Your undergraduate student reps, Isha Karim and Gina Liu, have put together an alumni panel event with the help of the faculty. Three former ICLS majors will come in and speak to us on Thursday Feb 26, 6:30-8pm in the Heyman Center Common Room. The panel will be moderated by Profs. Goyal and Dobie. Come and ask any and all questions to ICLS grads who were once in your shoes. You will find their bios below. We will serve food and drink!

We will be joined by:

Caroline Chen (CC ’22, MedHum) is a fourth-year medical student at the Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons. She graduated summa cum laude from Columbia College with a BA in Medical Humanities and Biology and received the Albert Asher Green Memorial Prize, awarded to the senior with the strongest academic record. She is interested in health equity and narrative medicine and is involved in research and community outreach focused on addressing disparities in care.

Colin Kinniburgh (CC ’12, CLS) is a reporter at New York Focus, covering the state’s climate and environmental politics. He has worked in media for more than a decade, across print, television, audio, and online news, and participated in fellowship programs at CUNY’s Graduate School of Journalism, the Metcalf Institute, and the NYU Stern School of Business. His climate reporting earned a New York Press Club award.

Ruby Lark Mendelsund (CC ’23, MedHum) is a second-year PhD student in Columbia University’s Department of English and Comparative Literature (ENCL). Her work focuses on literary representations of illness and disability (with a particular emphasis on mental illness), d/Deafness and Deaf culture, affect theory, and pain. Before coming to ENCL, she conducted research in Neuropathology and Astrophysics, worked as a physician’s assistant in a pediatric clinic, and volunteered for two years in the emergency room at Mount Sinai Hospital.

This will be part of Humanities Week 2026.