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December 9, 2024
Kaylyn Ahn is having a banner year.
The Northwestern student, named a Truman Scholar in April, also has just received a prestigious 2025 Marshall Scholarship to study public policy at the University of Oxford in England.
As an undergraduate in the School of Education and Social Policy, Ahn has dedicated much of her college career to advocating for survivors of violence. The social policy and legal studies major, set to graduate in June, travels across the country to speak at colleges, town halls and political events as a domestic violence survivor.
Ahn has inspired and testified in support of a bill to close a legal loophole in Illinois sexual assault law, stemming from her own experience in 2021. Since the bill’s passage, police departments across the state have trained officers in proper enforcement, rendering thousands of previously unaddressed sexual assault cases eligible for prosecution. In 2021, she was named one of GLAAD’s 20 Under 20 LGBTQ+ changemakers for helping shape the future of activism.
Established in 1953 as a British gesture of thanks to the people of the United States for assistance they received under the Marshall Plan after World War II, the Marshall Scholarship is designed to train future leaders with a lasting understanding of British society and fortify the relationship between the two countries.
Ahn said she hopes to make her mark in a world increasingly defined by global interconnectedness.
“Cross-regional and cross-cultural collaboration is essential to protect human rights without harming local populations,” she said. “I hope to continue my work on wartime rape as legal counsel in the International Criminal Court’s Office of the Prosecutor.”
Ahn is interested in developing regulation of war under the underutilized principle of subordinate control for sexual violence cases, where accountability of top officials could trickle down to subordinates.
