NEW YORK, NY / November 28, 2023 – Samvid Ventures, a philanthropic foundation dedicated to improving lives through education and entrepreneurship, announced today the names of the twenty individuals selected as the third cohort of Samvid Scholars. The Samvid Scholars program empowers mission-driven graduate students, with exceptional track records of impact, to lead transformative change for society through leadership development, community, and financial support. The program was founded in 2021.
The twenty mission-driven Scholars in the 2023 cohort were selected from a pool of nearly 1,000 applicants. This third cohort of Scholars includes outstanding young leaders in medicine, medical technology, law and social justice, civic engagement, climate technology, disability advocacy, and economic development.
In addition to receiving up to $100,000 in funding for their graduate program, Samvid Scholars engage in two years of leadership development programming to support them to fulfill their extraordinary potential to drive change. The focus of first-year programming is reflection on the core questions of self-knowledge, which sit at the heart of leadership. The focus of second-year programming is the development of cross-disciplinary skills required to drive and lead impact at scale.
A key feature of the Samvid Scholars program is the annual three-day summer conference, which brings Samvid Scholars together in person to reflect on the year ahead and to connect as a community. This summer, our new cohort, alongside our 2022 class of Scholars engaged in team-building activities, attended seminars co-designed and facilitated by the Aspen Institute to explore key questions of leadership, service, and purpose, and participated in sessions focused on different aspects of decision-making, facilitated by experts in the field. Scholars will continue to explore these topics throughout the program year through small group discussions, virtual workshops, and on-campus visits.
Full list of 2023 Scholars:
- Jude Alawa, MBA at Stanford Graduate School of Business and MD at Stanford School of Medicine
- Rebecca Blais, MBA at Stanford Graduate School of Business
- Avi Cohen, MD at Harvard Medical School
- Rodrigo Estrada, JD at Harvard Law School
- Avi Gupta, JD at Yale Law School
- Brady Hanshaw, MD at Harvard Medical School
- Bhav Jain, MD at Stanford School of Medicine
- Katelyn Li, MD at Harvard Medical School
- Sophie Li, JD at Harvard Law School
- Arinzechukwu Nwagbata, MBA at Stanford Graduate School of Business and MD at Harvard Medical School
- Siona Prasad, MD at Harvard Medical School
- Henry Ritter, MBA at Yale School of Management and MEM at Yale School of Environment
- Henrike Schmalfuss, MD at Harvard Medical School
- Jay Shah, MBA at Stanford Graduate School of Business and MD at Stanford School of Medicine
- Jeremy Thomas, JD at Yale Law School
- Julia Udell, JD at Yale Law School
- Liana Wang, JD at Harvard Law School
- Jackson Willis, JD at Yale Law School
- Megan Yamoah, MS/PhD (Economics) at Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Harrison Zhang, MD/PhD at Stanford School of Medicine
