Program
Assistants
Our Program Assistants are responsible for organizing salons and other programming. Selected from a large pool of applicants, they bring a diversity of perspectives, interests, and disciplinary backgrounds to this work. Above all, they share a commitment to deepening a culture of open inquiry at CMC and throughout The Claremont Colleges.
Dhriti Jagadish ’27
Open Academy Program Assistant
Dhriti is a junior at Claremont McKenna College studying Government. Between disagreeing at Open Academy dinner tables and debating political theory at the Hudson Institute's summer fellowship, she enjoys candid, intellectually diverse settings. Elsewhere on campus, she is working to revise the consortium's demonstration policy and has researched the consortium’s activism history as a Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression Campus Scholar. She is excited to spend another year preserving CMC's distinct culture of free expression as an Open Academy Program Assistant.
Zaynamin Murtaza ’26
Salvatori Center Open Academy Program Assistant
Zayn is a senior at Claremont McKenna College dual majoring in Philosophy, Politics, Economics (PPE) and Government. He is excited to contribute to and develop campus discourse on topics related to constitutionalism and legal theory, utilizing his experience as a researcher and Salvatori Center research assistant. He hopes to impress on the student body the relevance of these topics to contemporary political issues.
Shiv Parihar ’28
Open Academy Program Assistant
Shiv is a sophomore at Claremont McKenna College studying Government. He believes that the foundation of a republic is pluralism across ideological and cultural lines to build a broadly based democracy. He has worked on a number of political campaigns and contributed to several publications, including The American Spectator, Providence, and The Salt Lake Tribune. Shiv is excited to work to do his part at the Open Academy to build a community able to host diversity of thought.
Violet Ramanathan ’28
Gould Center Open Academy Program Assistant
Violet is a junior at Claremont McKenna College dual majoring in Philosophy, Politics, & Economics (PPE) and Government. She is an editor at the CMC Forum, President of the CMC Philosophy Club, and a 2025-26 Athenaeum Fellow. In her free time, she enjoys writing, snowboarding, hiking, and spending time with friends. Through the Open Academy, Violet hopes to foster constructive dialogue on difficult and pressing issues of our time. She is particularly excited to focus on the humanities and the role that art and creativity play in the evolving modern world.
Join Us
We seek strategic, programmatic, and philanthropic partners to advance the promise and potential of The Open Academy. Your partnership and support make this possible. Together, we can overcome what divides us and solve the world’s most challenging problems.