Leia Ahlström is a Fulbright Graduate Grantee, General Counsel of a Finnish mass media company and a former national team tennis player. She will be entering Columbia Law School’s one-year LL.M. program with a focus on international commercial law. She looks forward to meeting inspiring people and gaining cutting edge knowledge for driving change; weaving together perspectives of law, social impact and sustainable economic growth.
Thea Charlotte Andersen has just finished her first year at the George Washington University Law School and is pursuing a concentration in international law. Before starting law school she spent ten years in the Royal Norwegian Air Force and has served in two international operations – the UN mission in Mali (MINUSMA) and Operation Inherent Resolve in Iraq. Thea is a Norwegian national and holds degrees in Military Leadership and Resource Management from the Norwegian Naval Academy (jointly with the Air Force Academy) and Comparative Politics from the University of Bergen. In her freetime she is trying to figure out how to fit a full vegetable garden into a tiny D.C. studio.
Sebastian Andersson is currently pursuing a Master of Science in Urban Planning at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP), Columbia University, New York City, where he is a program scholar. At GSAPP, Sebastian is focusing on the confluence of planning, politics and the preservation of the architectural modernist heritage, primarily in the Middle East. After obtaining a BA in European Studies and French from University College London in 2015, he gained experience at the Embassy of Sweden in Tel Aviv and subsequently worked at a top-ranked communications firm in London, where he advised Middle Eastern government clients. Sebastian speaks French, Arabic and Hebrew.
Tsvetelina Bayraktarova is a lawyer and university teacher from Bulgaria. She is a joint Thanks To Scandinavia – Fulbright scholar pursuing an LLM degree in banking & finance law at Harvard Law School. In 2015 Tsvetelina graduated law from Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski first in her class with highest honors. Since then she has been working as a lawyer focusing on corporate law and project financing. In 2017 Tsvetelina was accepted as a PhD student at Sofia University and began work on her thesis regarding loan agreements. Since 2017, Tsvetelina has also worked as a part-time assistant professor in commercial law and commercial transactions at Sofia University.
Mari Elk is a Norwegian student who completed her undergraduate degree Magna Cum Laude in psychology from Long Island University. She is currently pursuing her Master of Science in clinical mental health counseling at the University of Texas at San Antonio. She aspires to specialize in children and trauma, and possibly within the realm of neurofeedback. In her leisure time she enjoys travelling, meeting new people and spending time outdoors.
Heidi Hesjevoll is a Norwegian student who is pursuing an undergraduate degree in Philosophy at the University of Oklahoma. She started her college degree at the American College of Norway and transferred to the University of Oklahoma for her sophomore year. She is passionate about helping people, especially children. One of her most rewarding experiences was volunteering at a migrant reception center where she entertained children who have been through difficult times. Once she graduates with her degree in philosophy, she intends to attend law school.
Henrik Ilvesmäki is a Finnish architect, who is currently pursuing two master’s degrees at Harvard University. His primary interests include the intangible qualites of architecture, such as empathy and atmosphere. These are elusive and ill-defined, yet play a constant role in the design and experience of architecture. His current academic focus is in combining these interests with parametric design, a paradigm that connects coding with design work. Henrik’s hope is, that through this creative application of the inherent but often overlooked qualities of architectural spaces, his work would present an example of a future-oriented methodology for creating more culturally sustainable places.
Alexander Rosenberg Johansen is pursuing a Ph.D. in Computer Science at Stanford University. He holds an M.Sc., Honors, in Mathematical Modelling and Computation from the Technical University of Denmark and has conducted research at Salesforce Research in Palo Alto and Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. His work lies in the intersection of artificial intelligence, bioinformatics, and medicine. His research includes peer reviewed publications on topics such as epilepsy, diabetes, protein analysis. Since 2019 he has supervised more than fifty student projects, organized the academic community Deep Learning Copenhagen, and peer reviewed for numerous academic conferences. During his studies in the US, he is delighted to be jointly supported by the Thanks To Scandinavia and Fulbright fellowships. In his spare time he enjoys arranging social gatherings and mountain biking.
