Ariella Asllani '26
Alleviating the challenges faced by refugees
The transition from Class oversight of the JFK Award to full administration by the JFK Alumni Board is functioning smoothly. After carefully revamping the application form, the Board held its second competition this year, receiving 29 applications from 15 women and 14 men and interviewing three top candidates. The winner received $15,000 and two runners up, designated Finalists, received $500 each. All three were recognized at the Einhorn Center’s annual awards ceremony on April 22, 2026.
The JFK Memorial Award awardee for 2026 is
Ariella Asllani, a Public Policy major in the Brooks School. Ariella
heard about
our award from Conor Hodges, JFK
'22. Ariella transferred to Cornell as a sophomore.
The daughter of refugees from Albania, she is devoted to the study of migration and to the cause of alleviating the challenges faced by refugees. A volunteer with Ithaca Welcomes Refugees, she founded Refugee Scholars to help the children she tutored overcome challenges at school. Before Cornell, she compiled numerous experiences relevant to her passion, including serving as a border aide to NGOs in Tucson, as a field apprentice shadowing journalists in Israel and Palestine, and as a translator for migrants in Sicily.
Ariana receives the Award from JFK Award Board chair Katie Dealy '00
Her plan is to receive an MSc in Refugee and Forced Migration at Oxford. She will then accept a position with the New York City field office of the FBI, an offer she has deferred for her graduate work. Eventually she will seek a PhD in anthropology, focusing on ethnographic research on smuggling networks.
At Cornell she is Head Treasurer of Telluride, a firefighter, and the holder of numerous prestigious scholarships. One of her referees wrote that “Ariella approaches every project with empathy, persistence and a clear ethical compass.”
From left: awardees Rebecca Herzberg, Tae Kyu Lee, Ariana Asllani, with JFK Award Board chair Katie Dealy '00
The Finalists
The two finalists are Tae Kyu Lee, a College Scholar and Government major in Arts and Sciences and Rebecca Herzberg, a Global and Public Health Sciences major in the College of Human Ecology.
Tae’s passions are educational equity and criminal justice reform. He founded Pass the Torch NY, a 501(c)(3) to provide online tutoring to students worldwide during the pandemic. In his words, “Leadership means setting up a system that outlasts me.” Tae began life as a non-English speaker and piled up numerous awards, including a summer Fulbright Research grant.
Rebecca completed a senior thesis on the impact of the Federal cuts in health care in rural hospitals. She will pursue a career in health policy developing realistic solutions to the numerous unique quandaries facing the health system in the U.S. Several on-campus activities with Loaves and Fishes of Tompkins County, the Cornell Food Recovery Network, and the CU Emergency Medical Services provided hands on experience.
Alumni Board Update
The Alumni Board has settled on an initial slate of
officers. In addition to Katie Dealy ’00 as Chair and Interim Treasurer
while Phil Caruso is abroad, the following have agreed to serve:
Jared Genser ‘95, Governance Officer and Secretary; Karl Hausker ‘79,
Archivist and Alumni Outreach Officer; Itai Dinour ‘01, Awards and
Recruitment Officer; Phil Caruso ’08, Treasurer.
To support the outreach and on-campus activities necessary to sustain
the Award, the Board has voted to enact an Amendment to the JFK By-laws
enabling it to establish a separate account with limited funds set aside
from the annual JFK endowment distribution to cover communications and
marketing expenses and support long-term impact through alumni travel.
It also authorizes the Board to solicit funds from the Class and JFK
Award alumni. The Board took this decision as a prudent and necessary
step toward facilitating annual planning.
The Class officers concurred in this change at their April 2026 meeting
and voted to seed the new operating account with a one-time grant of
$2,000.
The Board has been discussing raising the amount of the award and will
take up the issue in the coming cycle in time for the 2027 awards. It
will also address means of enlarging Board membership and initiating
alumni outreach.
