After more than a decade in the making, the Milken Center for Advancing the American Dream (MCAAD) opened its doors to the public on September 20, 2025. MCAAD, a part of the Milken Institute, is a cultural institution dedicated to sharing stories and illuminating pathways to opportunity for all.
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This summer, I had the chance to travel to Ghana, a place that felt both familiar and new. With West African parents, I grew up hearing stories and watching movies about the markets and cultures within various communities.
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In early July of 2025, my grandmother, mother, and I traveled to visit my mother’s friend in Barga, a small medieval town tucked into the hilly folds of Tuscany and an hour outside of Pisa. After over an hour of jolting twists and turns up a mountain, my family and I trekked further up sleek stone slabs, passing through narrow streets and towering sunset color buildings to make it to our home for the next week.
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This summer, four talented Milken Scholars were invited to intern with the Prostate Cancer Foundation (PCF), a nonprofit dedicated to advancing prostate cancer research. The group included Charlry Kamara, MS ‘24, Jun Woo Shin, MS ‘23, Camilla Martinez, MS ‘22, and Katelyn Sulett, MS ‘20. Their activities included analyzing funding applications and developing patient care materials, as they learned how the work of nonprofits impacts medicine, broadening their perspectives on what their future careers in healthcare could entail.
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When I first proposed studying malaria in Eritrea, my goal was to better understand how a country at the northernmost limit of malaria transmission in East Africa could sustain and build upon its progress toward elimination.
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The street of Buenos Aires are littered with a multimodal canopy of pedestrian, cyclist, bus, and vehicular infrastructure. On the widest street in the city, the 18 lane “Avenida 9 de Julio” street, a center-running bus rapid transit system occupies two lanes in each direction. Although the city maintains a car-dominated landscape, one can feasibly connect neighborhood to neighborhood, suburb to city center, and throughout the entire city without owning or renting a vehicle. Such green urban infrastructure investments support environmental sustainability, improved public health, and inclusive mobility throughout the Buenos Aires metro area.
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Nepal is a country rich in cultural and medicinal traditions, marked by deep intersectionality across ways of life, religious practices, and geographical settings. Renowned for its spiritual and cultural depth, Nepal offers a compelling backdrop to examine the intersection of traditional and modern healthcare systems. Among its most enduring medical traditions is Ayurveda, a holistic healing system with roots in the Indian subcontinent that has been deeply embedded in Nepalese healthcare for centuries.
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Since the Milken Scholars Program’s inception in 1989, Mike and Lori Milken have supported nearly 600 young people, who throughout the years, have risen to the top of their fields toward a flourishing future. What started with 16 Scholars in Harlem, has now grown to encompass a community that represents over 80 countries and more than 200 high schools from Los Angeles County, New York City and Washington, D.C. As of 2014, the Milken Scholars Program became a joint initiative of the Milken Family Foundation and the Milken Institute.
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From March 14 to April 1st, I embarked on a long journey to Korea and China to understand the complex relationship between the two countries from a social and linguistic perspective. Through this trip, I learned an extraordinary amount not only about the historical relationships of these two countries, but how their divergence has spawned some of the most iconic cultural products in the modern day.
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Towards the end of May, I traveled to Marrakech, and, from there, to the edge of the Zagora Desert on a guided tour offered to tourists from all over the world as a cultural experience -- a curated crossing through kasbahs, ancient caravan routes, and the diverse terrains of southern Morocco. I took my camera with me, but not with the intention of documenting for the sake of documentation. I was more driven by my curiosities about what would emerge visually on this well traveled corridor. What types of spaces would be framed? What experiences would be emphasized as distinctly Moroccan? And, importantly, how would I, as a participant in this tour, be positioned within it all? These were questions I wanted to explore through this one of a kind experience.
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In my final spring semester at Columbia University, I took a course titled “Archival Photography” where we explored how photographs taken in eras preceding ours contributed to the development and remembrance of historical events and understanding. The course itself raised many questions about what is preserved, what is omitted, and why. In particular, I was interested in how the archives can frame and reframe memory.
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2025 class members embody “Lifelong Leaders for a Better World”
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