Meet Our Scholars
Yagna Madala
New York University
Business Administration
She/Her/Hers
BIPOC
At four years old, Yagna and her family left India behind in search of a better life and planted roots in Arizona where she grew to understand the pivotal role media played in her conservative community becoming more open to people of color and LGBTQ issues. With a dream of making media more intersectional, she pursued film in undergrad where she became the president of the Film Association, vice president of the Student Ambassadors Club, and senator of the Undergraduate Student Government. In each of these roles, she made it a point to advocate for queer students and people of color by ensuring their organizations had access to resources from the university at large. Yagna implemented an appropriations process with approval from the Dean’s Office to ensure these practices continued. In her current role for Warner Bro. Discovery, Yagna continues to advocate for queer and people of color stories by giving them the financial backing and creative support to make it to air. She has been a part of greenlighting Discovery’s first majority people of color cast. Through her MBA journey, she hopes to make a larger impact in pushing media towards inclusion in the workplace and intersectionality on screen.