Former Council Members
Talika Basantani
Talika Basantani ‘22 is a senior pursuing a mathematics major and a theatre arts minor in hopes of making a career in education. She is a member of the Women in Science and Engineering Honors Program. She has been a teaching assistant for classes in the Asian American Studies and Mathematics departments from 2019-2020. From 2020 - 2021, she was an Academic Peer Intern at Academic and Transfer Advising Services, where she shadowed advisors, worked as ateaching assistant for a transfer seminar course, and performed outreach activities to assist current and transitioning students in improving their academic and social experiences at Stony Brook.
Talika also recently became a member of the Zeta Iota Chapter of Alpha Sigma Alpha, where she is currently serving as the treasurer’s assistant. In addition, she is the Social Media Officer at the National Panhellenic Conference at Stony Brook. Talika hopes to continue her advising experience as a member of COSA and apply her leadership skills toward making a positive impact on the Stony Brook community.
Jade Kelly
Jade Kelly (’22) is a senior from Mastic, NY and is the President / Liaison of the Council. Jade transferred from Suffolk County Community College in Spring of 2019 and is currently pursuing a BS in Business Management with a specialization in Operations Management. During her first semester at Stony Brook she saw a need for a new organization and developed the Association of Transfer Students in April 2019. In serving as founding Vice President she’s helped the organization achieve over 130 members during their first year, becoming an Organization of Excellence. As the organization's President she is working on new initiatives to further boost integration at Stonybrook such as the creation of the Incoming Transfer Assistants (iTA) program with the Department of Campus Residences for new transfer students during their first semester at Stony Brook. Jade is also on the Transfer Student Advisory Board (TAB) to assist the Director of Academic and Transfer Advising Services in bringing new intivaties for transfer students. For her efforts in Spring 2020 she received an Undergraduate Recognition Leadership Award in Leadership and featured in The Stony Brook Welcome Letter. She is also an Peer Assistant Leader (previously known as Orientation Team Leader) and Office Assistant for the department of New Student Programs,helping all students to their transition to Stony Brook.
Jade also serves the local community as a Public Safety Dispatcher for the Town of Brookhaven. In her four years of service she has had over four thousand calls ranging from civilian requests to coordinating responses with the federal government, local municipalities and other Town departments. Jade is excited to work with COSA to bring solutions to the issues facing the Stony Brook community.
Anthony Machuca
Anthony Machuca ‘22 is a senior at Stony Brook as a triple major, working towards degrees in Health Science, Psychology and Sociology with minors in Health, Medicine, & Society and Health & Wellness. Anthony is a member of the Dean's Student Advisory Council, where he acts as a liaison communicating the needs of students within the College of Arts and Sciences.
He is a member of both the Educational Opportunity Program (EOP) and the Collegiate Science and Technology Program (CSTEP). He has previously served as a Peer Mentor and Student Success Coach, and now holds the position of Advocacy Chair for the Educational Opportunity Program. Here he works to spread awareness of the program and advocates for its funding, while providing safe spaces on campus. He also holds a position on the School of Health Professions Diversity & Inclusion Committee, where he works to increase representation in the field of the allied sciences. Moreover, he has worked with fellow COSA member Julia Salino to pilot a subdivision of the Health Careers Academic Readiness and Excellence (HCARE) program known as Healthcare Opportunities through Mentorship and Empowerment. Their program focuses on expanding accessibility and enriching diversity within the allied healthcare field.
In addition to this campus involvement, Anthony works at the Staller Center for the Arts, and Stony Brook Medicines Rehabilitation Research and Movement Performance Laboratory (RRAMP Lab) where he helps conduct research on spinal nerves and movement. He serves as a Doula on Stony Brook Medicines Labor and Delivery Department, while also volunteering on the palliative care unit and regional prenatal care units. Closer to home he volunteers at Northwell’s Northshore University Hospital, as a Hospital Elder Life Program (HELP) and Mealtime Mate volunteer. He joined COSA to continue his work in advocacy and student representation. He hopes to utilize his position to amplify the voices of students across campus, while working to create a more inclusive and truly unified Stony Brook community.
