Award Recognition
Principled Action
Hope Michelle Shinderman CC’26 is being recognized for work grounded in deep commitment to tikkun olam — healing the world. She has spent her time at Columbia engaging with issues of immigration asylum, mass incarceration, and disability justice, always connecting academic work to real-world praxis. As part of the inaugural Global Thought Scholars cohort, she explored interdisciplinary approaches to justice in international refugee law, while her work with the ACLU National Prison Project and the Loyola Law School Project for the Innocent supported efforts challenging solitary confinement and wrongful convictions. She has also worked directly with asylum seekers and conducted research on prison, crime, and gender at the University of Michigan. As disability representative on Columbia College Student Council, she advocated for accessibility while navigating her own chronic illness. After taking a year away from school, she returned with renewed focus, continuing her scholarship and work to advance global justice.
“I carry deep gratitude for my family and friends for their indefatigable support, for my faculty mentors in the Institute for the Study of Human Rights, the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society, and the Law School, and for my professional mentors, who model justice in practice. Thank you. To those who have challenged my thinking, served as interlocutors, and worked alongside me to build a more just world, I am endlessly grateful.”