Isa Sheikh

Federal Research and Policy Fellow

University of Notre Dame

"As a first-generation college student, I was always raised by my immigrant parents with the promise that education was my primary opportunity to lead a better life. Seeing so many students across the country not given a chance to receive that opportunity is something we must work to change."

Serving as a federal policy and research fellow with the Campaign for College Opportunity in Washington, DC this summer, Isa Sheikh is a rising sophomore and Hesburgh-Yusko Scholar and Kellogg Institute Scholar at the University of Notre Dame. At Notre Dame, he serves as Associate News Editor for The Observer, the tri-campus publication.

During high school in Sacramento, he served for three years on his district’s Student Advisory Council, striving to promote student voice within the district and bring attention to issues that students face.

In his senior year, Isa had the privilege of serving as the student board member for the Sacramento City Unified School District, representing almost 45,000 students on the Board of Education. As a trustee, he passed legislation to address the plights of students during distance learning, advocated for mental health support, and took on Sacramento’s notorious politics. During his tenure, he also took an active role as a region lead in the California Student Board Member Association, where he worked to create a curriculum for other Student Board Members. There, he helped organize an amicus brief in the United States Supreme Court case Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L.