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Each year, the Stanford University Innovation Fellow (UIF) program empowers students around the world to become agents of change in higher education. The Fellows are a global community leading a movement to ensure that all students gain the attitudes, skills, and knowledge required to navigate a complex world. These student leaders, from schools across the continents, create opportunities to help their peers build the creative confidence, agency, and entrepreneurial mindset needed to address global challenges and build a better future. The Gabelli School of Business has participated in the UIF program since 2018, and the four 2023 Fellows recently named—Nishka Singh, Emma Foley, Luigi Di Sanzo, and Rakshitha Rajasekaran—join a prestigious group of UIF alumni.

Supervised by Bozena Mierzejewska, Ph.D., a Gabelli School associate professor and area chair of Communications and Media Management, who is a UIF faculty champion and mentor and an Innovation Fellow herself, along with Axel Roepnack, Ph.D., associate clinical professor of Communications and Media Management, the students are provided with the tools to make a real difference in their school and in the community at large. “Through our partnership with Stanford University, we are offering Gabelli School students valuable opportunities to learn strategies that inform an innovative approach, and develop tactical skills that will help identify and solve problems,” said Professor Mierzejewska.

“We came up with four ideas—a mentoring program, a roadmap that lays out what a student should be doing each year, a digital insights gallery, and an industry open house featuring recent alumni,” said Nishka Singh, a sophomore global business and marketing major. She and Emma Foley, who also is a sophomore pursuing the same major, are passionate about mental health awareness and were involved in nonprofit and community work prior to enrolling in the Gabelli School.

Luigi Di Sanzo, a finance major from Italy, was student body president of his high school and wanted to continue to help shape student life at the Gabelli School. “I liked working on a team, fighting for change, and finding ways to improve the school and the college experience,” he said. Rakshitha Rajasekaran, a global business and finance major, was, like Singh, drawn to the program by her interest in design thinking as a concept.

The Fellows worked closely with Professors Mierzejewska and Roepnack to develop their idea to alleviate Gabelli School first year students’ anxiety. Professor Roepnack commented, “These highly motivated students have the opportunity to have an impact on the school around them while taking part in a long-term initiative that will prepare them for their business careers.”

Prior to starting on the prototype, the team conducted extensive research and interviews. They brought their findings to a stakeholder meeting on November 1, 2023, and are now working on a website that will contain relevant and helpful content to address this issue. The Fellows also were invited to attend the UIF 2023 Cohort Meetup in the Netherlands in April 2024, where they discussed and exchanged ideas with Innovation Fellows from other schools.