Pia Sarah Haykel awarded the 2025 Michel David-Weill Scholarship

Pia Sarah Haykel will receive her Bachelor of Arts degree in History from Princeton University in May 2025, pursuing a certificate in European Cultural Studies and a minor in Persian. Pia’s research work has taken her across Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and the United States. Her thesis examines material and visual cultures, specifically the trade of textiles, diamonds, and spices between Europeans, Safavids, and Mughals.

On campus at Princeton, Pia is a student researcher for the Special Collection of Rare Books and Manuscripts Near Eastern Studies wing and serves as an AccessAbility Fellow. She interned at the Museum of Modern Art, the University of Copenhagen, and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Pia was also named a 2024-2025 PIIRS Undergraduate Student Fellow for which she produced a video project about Indo-Persianate motifs within Indian crafts.

Pia’s recommenders only further exemplify her dedication and achievements: “Pia has all the makings of an ideal world citizen, one who directs her talents and her learning towards building a more just global society and one who is not able to simply look away from tragedies that occur before her eyes.”

Pia will begin her Master’s in History at Sciences Po’s Ecole de la Recherche this fall thanks to the support of the Sciences Po American Foundation and the Michel David-Weill Scholarship. She plans to explore exchanges between France and the Indo-Persian world by investigating objects of encounters such as texts and archives, textiles, and art.

Pia possesses a core Sciences Po tenet, the ability to “learn how to learn”, and the Michel David-Weill Scholarship panel looks forward to her continued growth as a Sciences Po student: an open-minded and enlightened citizen capable of changing the world and transforming society.