Brooks School senior heads to Oxford on Keasbey Scholarship

Stories of service permeated Ariela Asllani's childhood.

The firefighters she hung out with as a little girl at the fire station near her father's one-man hot dog joint in a rough part of Chicago put themselves in harm's way for their neighbors.

At home, she heard stories of how her family members took in Kosovo refugees when they lived in Albania.

"They would lay out mattresses all over their living room floors or kitchen while artillery from the Serbian positions were landing just kilometers away," she said. "I grew up with those stories and that sense of service before self."

This May, Asllani '26, a public policy major, will graduate from the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy and head to Oxford University to study refugee and forced migration as a recipient of a national Keasbey Scholarship.

Julie Ficarra, associate teaching professor in the Brooks School and Asllani's honors thesis adviser, said her unwavering focus on her academic, professional and personal goals is unparalleled.

"Ariela can hold her own in really heady intellectual spaces, but she's equally natural and confident in community-engaged spaces, for instance talking to recently resettled refugees about their journey to the United States," Ficarra said. "These are two very different skill sets."

The Keasbey Memorial Foundation provides scholarships for graduating American college students to pursue a degree in the United Kingdom. Typically, the foundation selects two winners each year from a rotating group of U.S. institutions. Asllani vied against applicants from Amherst College, Brown University, Cornell, Princeton University, Swarthmore College and Yale University for this year's awards. Winners receive full funding for tuition, fees and living expenses for up to two years. The Office of National Fellowships helped Asllani navigate the application process, which included in-person interviews with the foundation's trustees.

At Oxford, Asllani plans to work in ethnographic research with smuggling facilitators and migrants across the Americas, North Africa and Europe.

"I want to hear the stories and experiences of people on the ground," she said. "That's why this master's program is very anthropology heavy. I learned the policy, but I want to learn from the voices of those truly affected."

Ultimately, she wants to play a leadership role in ensuring that governance frameworks reflect the realities of people's lived experiences.

Asllani has experienced these governance frameworks herself. Her parents immigrated to the U.S. seeking political asylum.

"For a period of time, we were in and out of courts and detention centers," she said. "That helped shape my own advocacy here in the United States when it comes to treating humans with dignity."

Asllani transferred to Cornell from George Washington University as a sophomore and immediately sought ways to engage with the Ithaca community.

She founded Refugee Scholars in Ithaca, working with Ithaca Welcomes Refugees to provide school supply kits to teens and young adults living as refugees in the area. The kits included laptop computers, SAT and ACT prep books and other supplies. She also created a series of college preparatory videos in collaboration with Cornell faculty to help guide refugee students through the journey of applying to college. In two years, more than 20 students benefited, and Asllani earned a Robinson-Appel Humanitarian Award from the Einhorn Center for Community Engagement for her work.

"I'm the first in my family to pursue higher education," she said. "Education helps provide economic mobility. It helps to see the world, experience life in the best possible way. It can serve as a stabilizer, and I wanted to help promote that, especially among vulnerable communities such as refugees."

Following the example of the firefighters who made such an impression on her as a child, Asllani found that opportunity in Ithaca, too.

She volunteers with the Cayuga Heights Fire Department as an exterior fire fighter and emergency medical technician.

"It is very motivating to be with a bunch of individuals who are very dedicated to making the communities around them more resilient, safe and healthy," she said. "But I think the biggest benefit I got out of that is just to admire the people I wear my uniform next to."

Asllani's instinct is to be of service, Ficarra said.

"For Ariela, being a Cornell student means not only going to class and being a part of clubs, which she is," Ficarra said, "but also serving the community that she's living in right now."