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| Washington Leadership Program - 2003 |
WLP 2003 Intern Biographies
Alkesh Amin
Alkesh Amin, from Chattanooga, TN, is a rising junior at Harvard College, where he concentrates in Economics. He will intern for his home state Senator, the Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN).
Alkesh graduated cum laude from the Baylor School, where he served as president of the student body and editor-in-chief of the yearbook in his senior year. At Harvard, Alkesh participates as a senior staff member of Harvard Model Congress, an educational government simulation that is the largest program of its kind in the nation, drawing over 1,500 high school students from across the country to Boston for its annual conference. Having been a delegate himself while at Baylor, Alkesh served as the Deputy Chief of Staff his freshman year at Harvard and Deputy Business Manager this past year.
Alkesh has also been active with the American Red Cross, serving as a summer hospital volunteer for five consecutive summers in Chattanooga. Further, he has also been active politically. Last summer, while interning at Davis & Wallace, P.C., a law firm in Chattanooga, Alkesh was responsible for organizing and coordinating campaign fundraising events for former Congressman Bob Clement's (D-TN) campaign for U.S. Senate and worked directly with the candidate in this campaign.
Prerak Bathia
Prerak Bathia is a junior at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill where he is pursuing a double major in Political Science and Economics. Bathia will be studying at the London School of Economics (LSE) in the International Relations general course next year and plans to return to UNC-Chapel Hill for his senior year. He will focus his studies and research at LSE on non-democratic forms of government and their success in free market economic structures, specifically focusing on the People's Republic of China's success in recent years.
He will intern for Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA), who is a former co-chair of the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans and one of the most involved Members of Congress on matters related to the subcontinent.
Bathia holds a variety of leadership positions in various student organizations on the UNC campus. For example, he organized a voter registration drive for Indian Americans, brought three prominent Indian Americans to speak at UNC, and volunteers regularly at a local soup kitchen.
Bathia also led his mock trial team to a national tournament bid in the American Mock Trial Association and served as the Chairman for the Security Council for the UNC chapter of the Model United Nations Organizations. He also plays on the UNC Men's club tennis team. Bathia intends to go to law school and then pursue a career in corporate law.
Bindi Bhagat
Originally from the Poconos, Bindi Bhagat currently resides in Philadelphia where she attends the University of Pennsylvania (Penn). At Penn, she is pursuing a double major in English Literature and European History.
This summer, Bindi will intern for Representative Gary Ackerman (D-NY), who is a former co-chair of the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans and one of the most senior Members on the House International Relations Committee. Bindi anticipates that interning in this office will enable her to explore the ways in which policy debates present themselves on the national level.
Although the majority of her academic work focuses on the cultural and political concerns of past generations, Bindi spends her time outside of the classroom addressing contemporary societal problems. She has worked for the Pennsylvania Public Interest Research Group (PennPIRG), where she researched the relationship between urban blight and the proliferation of suburban sprawl. While at PennPIRG, Bindi also planned press conferences for regional media outlets to help publicize PennPIRG's annual report on toy safety.
Last summer, Bindi's efforts focused on the conditions in her own neighborhood. As an intern at Penn's Program for Public Service, Bindi was part of a two-member team whose main goal was to set up a school-based health center in a West Philadelphia Middle School. This is the ideal location for a health center because it is both a place where children learn and also where the community gathers.
Krishna Bhavsar
Krishna Bhavsar, the daughter of Sanat and Nita Bhavsar, resides in Roanoke County, located in southwestern Virginia. Krishna is a rising fourth year at the University of Virginia (UVA). She will graduate in May 2004 with a double major in Economics and English. After finishing up her undergraduate education, Krishna plans to attend law school and pursue a career as a lawyer.
She will intern this summer for her local Congressman, Bob Goodlatte (R-VA). Goodlatte was re-elected to his sixth term in November, 2002. He is one of the leaders of the House of Representatives, where he serves as Chairman of the Agriculture Committee. In addition, Goodlatte is a member of the Judiciary Committee and the Select Committee on Homeland Security.
Krishna is a very active member of the UVA student body. She serves as the vice president of the Campaign for Dance (CFD) program, the supervisor of the UVA Phonathon, the senior writer of the business section of the Cavalier Daily, Student Council representative on the Community Affairs Committee, legal clerk at Student Legal Services, and a mentor for the Boys & Girls Club. In addition, Krishna is also a very involved member of the Indian Student Association, including the Hindu Student Council, the Sharara Dance Group, and the Mahogany Dance Troupe.
