Kara Schechtman, George J. Mitchell Scholarship, Class of 2020

A New York native, Kara Schechtman is a double major in English and Computer Science at Columbia University. Interested in the philosophical implications of artificial intelligence, Kara completed summer internships at Google and, most recently, at YouTube, where she worked on a project to improve the quality of Mixes, which are infinite auto-generated music playlists. On campus, Kara was Co-President of the Columbia chapter of Lean In, where she quintupled its membership and oversaw the creation of a mentor program that partners 70 Columbia women with women professionals in NYC. She received Columbia’s King’s Crown Award in Principled Action for her Lean In work. Kara was also the Features editor for the weekly magazine of the Columbia Spectator, Columbia’s newspaper of record, and created the first podcast of the publication. She will study Philosophy at Trinity College Dublin.
George J. Mitchell Scholarship, Class of 2020