Ariella Asllani '26
Alleviating the challenges faced by refugees
The JFK Memorial Award winner for 2026 is
Ariella Asllani, a Public Policy major in the Brooks School. Ariella
heard about
our award from Conor Hodges, JFK
'22. Ariella transferred to Cornell as a sophomore.
The daughter of refugees from Albania, she is devoted to the study of migration and to the cause of alleviating the challenges faced by refugees. A volunteer with Ithaca Welcomes Refugees, she founded Refugee Scholars to help the children she tutored overcome challenges at school. Before Cornell, she compiled numerous experiences relevant to her passion, including serving as a border aide to NGOs in Tucson, as a field apprentice shadowing journalists in Israel and Palestine, and as a translator for migrants in Sicily.
Ariana receives the Award from JFK Award Board chair Katie Dealy '00
Her plan is to receive an MSc in Refugee and Forced Migration at Oxford. She will then accept a position with the New York City field office of the FBI, an offer she has deferred for her graduate work. Eventually she will seek a PhD in anthropology, focusing on ethnographic research on smuggling networks.
At Cornell she is Head Treasurer of Telluride, a firefighter, and the holder of numerous prestigious scholarships. One of her referees wrote that “Ariella approaches every project with empathy, persistence and a clear ethical compass.”
From left: awardees Rebecca Herzberg, Tae Kyu Lee, Ariana Asllani, with JFK Award Board chair Katie Dealy '00
The Finalists
The two finalists are Tae Kyu Lee, a College Scholar and Government major in Arts and Sciences and Rebecca Herzberg, a Global and Public Health Sciences major in the College of Human Ecology.
Tae’s passions are educational equity and criminal justice reform. He founded Pass the Torch NY, a 501(c)(3) to provide online tutoring to students worldwide during the pandemic. In his words, “Leadership means setting up a system that outlasts me.” Tae began life as a non-English speaker and piled up numerous awards, including a summer Fulbright Research grant.
Rebecca completed a senior thesis on the impact of the Federal cuts in health care in rural hospitals. She will pursue a career in health policy developing realistic solutions to the numerous unique quandaries facing the health system in the U.S. Several on-campus activities with Loaves and Fishes of Tompkins County, the Cornell Food Recovery Network, and the CU Emergency Medical Services provided hands on experience.
