Previous Knapp Fellows
2021-22
2021-2022 Knapp Fellow recipient Rayaan Ahmed is creating a bridge between the Lutheran Social Service (LSS) Imhotep Freedom School in Minnesota and the Al-Aqsa after school program, a similar school program in Mogadishu, Somalia. The Imhotep Freedom School built a year-round youth center dedicated to helping encourage young people to look beyond themselves to make a difference in their communities. Over the course of the upcoming year, she plans to work with students in this center to deepen their understanding of how community service can fundamentally shape the future of their communities.
2021-2022 Knapp Fellow recipients Catherine O'Donnell, Elizabeth Mason, Perrin Krisko are all focusing on Global Health in the Milken School of Public Health. The project involves young community members in air quality monitoring activities in order to bring about locally-relevant community mapping of air pollution and sustainable reform to environmental determinants of health in Ward 1 of Washington D.C. For the upcoming year, they are interested in ways to increase the accessibility of air quality monitoring, with the hopes of making improvements to impact future generations.
2018-2019
2018-2019 Knapp Fellowship awards were given to Gillian Joseph for her project Find Our Women, which is an initiative focused on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women in the US and Kristen McInerney for her project on Fostering resilience in Newly Arrived Immigrant Students.
2017-2018
2017-2018 Knapp Fellows Gayatri Malhotra & Chloe King presenting their research at the 2017 Nashman Symposium of Community Engaged Scholarship. Gayatri is working on gender sensitization in Indian schools & Chloe is working on food waste and environmental impact in DC Public Schools.
2016-2017
The 2016-2017 fellowship cycle was awarded to : Maranda C. Ward, a doctoral candidate at the Graduate School of Education and Human Development, who won for her project, “D.C. Youth Expression: Art, Community and Identity,” and School of Media and Public Affairs master’s student Zinhle Essamuah for “The Minority Vote” a film documentary following youth voters as the go to the polls in the primary elections.
2015-2016
The 2015-2016 fellowship cycle was awarded to : Mariam Adil, a Masters student in the Elliot School of International Affairs ’16, who is developing video games as learning tools for international development projects called “Stereo-Wipe” and Samantha Cook , a undergraduate in the Elliot School of International Affairs ’16, who won for her project “Digital Hope” a digital and marketing communications curriculum to help teach digital literacy skills to homeless populations so that they can have access to micro-work environments.
2014-2015
The 2014-2015 fellowship cycle was awarded to one project: Pop Art -Painting Out Poverty’s mission is to unite artists in a fight against poverty in DC neighborhoods.
Through sharing our painting, music, poetry, and other arts, we hope to collectively end disparities in the community . This team is being lead by Paulina Sosa a graduate student in the Milken Institute of Public Health ’16 and was announced on June 1, 2014.
2013-2014
The 2013-2014 fellowship cycle was awarded to two projects: Ascension GW a yogatherapy program to assist victims of sexual assault led by Emily Rasowsky , Ivonne G Ramirez, and Aly Azharand Mobile Medical Care a mobile primary care van that travel to wards that had limited to access to primary care facilities led by Ben Trevais, Mary Kaldas, and Tri Hiremath . These fellows were announced on April 27, 2013, at the Spring Service-Learning Symposium.
2012-2013
The 2012-2013 fellowship cycle was awarded to two projects: the Financial Literacy Program coordinated by Sofi Momen and Amir Abdallah and Waste Diversion DC by Manmeet Sandhu and Reshma Arrington. The fellows were announced on May 1st 2012, at the Spring Service-Learning Symposium.
2011-2012
The Knapp Fellowship for Entrepreneurial Service Learning was launched in 2011. The first fellow was Melissa Eddison, then a junior who launched a sustainability project with the goal of creating a GW co-op café.