This past spring, Krishna was chosen to serve as a teaching assistant for the Studies of Women and Gender 207 course under her former instructor. Krishna has spent her past summers taking classes, volunteering, and working for architecture and law firms, and the Charlottesville Legal Aid Society.
Rajen Desai
Rajen Desai, son of Uday and Smita Desai from Fort Worth, Texas, was a cadet squadron commander and is a certified solo pilot in the United States Air Force Auxiliary.
As a President's Scholar and Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Stanford University, he completed an honors thesis in neurobiology (soon to be published) on how new axons grown in the brain during childhood learning are not erased when the child forgets, but are maintained throughout adulthood. Further, he completed a second senior thesis in medical anthropology focusing on how to educate unlicensed doctors who practice illegally in the slums of India.
Outside of research, Desai won top university leadership awards as co-president of Sanskriti, the 500-member Stanford South Asian society, where he focused on building Hindu-Muslim unity. He was also nationally recognized by the United States Department of Health and Human Services for his leadership in the South Asian Preventive Health Outreach Program.
This summer, Desai will intern for Representative Bob Filner (D-CA). This fall, he will return to Palo Alto, California, to begin the M.D. program at Stanford Medical School, as well as an M.A. in International Policy Studies. His long-term plans are to focus on how religious movements in South Asia can ameliorate regional public health concerns and Indian-Pakistani relations.
Sushil Jacob
Sushil Jacob is a rising junior at Brown University, in Providence, Rhode Island, where he majors in International Relations. He will intern for his home state Senator, Jack Reed (D-RI).
Sushil is studying Political Economy and Development with a focus on Developing Nations. He plans to study abroad in Latin America during his junior year of college and write his senior thesis on issues of sustainable development.
He has been active at Brown in the minority student community. During his sophomore year, he served as a Minority Peer Counselor for first-year students. In the South Asian community, Sushil was involved this past year with the annual Political Action Weekend. He arranged for a South Asian theater group, SAATH, to perform a play about domestic violence in the South Asian community.
Sushil has also been involved in creating interfaith dialogue on campus. Last year, he helped start a residential house on campus called the Interfaith Program House. He also helped to create and lead the Faith-Based Activism Coalition, a group that focuses on creating a forum for dialogue and activism across faiths. One of his principal goals at college is to create communities across lines of faith.
Last summer, Sushil volunteered at the Children in Crisis Program of the YMCA in Bangalore, India. During his time there he worked with orphaned and abandoned street children. This experience helped him to understand one of the most pervasive cycles of poverty in India, that of life on the street.
Music is also a big part of Sushil's life. He is a drummer who plays both drum set as well as African and Latin hand drums. Recently, he was asked to perform for Brown's commencement ceremonies and he regularly performs with a campus jazz group.
Sushil graduated valedictorian of his senior class at Bishop Hendricken High School. He lives with his parents, James and Ninni, and his sister, Sneha, in Saunderstown, RI. His parents are originally from Kerala, India, where much of Sushil's family still resides.
Hari Karthikeya Kondabolu
Hari Karthikeya Kondabolu's family lives in Queens, New York and he will intern for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY). Although the Senator's office received approximately 400 applications for summer internships, this is the third summer in a row that IACPA has been able to place an intern in this office.
Hari attended Townsend Harris High School in Queens and will be a senior at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine in the fall, where he majors in Comparative Politics. He spent his junior year at Wesleyan University where he focused on globalization, identity and race, and the impact of popular culture on society, both inside and outside the classroom.
Hari interned last summer in the office of the Queens District Attorney, where he worked in the Hate Crimes/Anti-Bias/Youth Gangs Bureau. This provided him with a first-hand view of how the criminal justice system works. The experience motivated him to seek a career path that will enable him to work to improve the lives of minorities. He hopes that the internship in Washington will provide him with insights on how to pursue this goal.
Hari is a huge fan of baseball, "indie rock" music and stand-up comedy. He is considering attending Law School and becoming an attorney, and hopes that the upcoming summer will help him to clarify his career options.
Sanchay Krishna
Sanchay Krishna is a student at the University of Delaware, where he majors in Business Administration with an emphasis on Marketing and Management.
