Anand's and Ansaf's Story
Anand Venkatkrishnan is a first-year PhD student in the Department of Religion at Columbia University. He has a concentration in the South Asian Religions track, studying issues of Hindu identity in the American diaspora. Anand graduated from Stanford University in June 2010, with a B.A. in Classics (Greek and Latin). As an IFYC Fellow at Stanford, Anand co-founded the student group Stanford F.A.I.T.H--Faiths Act In Togetherness and Hope. The organization promotes a sustained and active engagement between diverse faith communities on campus, through projects on service, dialogue, and social justice. It has garnered widespread institutional as well as popular support for its activities, which have ranged from a Multifaith Service in Stanford's Memorial Church to honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., to helping organize a campus-wide rally in response to religious bigotry against Hillel and the LGBT Center.
Ansaf Kareem was born and raised in Portland, Oregon, and graduated from Stanford University in June 2010 with a major in Political Science and Economics. Along with two other Stanford students, Ansaf founded an international non-profit called IDEAS aimed at building a global network of interdisciplinary college students to tackle environmental and sustainability issues in developing nations. He also served as Senior Class President for the class of 2010 at Stanford. Ansaf was involved in a leadership role with the Muslim Student Awareness Network at Stanford since his sophomore year where he worked to create an awareness for issues that involve the Muslim world and fostered dialogue between the Muslim community and the rest of campus. During his time as an undergraduate student, Ansaf studied abroad at Oxford and Cambridge University where he was involved with the respective Muslim student associations. He wrote his senior honors thesis with Stanford's Center for Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law Honors Program, focusing on Pakistan and the role civil society can play in strengthening institutions and consolidating democracy. He is passionate about using interfaith organizing as a tool to reframe the way we approach social issues-- transforming seemingly diverse problems such as the climate crisis, health care, and ethnic conflict, into platforms by which we realize our common humanity and fate. Ansaf currently works as a Business Analyst at McKinsey & Company in New York, and has been accepted for deferred admission to the MBA program at Harvard Business School where he will begin in September 2012.
