized children through service and advocacy, and she has worked with multiple children's rights organizations including the Children's Defense Fund, Avenues for Justice, and the National Juvenile Justice Network. Meghana hopes to become an advocate for legal reform on behalf of children, and as such, will be attending Harvard Law School in the Fall of 2022. In her free time, Meghana enjoys dancing hip-hop and Bhangra as part of Columbia's Bhangra team, playing flamenco guitar, and trying different restaurants and ice cream places around New York City.
Rebecca Cai graduated from Columbia College in 2020 with a double-major in Human Rights and Economics. In her coursework at Columbia and at the University of Oxford as an Oxbridge Scholar, Rebecca specialized in development economics and comparative politics. Her independent undergraduate research focused on women’s economic rights in Sub-Saharan Africa. Rebecca is currently working as a research associate for Development Data Lab, analyzing data on economic development in India. She plans to pursue graduate study and further research on the intersection between economic development and gender. In her free time, Rebecca enjoyed art history, performing as a member of Columbia’s Raw Elementz dance group, and hiking as a COÖP leader.
Jalileh Garcia is originally from Siguatepeque, Honduras. Currently, she is a rising senior majoring in Human Rights with a specialization in Latin American Cultures.