His parents, Rajeev and Bindu Krishna, and his brother Sumit and sister Rati Priya, live in Middlesex New Jersey. Sanchay will intern this summer for a Congressman from his home state, Representative Frank Pallone (D-NJ). Representative Pallone was one of the founders and also the first Democratic co-chair of the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans. Representative Pallone has hosted interns from IACPA's WLP since the first year of the program.
At the University of Delaware, Sanchay actively participates in inter-mural tennis, student government (DUSC), and a marketing club called AMA. Last summer, he worked with the Governor of New Jersey, helping to set up an Indian festival at the Governor's mansion. He also actively participated with the Indian Chambers of Commerce in New Jersey, where he helped to set up fundraisers for Indian Americans running for political office.
His hobbies include bike riding, basketball, tennis, building model cars and playing the piano.
Tara Kolar Ramchandani
Tara Kolar Ramchandani will intern for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. She is the first participant in the IACPA program to intern directly for this committee.
She was born in Philadelphia, PA and graduated in 2000 cum laude from Friends' Central School in Wynnewood, PA. She is completing her junior year at Brown University, where she majors in International Relations with a focus in Political Economy and Development.
She spent the fall of 2002 studying in Venezuela, where she conducted an independent study on women's microcredit lending, a topic she will examine in her senior honor's thesis. Tara has been very active in the Brown University South Asian Students Association and, as the Education chair on next year's executive board, will help to organize a Political Action conference. As a sophomore, she served as a Minority Peer Counselor.
Tara also interprets for Spanish speaking patients at Rhode Island Hospital and recently completed 170 hours of leadership training in the Brown Outdoor Leadership Training Program. She is the recipient of an Undergraduate Teaching and Research Assistantship Award for designing a Hispanic Studies course with a professor in the department. Last summer, she was a research assistant at the Bangalore Institute for Social and Economic Change and conducted a series of interviews with IT sector employees in Bangalore.
Tara plans to attend law school and eventually hopes to work on women's development issues.
Ishita Shah
Ishita Shah's family, Ashok and Gita Shah and her brother Mihir, live in Spartanburg, SC. She will be a sophomore this fall at the University of South Carolina (USC) where she majors in business. She will intern for Representative Joe Wilson (R-SC), the Republican co-chair of the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans.
This past year she was a member of the Student Government at USC. In that role, she helped the freshmen adapt to their new environment. Next year, she will be a member in the USC student government senate, where she will serve on the Finance and Rules committee, and chair the Powers and Responsibility committee. She was also active in Resident Hall Government, where she became directly involved in on-campus housing issues.
Ishita was a member of the USC Carolina Productions, Ideas and Issues commission, which brought a number of famous speakers to the university campus. Ishita is a volunteer at a local Salvation Army store and helps students with their schoolwork at the Waverly Children Center in Columbia, SC.
Anjali Shaykher
Anjali Shaykher was born and raised in Miami, Florida. She is currently a junior in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and her major is International Politics with a specialization in International Law, Ethics, and Organizations. She will intern for Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL), who is an active Member of the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans.
Anjali was president of her high school class for two years, president of the English Honor Society, secretary of Key Club, parliamentarian of National Honor Society, and a member of the Excalibur Science Honor Society, and Mu Alpha Theta Math Honor Society. At Georgetown, she has been active in the Georgetown student government (GUSA) and is president of the Hindu Students Association (HSA). Under her leadership, HSA received widespread recognition and participation. For the first time ever, it hosted a table at the student clubs fair, held a successful Raas/Garba (religious Hindu dance festival), participated in interfaith activities, and held many prayer services and lectures.
Anjali has also been extensively trained in Bharatnatyam, an ancient Indian classical dance form, and has performed in many shows and dance-dramas. She played the piano for 12 years and has competed at the national and international levels. She was also a volunteer and religion teacher at the South Florida Hindu Temple. Versed in Sanksrit prayers and Hindu scriptures, Anjali taught young children about Hindu values.
She is fluent in English, Hindi, and Kashmiri and is conversant in Spanish. Last summer she "shadowed" the vice- president of investments at Salomon Smith Barney. She also interned at the pro bono "Put Something Back" Legal Aid Services, where she prepared case referrals, monitored casework, and conducted client interviews in English and Spanish. She was selected to receive the "Put Something Back Pro Bono Law Clerk Award."
Anjali is also active in anti-terrorism efforts concerning the Kashmir conflict and has revised legislation and attended meetings to discuss the issue. In the future, Anjali hopes to attend law school and ultimately pursue a career in international politics.
