Profile
Tommy graduated Columbia College in 2020 with a degree in History and Political Science. Since his first year at Columbia, Tommy has been part of the Columbia University & Slavery project, founded by Professor Eric Foner. Summer before his junior year—with Professor Karl Jacoby as his adviser—Tommy created the Columbia University Historical Justice Initiative (CUHJI), an ongoing research project on the marginalized narratives of the University that provides a self-guided walking tour of the Morningside campus through a website and mobile app. CUHJI aims to eventually cover all campuses of Columbia. Apart from this, Tommy is a member of the Undergraduate History Council, editor-in-chief of the Columbia Journal of History, and Literature Chair of Alpha Delta Phi Society. Off-campus, Tommy has been part of the research team at the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, working on a manuscript project for the Library of America. He also offers free college counseling to high-achieving high school students from low-income neighborhoods through Matriculate, an educational non-profit in Manhattan. Music occupies a big part of Tommy’s life. He is a tenor in Notes and Keys, lead singer of The Horticulture, and a Recording Artist at Juice Media Korea, an indie label based in Seoul. During his free time, Tommy likes to garden and go birding. He takes immense pride in the fact that he can identify almost all birds in New England.