Emory University junior Isabella Chow, who has tackled projects on campus and beyond to develop insights into reforming the criminal legal system, has been named a 2026 Harry S. Truman Scholar.
Chow is among only 55 college students to earn the highly competitive national honor this year, and is Emory’s first recipient since 2020. She is majoring in philosophy, politics and law and minoring in dance and movement studies.
The Harry S. Truman Foundation grants the award to exceptional students in their junior year who have demonstrated outstanding leadership, academic excellence and a commitment to a life of public service. Chow plans to apply the funding toward a joint master’s of public policy and juris doctorate degree. Her goal is to become a public defender and reform policy advisor.
“I am so impressed with Isabella’s substantive and well-informed critiques of our criminal justice system,” says Joseph Crespino, interim dean of Emory College of Arts and Sciences. “For decades the Truman Scholarship has been a vehicle for advancing future political and civic leaders. I look forward to Isabella taking her place among them — and I can’t wait to see all that she will accomplish.”
Chow first found purpose in community work as a high school student in Brooklyn, New York. Her strengths, then and now, lie in finding and then addressing gaps in programs helping others, such as the teen mental health rally project that earned her standing as an Eagle Scout.
She started her Emory experience at Oxford College, eager for the smaller campus and immediate leadership opportunities after being in a high school class of 900 students.
Even as she got involved with the Student Government Association, she thought her path would be a business degree and a career in nonprofit management.
She changed her trajectory after taking courses on civil liberties and criminal justice with professor Salmon Shomade and completing an Oxford Service Leader internship with Alcovy Court Appointed Special Advocates (a nonprofit that trains volunteers to advocate for children in foster care).
“I knew the legal system was unfair and adversarial,” says Chow. “The more I learned, the more clear it became that the system is built so that the injustices people face stay hidden. It made me angry and itching to do something.”
At Alcovy CASA, that something became addressing the need for more volunteers in Walton County. Working with the agency, Chow built a storytelling and partnership campaign that resulted in a 10% increase in Walton advocates and finding a close friend in executive director Lindsay Dycus.
“We trusted her more as a staff worker than as an intern,” Dycus says, noting that Chow also helped research and write grants and was permitted to follow up with would-be volunteers on her own.
“Isabella wants to better understand everything around her, and she is going to help fix things by coming from a very compassionate and functional place,” adds Dycus, who still hosts Chow for dinner multiple times a semester.
Chow also met regularly with Shomade, peppering the former corporate lawyer with questions such as what legislators consider when making laws in the criminal justice context and the impact those laws have on individuals, their families and communities.
Shomade realized that Chow’s interest in the criminal system and curiosity about public policy spoke to a need to engage more deeply with the system. He wrote a reference letter on her behalf for an internship with the Bronx District Attorney’s office last summer.
“She is a fighter for people who fear they can’t change things,” Shomade says. “It takes a lot of guts to be that young and recognize that if everyone in her community is not fine, she will not be fine either.”
In fact, Chow chose to pursue the Bronx internship in part due to District Attorney Darcel D. Clark’s motto, “pursuing justice with integrity.” She spent most of the summer helping with administrative tasks needed for trial preparation.
But she also sought out opportunities in the office’s Strategic Innovations Division. There, staffers implement proactive, data-driven and community-focused strategies to reduce crime.
The division also is home to the D.A.’s Community Justice Bureau, where specialized prosecutors coordinate with defense attorneys and the courts on alternatives to incarceration, such as programs for mental health or substance abuse treatment.
Chow helped review multiple cases with an assistant district attorney within the bureau, cementing her interest in finding practical reform measures.
“She took the initiative, showing commitment to the Bronx community, and they were very impressed with her work,” says supervising assistant district attorney Jillian Castrellon. “The most impressive thing about her is that she knew what she wanted to do and went for it, and she was successful at it.”
Chow has since interned with the Georgia Public Defenders Council and the Capital Habeas Unit of the Federal Defenders Program.
This summer, she will intern with the Maryland Public Defenders office as one of the Pathways Center’s Law Policy and Government Scholars in Washington, D.C. While there, she will also conduct research and craft storytelling campaigns with More than Our Crimes, a nonprofit that aims to give voice to people incarcerated in federal prison. She also plans to connect with other Truman Scholars working in the capital on similar or overlapping interests.
She views such deeper engagement with prosecutors, defense attorneys, defendants and community members as necessary research. It’s work she believes will allow her to advocate successfully for reform.
She hopes to work with Partners for Justice, which provides collaborative support to people facing criminal charges, before pursuing her graduate study.
“I have had the privilege to not have direct interaction with the criminal legal system, and that is what motivates me to pursue client-facing work,” Chow says. “My experience and future work will be informed by the people who do interact with the system.”
“I want to be part of the effort that amplifies those voices, redefining the purpose of our criminal legal system from punishing to improving our collective well-being,” she adds.
Learn more about scholarships
Students interested in learning more about the Truman Scholarship and other prestigious awards should contact Megan Friddle in Emory’s National Scholarship and Fellowship Program in the Emory College Pathways Center.