Hannah Philipose
Hannah Philipose ‘22 is a junior majoring in Biology with a concentration in Neuroscience
and a minor in Health, Medicine, and Society. She serves as an Honors College big
sibling for incoming freshmen and facilitates Green Dot training events as a peer
educator with the Center for Prevention and Outreach (CPO). Hannah also volunteers
at the Pilgrim Psychiatric Center and as a trained crisis counselor with the Crisis
Text Line. She is a member of the Seeliger and Saint-Geniez labs in the Stony Brook
Pharmacological Sciences department and at the Schepens Eye Research Institute, where
she studies applications of initial protein-ligand interactions in cancer biology
and ocular regenerative medicine. As a cabinet member for the Stony Brook Young Investigators
Review (SBYIR), the undergraduate-led STEM journal on campus, she helped launch an
annual writing competition aiming to engage Long Island high school students in current
scientific controversies and to promote scientific literacy amid the pandemic. She
is also a patient experience intern at the Stony Brook emergency department and in
the past has volunteered as an EMT and been a TA for undergraduate biology courses.
She joined COSA to
foster a more welcoming campus community and ensure that students’ diverse opinions
are heard.
Sabriya Saif
Sabriya Saif ‘22 is a senior as a double major in Psychology and Political Science with a minor in Women’s and Gender Studies. Since her sophomore year, she was involved with the Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance (FMLA) as the organization’s secretary. Now, she is currently the President of the organization to promote gender equality on campus as well as provide the tools for students to advocate for intersectional feminism and fight for justice. During her junior year, she was a Violence, Intervention, Prevention and Relationship Education (VIPRE) intern at the Center for Prevention and Outreach. She hosted events and created workshops to spread awareness about the key to healthy relationships, the emotional and physical impacts of sexual violence, and how to be an effective bystander. As a senior, she is a Commuter Assistant helping new commuters adjust to a college setting as well as help them find their own community at Stony Brook. Throughout these positions, she heard many students’ stories and wanted to help in the most effective way possible. She joined COSA for this reason: to connect with students so that their voices can be heard, and to create a safe space so that everyone can rely on Stony Brook’s resources for their mental health. She wants to create a better and more inclusive environment for everyone.
Ignacia Salfate del Río
Ignacia Salfate del Río ‘23 is a sophomore at Stony Brook University double majoring in Biology with a concentration in Neuroscience, and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies. Since her first semester at the institution she has been working as an Office Assistant at the International Admissions Office, where not only helps the Admissions Advisors, but also has worked as a Student Chatter and an International Student Delegate, where she has been able to connect with many prospective international students that were accepted or are applying to the university. Since her second year at this institution she has also served the Office Assistant position at the Roth Area Office, the Science and Society UGC (SSO) Forever Fellow title, and started working as a Resident Assistant (RA) at Hendrix College. On this last one she has been able to experiment closely with the experiences that many students and residents are going through this pandemic, being mental health one of the most concerning. That’s why she joined COSA, to help the Stony Brook community by expressing concerns that surround the student and staff body regarding mental health, food insecurity and physical health.
Sophia Zhukovsky
Sophia is a fourth-year student from Stony Brook, NY, in the Stony Brook University Honors College studying Political Science and Environmental Humanities with a minor in International Studies. Here at SBU, she has made an effort to involve herself fully with the offerings of the university. She is the founder of the Stony Brook Food Recovery Network, an on-campus initiative that is part of a national organization that aims to reduce food waste on university campuses and tackle hunger in our community by recovering unserved food and delivering it to local organizations such as shelters. Outside of school, she is currently serving as an Under-Secretary-General of the National High School Model United Nations, the world’s largest Model UN conference for secondary school students, where she works alongside a team of undergraduate students to plan an event attended by thousands of delegates from around the world.
Through her academics, she has combined two unique majors to study the extensive interactions between environmental, social, and political issues and the communities that are actively fighting to address them. She has worked twice as a Research Assistant in the Political Science Department, performing literature reviews on the subjects of Muslim Women and Equal Access to Health Care in Africa and Affective Polarization in the United States. She hopes to apply the knowledge gained from her studies to a career in international relations where she can more directly address these problems on a global scale. She has studied abroad in Florence, Italy, and St. Petersburg, Russia, and looks forward to plenty of meaningful travel in her future. She has been recognized for her efforts as a recipient of the Dean’s List and the Outstanding Academic Achievement Award. As a returning member of COSA, she is eager to make the most of this opportunity to enact meaningful change in the campus community and improve the university experience for herself and her peers.