Madhuri Singh
Madhuri Singh will be a sophomore at the University of Michigan (UM), where she plans to major in South Asian Studies and Political Science, with a minor in History. She will intern for Representative Joseph Crowley (D-NY), the Democratic Chair of the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans.
Madhuri is originally from Fort Wayne, IN, where her parents, Anita and Nehal, and her younger sisters, Kavita and Kajal, still reside. She was involved in Indiana politics, serving as a founding member of the Mayor's Youth Council and as an intern in the office of Senator Evan Bayh (D-IN).
At UM, Singh was active with the first national content-driven South Asian conference with the South Asian Awareness Network (SAAN) as a financial committee member. For next year's conference, she will work as a programming chair for SAAN, which will enable her to raise such significant topics such as community building, gender issues, and racial profiling.
She works with Association for India's Development (AID) on public response to the Bhopal tragedy. She is also involved with America Reads, a national organization to improve the literacy rate in the United States, and spent her freshman year tutoring and mentoring in after-school programs and elementary schools in Detroit.
In her free time, Singh enjoys dancing, photography, and golfing. She has been taking Kathak classes and choreographing dances since she was young, and takes part in the annual Indian American Student Association's (IASA) culture show at Michigan. She has also had her photography on display at local exhibits and galleries, and is an Academic All State golfer for Indiana.
Sundeep Sood
Sundeep Sood, of Peachtree City, Georgia, will be a third year student at the University of Georgia, where he majors in Economics and Political Science. He will intern for his home state representative, Congresswoman Denise Majette (D-GA).
Sundeep is currently an active member in the University of Georgia's Student Government Association and was recently appointed to co-chair the Minority Affairs Committee. One of his main goals in the committee is to help foster understanding and awareness within the student body.
He volunteers on a regular basis at the local Boys & Girls Club in Athens, Georgia and participates in University Judiciary and the High School Outreach Team. One of his favorite hobbies is playing golf, especially with his father. Sundeep's future aspirations include becoming a teacher for Teach for America and then joining the Peace Corps.
Veena Srinivasa
Veena Srinivasa is a rising senior at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, with a double major in public policy and sociology. She will intern for Representative Sherrod Brown (D-OH), who has hosted an intern from IACPA every year since its inception in 1994.
Veena's family lives in Representative Brown's home state of Ohio. For the past year and a half, she has worked closely with her public policy advisor on research for his upcoming book about the law and politics of child sexual abuse. Last summer she was awarded an Undergraduate Teaching and Research Assistantship grant to continue this research.
She is a member of the South Asian Students Association, the Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance, a volunteer at Planned Parenthood of Rhode Island, and a three-year member of the Ultimate Frisbee team. She has also served as a residential women's peer counselor for first-year students, and is very involved in women's issues on campus.
She has previously interned in the office of County Commissioner Todd Portune, where she conducted independent research on the socioeconomic demographics of Hamilton County (Ohio) and helped to implement a Housing Improvement Loan program.
Tanushree Srinivasan
Tanushree Srinivasan will be entering her third year at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where she is pursuing concentrations in both Finance and Management in addition to a minor in Romance Language Studies. Her family lives in Knoxville, Tennessee, and she will intern for a Congressman from her home state, Jim Cooper (D-TN).
While in high school, she interned in the office of former U.S. Senator Fred Thompson, who retired from the Senate after the 2002 elections to return to his acting career and become the District Attorney on "Law and Order". Also while still in high school, Tanu was a State Finalist in the Tennessee Youth Senate Competition.
She graduated in 2001 as Valedictorian of Faragut High School in Knoxville, Tennessee. While in high school, Tanu served as State Treasurer and Regional Governor of Mu Alpha Theta, won numerous state public speaking awards through the 4-H Club, served on the Student Council for four years, played both western and Indian classical flute, and trained in Bharatnatyam and Classical South Indian Carnatic Music.
At the University of Pennsylvania, Tanu continued to pursue South Asian activities. As a member of PenNaatak, UPenn's South Asian Theatre Troupe, she not only starred in leading roles of two of the organization's productions, she also served on its executive board for two years. Tanu has held leadership positions in Sangam, a South Asian political organization, and the University of Pennsylvania Model United Nations Team.
This fall, Tanu will study abroad at the L'Universita' Commerciale Luigi Bocconi in Milan, Italy, as part of a Wharton semester exchange program.
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Copyright © 2001-2004, Indian American Center for
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