Niv Karthikeyan

Niv Karthikeyan was awarded the 2020 Chang Prize for her proposed project “Intersections: Building Solidarity Through Community Archives,” which intends to construct and share a new online community archive recording how people of color have historically created alliances, coalitions, and communities with other racial minorities in the United States.

This new community archive will focus particularly on instances of non-Black people of color standing in solidarity with Black people to create joy, find support, and fight for freedom and justice. Karthikeyan plans to work with a diverse group of archives and libraries to coalesce existing sources, connect with minority communities to collect new ones, and ultimately share the new archive online.

“I feel not only honored, lucky, and thankful to receive the Chang Prize — I also feel hopeful,” says Karthikeyan. “The opportunity to work on ‘Intersections’ is an opportunity for me to meet the current moment and work on something that matters both to me and to my communities.”

By leveraging lessons she learned at Caltech in Humanities and Social Sciences courses, discussions with the HxS community, and advocacy work in the Equity & Title IX Office, Karthikeyan plans to use this opportunity afforded by the Chang Prize to not only inspire meaningful societal impact, but also expand her career horizons and learn new skills in leadership, advocacy, and community engagement.

“‘Intersections’ is not a project I could feasibly complete in a few weeks or on my weekends, wedged into the spaces between a full-time job. Nor is it one I could fit within the confines of a traditional discipline and work on under a specific institution,” says Karthikeyan. “The Chang Prize is allowing me to push past the boundaries of what I previously thought were possible or practical to pursue a project of ambitious nature and broad societal reach, while simultaneously pursuing my own personal and professional growth.”