Kaliya Kalcheva is a New York-based Bulgarian pianist. She is pursuing her MM at The Juilliard School, where she is a recipient of the Gina Bachauer Grant. A graduate of the National Music School “Lyubomir Pipkov” in Sofia, Kaliya obtained her BM from the Manhattan School of Music in 2019. Kaliya thrives both in solo and chamber music repertoire and has also distinguished herself as a sought-after collaborative pianist among her colleagues. She has won over 15 first prizes in competitions worldwide and a Grand Prix at the Evangelia Tjiarri International Piano Competition in Cyprus. Her many awards include a special “European Union of Music Competitions for Youth” prize at the international competition “Young Virtuosos” in Sofia. In 2014, Kaliya received an honorary diploma from the Ministry of Culture in Bulgaria for her high artistic achievements. Since performing her first solo recital at age 9, Kaliya has given recitals in New York, Luxembourg, Belgium, Germany, Bulgaria and Russia, and has collaborated with musicians all across Europe and in the US. She has been the soloist of many orchestras, such as the Juilliard Orchestra as their 2019-2020 Concerto Competition Winner. Kaliya was chosen to be a Gluck Community Service Fellow for the 2020-2021 academic year, which provides her the opportunity to give 12 interactive performances to hospitals, nursing homes, and alternative care facilities in New York.
Soren Larsen is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of German Studies at Cornell University. His current research focus is how human evil is linked to ‘natural’ and ’social’ disasters, from the Lisbon earthquake of 1755 to today’s tsunamis and hurricanes, from global pandemics and financial crises to the effects of climate change. He studies in particular how modern catastrophes are hard to understand on an individual level and how aesthetic works can affect us differently than other modes of communication, and the ways in which they can make us more responsive to challenges in the distant and not-so-distant future. Other lines of current research involve questions of “prophecy”, “redemption” and “parable”–religious concepts for our fragile modern world–as well as considerations of the ethics, aesthetics and politics involved in the relationship between humans and nonhuman nature. On a more personal note, Soren loves sports and outdoor activities and is a former player at the youth international team in handball. He also loves to spend time with friends and family, as well as travelling and meeting new people.
Paula Kibuka Musoke is a current Master of Public Health (MPH) candidate at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. She is in the Department of Population and Family Health with a certificate in Public Health Research Methods. She received her B.S. in Biochemistry and B.A. in Global Health from Arizona State University (ASU) in 2019. Paula worked for Sexual Violence Prevention and Education at ASU, planning campus wide events, conducting community-based participatory research, teaching students about how to prevent sexual violence and how to support survivors. She was a member of the organization GlobeMed, a non-profit organization dedicated to ending global health inequities both in the U.S. and abroad. Paula also worked for ASU’s Center for Global Health, where she helped analyze data, create survey protocols, conduct surveys and in-depth interviews. Her experiences during her undergraduate career led her to pursue a degree at Columbia University. Paula’s interests are research methodology, sexual and reproductive health justice, gender-based violence and social determinants of health.
Vesela Petrova is a Bulgarian architect with a passion for innovation and sustainability. She was awarded professional BSc. and MSc. degrees in Architecture by Vienna University of Technology. Vesela is a joint Thanks To Scandinavia – Fulbright Scholar in pursuit of a post-professional Masters of Advanced Architectural Design degree from Cornell University. She was also granted a Merit based award, Director’s award and Helen Fagan Tyler Graduate Fellowship in Architecture by Cornell University. During her Master’s, she was invited by Ao.Univ.Prof. Dipl.-Arch. Dr. Phil. G. Sutter to work as a tutor in the field of building modelling and analysis for the purposes of sustainability and functionality evaluation and optimization. Additionally, she joined the research group H.A.U.S. with which she took part in European Robotics Week, an event featured by ORF. Her unique perspective on architecture is underlined by her research in the field of implementation of humanoid robots as mobile architectural elements. Aside from her fascination with research and work as an architectural designer, Vesela dedicates time to projects in the field of education in her home county, through which she aims to transform conventional school buildings into current social centers stimulating the young generation’s strive for knowledge. In 2018-2019 she worked pro bono on the interior renovation of the historic Professional High School of Textiles and Clothing “Dobri Jelyazkov” in her hometown Sliven, a project funded by the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Bulgaria. In 2013 Vesela spent her summer as a volunteer at NGO Club UNESCO “Leonardo Da Vinci” in Sofia.
Kevin Tao completed his Bachelor & Masters dual degree program in Mathematics from Boston University after the third year of his matriculation. During those three years, he worked closely with Dr. Allen Harbaugh on simulation studies regarding longitudinal survey response data, exploring how different response types affect model predictions. In addition, he had also worked on multiple machine learning algorithms for classification, such as the kernel density based Bayes classifier, and the incremental linear discriminant analysis. The latter work earned a spot at the 2019 Mathfest. He is currently a first year Ph.D. student in Statistics in Cornell University.