Meet Harvard Magazine’s Ledecky Fellows

The 2024-2025 Undergraduate columnists

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.

Related topics

You might also like

Harvard’s New Online Orientation Emphasizes Intellectual Paths

A summer course for first-years focuses on academic success, diverse viewpoints.

Harvard Undergraduates Discuss a Changing University

A student panel grapples—civilly—with shifting policies and differing opinions.

Harvard Retains Winthrop House Name

Committee undecided on whether owning slaves merits denaming

Most popular

What Trump Means for John Roberts’s Legacy

Executive power is on the docket at the Supreme Court.

This Harvard Scientist Is Changing the Future of Genetic Diseases

David Liu has pioneered breakthroughs in gene editing, creating new therapies that may lead to cures.

Three Harvardians Win Macarthur Fellowships

A mathematician, a political scientist, and an astrophysicist are honored with “genius” grants for their work.

Explore More From Current Issue

Brandon Terry, wearing a blue suit, standing before The Embrace, a large bronze sculpture of intertwined arms in Boston Common.

A New Narrative of Civil Rights

Political philosopher Brandon Terry’s vision of racial progress

Catherine Zipf smiling, wearing striped shirt and dark sweater outdoors.

Preserving the History of Jim Crow Era Safe Havens

Architectural historian Catherine Zipf is building a database of Green Book sites.  

Public health dean Andrea Baccarelli wearing a white collared shirt and glasses.

The School of Public Health, Facing a Financial Reckoning, Seizes the Chance to Reinvent Itself

Dean Andrea Baccarelli plans for a smaller, more impactful Chan School of 2030.