Five Brown University students awarded prestigious fellowships

Class of 2026
Concentrations: Accessible design and biology

For Rishika Kartik, scholarship, design and advocacy are inseparable. At Brown, she explores all three through an independent concentration she developed in accessible design, which pairs scientific research with art to reimagine how disability is understood and addressed.

"In medicine, vision is defined with clinical precision, but as an artist, vision is subjective: what we see depends on what we imagine," the Brown University senior said. "Disability does not discriminate and neither does my work."

That work has focused primarily on therapeutic art for blind communities, diabetes technology development for blind communities and disability bias amongst health care providers - all research that has informed Kartik's approach as the founder of Touch & Create Studios, where she has helped teach nearly 70 accessible art workshops for 1,000 blind participants across seven states.

As a Schwarzman Scholar, Kartik will study in China, where she hopes to learn from large-scale approaches to disability inclusion amid the country's rapidly aging population.

"The Schwarzman program, like Brown, emphasizes interdisciplinarity and diversity of thought," she said. "Brown taught me to chase the right questions rather than the straightforward answers."

When she returns from Beijing, Kartik plans to attend medical school and pursue a career as an ophthalmologist, designer and science communicator, shaping accessibility standards in medicine while continuing to amplify the voices of blind people through art and media.

"I am on a mission to make life more independent and more dignified for people who are aging or disabled," Kartik said.