Ela is an Ethiopian-American student from the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, currently residing in Manhattan, New York. She started her Princeton journey in the Mathematics department, but found a deeper calling in the Department of African American Studies, where she now concentrates on the Race and Public Policy track. She complements her studies in the department with minors in History, English, and the Practice of Diplomacy.

Ela chose African American Studies for its intellectual rigor and its faculty’s unwavering commitment to truth telling and critical inquiry. In its classrooms, she found not only scholarship, but a framework for understanding power, resistance, and the enduring legacies of race in shaping public life. Ela constantly testifies to how the department has challenged her to become a more incisive reader, a more intentional speaker, and a more expansive thinker!

In her studies, she is drawn to Black third spaces--the informal, often overlooked sites where Black life unfolds on its own terms. As a filmmaker, painter, and actor, her art and academic work aims to explore how art formed in Black third spaces becomes a tool for both documenting lived experience and building new ways of seeing and being in the world.
Looking ahead, Ela is pursuing international law with a goal of centering the experiences of Black and immigrant communities in global conversations on cultural rights and migration. She aims to advocate for legal frameworks and policies that safeguard their identities, cultural rights, and creative expressions worldwide.

On campus, Ela can be found reading in the Forbes backyard, acting in another play, or working as part of the technical team at the Lewis Center for the Arts.