Welcoming the New Ledecky Fellows

Serena Jampel (left) and Yasmeen Khan (right)

Serena Jampel and Yasmeen Khan | FROM lEFT: COURTESY OF SERENA JAMPEl; STU ROSNER

Harvard Magazine welcomes Serena Jampel ’25 and Yasmeen Khan ’26 to its editorial staff as the 2024-2025 Berta Greenwald Ledecky Undergraduate Fellows. Starting in the November-December issue, they will alternate as authors of the “Undergraduate” column, contributing articles in print and online about aspects of Harvard life.

Jampel, of Newton, Massachusetts, is a history and literature concentrator with a secondary focus in folklore and mythology. She covers arts and culture for the Crimson and contributes to its weekly magazine, Fifteen Minutes, and is an editor for the Harvard Advocate. Jampel is also an improv comic actor and serves on the First-Year Outdoor Program steering committee. Last fall, as tensions rose amid the Israel-Hamas war, Jampel co-founded the Forward-Thinking Jewish Union, as a setting for undergraduates to discuss Zionism and Jewish campus life. She spent the summer as an intern for the Institute for Historical Justice and Reconciliation in The Hague, researching cases of contested history and helping to develop curricula on media bias and historical revisionism.

Khan, of Spring, Texas, is a history and literature concentrator, with a focus on American studies. She has served a writer and editor at large for Fifteen Minutes, and last November she and Jampel co-authored a longform investigative article, “‘The White Man’s College’: How Antisemitism Shaped Harvard’s Legacy Admissions.” Khan previously interned at Document Journal, an arts and culture magazine, and has freelanced for The Nation and Texas Monthly. She is a mentor with Big Sister Boston and spent the summer interning for The Pangea Network, a nonprofit that empowers women and girls in Kenya and the United States with business skills training and access to funding.

The fellowships are supported by Jonathan J. Ledecky ’79, M.B.A. ’83, and named in honor of his late mother. For updates on past Ledecky Fellows and links to their work, see harvardmag.com/ledecky.

You might also like

American Jewish Life After October 7

Professors Derek Penslar and Noah Feldman reflect on a difficult year

Gary Ruvkun Shares Nobel Prize in Medicine

Harvard Medical School genetics professor honored  

Football: Harvard 28-New Hampshire 23

A solid bounce-back win against a rugged nonconference foe

Most popular

Gary Ruvkun Shares Nobel Prize in Medicine

Harvard Medical School genetics professor honored  

How to Reform Healthcare

104 Harvard thought leaders outline medicine’s unmet needs.

Why Do We Still Have the Electoral College?

Historian Alexander Keyssar on why the unpopular institution has prevailed 

More to explore

Learning the Trees of North America

A monumental new guide to North American species

An Underknown Twentieth Century Realist Artist

Brief life of an American realist artist and critic: 1907-1975

Susan Farbstein on Human Rights Law

Human rights lawyer on law’s ability to promote justice—and shape public understanding