Members of the Class of 2026 reflect on the communities they found on campus and more.
Heavily involved in sports broadcasting at Northwestern, Khosla served as co-sports director of WNUR Sports, the radio broadcast home of Northwestern Athletics. He also helped run sports programming for the Northwestern News Network, working as a director, producer, anchor and cameraman. He was part of a team that won a College Television Award for a SportsNight pregame show during the 2024–2025 men’s basketball season. As an intern with NBC Sports, Khosla traveled to Paris for the 2024 Olympic Games, an experience he calls “the coolest thing I’ll ever do.” He will be returning to NBC Sports after graduation as a production assistant on the Olympic production team. “And none of that would’ve happened if it weren’t for the sports media offerings at Northwestern,” Khosla says.
Born in Namibia and raised in Arizona, Denzel Higiro co-founded the East African Alliance on campus and served on the executive board of the International Studies Society. “I also love dancing,” says Higiro, who joined the ELEL Dance Group, which specializes in traditional Ethiopian and Eritrean dances. A first-in-household college student, Higiro took part in both the Melville and Jane Hodge EXCEL Scholars Program and the School of Education and Social Policy Leadership Institute. The learning and organizational change major started Mama I Made It, a career-focused podcast to show “that there’s not one specific path to success.” After graduation Higiro will join a private credit firm and apply to business school.
While JingXi Yap participated in theater in her Shanghai high school, she deepened her expertise in stage production while at Northwestern. The theater and neuroscience double major participated in the Dolphin Show throughout all four years on campus, first as a stage manager and then as a production manager and eventually a producer of the show’s 150-person team. “It’s really exciting to produce the Dolphin Show because it has such an insane reach, not only to the Northwestern campus but also throughout Evanston,” Yap says. “It’s a real joy to connect with the broader community.” Yap served as a research assistant in psychology professor Jennifer Tackett’s Personality Across Development Lab and especially enjoyed her classes on Asian American theater with Elizabeth Son, associate professor of theater. Yap plans to enjoy a Chicago summer and visit family in Shanghai after graduation.
A biomedical engineering major and QuestBridge scholar, Anita Bassey participated in a variety of campus activities, from ski team and Black Formal to burlesque performance. She joined a bioelectronics research group and the executive board of the Northwestern chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers. Bassey, who grew up in Nigeria, Abu Dhabi and the U.S., even started a bike club on campus to promote wellness and community building. “We bike to a movie or to brunch,” she says. “I bring along a speaker so that we have music going. It’s just a good vibe.” Bassey will pursue a master’s degree in global affairs at Tsinghua University in China as a Schwarzman Scholar and then go on to a doctoral program in bioengineering at Rice University.
Triple majors are uncommon at Northwestern, but quadruple majors are virtually unheard of. Justin Dynes is in that rare company. He majored in biology, integrated science, neuroscience and English literature, thanks in part to Northwestern’s Integrated Science Program (ISP), which lets students take a broad array of classes across various STEM disciplines. “I really love the community part of it, which manifested not just through official classes but also through social events and study sessions,” he says. Dynes, who also started a book club on campus and organized a weekly trivia team in Evanston, served as a peer advisor for ISP and as president of the ISP student council. With an eye toward a career as a neurologist, he will start medical school in the fall.
A dual citizen of the U.S. and Canada who grew up in Austin, Texas, Keshav Srinivasan majored in violin performance and economics at Northwestern. A member of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, a training program of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Srinivasan sought out as many performance opportunities as possible on campus and beyond. He was also named to the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.’s 30 under 30 list of Canadian classical musicians in 2024 and won a National Youth Orchestra of Canada Award of Excellence. Srinivasan will join the Boston Symphony Orchestra as a resident fellow this fall. “Performing music that impacts people — that’s what I’m striving for,” he says.
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After Parker Levinson ’18 graduated from Northwestern’s Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences with degrees in environmental science and African studies, her job search took her down a less traditional path: a field research gig studying primates and leatherback sea turtles in a jungle on an island off the coast of Equatorial Guinea, in central Africa. Almost two years later, Levinson is preparing for her third field season in Antartica, studying penguins and seals.
Since 2019 Marc McClellan ’81, a resident of Palm Springs, Calif., has served as president of the NU Club of Coachella Valley, a small but active group that has hosted game watch parties and cultural events, receptions for the Northwestern softball team and alumni filmmakers, and joint gatherings with other Northwestern groups to expand the club’s reach and unite Wildcats in the area.
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