New York Lawyers for the Public Interest | New York, NY

Swathi Kella is a rising junior at Harvard College hailing from the garden state. She is concentrating in Social Studies with a secondary in Spanish. Swathi is passionate about working at the intersection of law, politics, and journalism to create lasting social change.

This summer, Swathi is excited to be assisting the New York Lawyers for the Public Interest on two projects related to transportation accessibility and immigrant health in New York City. She is eager to engage in their mission of promoting equal justice and securing civil rights through community lawyering.

On campus, Swathi conducts research with the Harvard Implicit Social Cognition Lab, where she studies the intersection of law and psychology. She is currently researching the presence of implicit bias in popular discourse. She also serves as the managing editor for the Harvard Political Review, where she has conducted investigations on topics related to migration, identity, and civil rights. Next semester, she will turn her focus inward, reflecting on the undergraduate student experience as a columnist for Harvard Magazine. Additionally, Swathi works at the Writing Center and volunteers with Citizenship Tutoring at the Institute of Politics. She is the president of South Asian Americans in Public Service and co-directs Ghungroo, the largest student-run production on campus. She is grateful for the wonderful communities at Harvard into which she has been warmly inducted, and she hopes to strengthen that sense of belonging for future classes.

Her favorite places on campus include Lamont Library, Cambridge Common, and the Harvard Book Store basement, and she is excited to continue exploring Cambridge and Boston in the fall after a year-and-a-half hiatus.