Heather McKay
Program Associate
Carnegie Scholars Program

Heather McKay is a program associate in the Carnegie Scholars Program, which supports individual scholars working on issues of concern to the Corporation, and special assistant to the president for special projects. The Scholars Program focuses on projects related to Islam and Muslim societies and communities both in the U.S. and abroad. In addition, she works on special opportunities grantmaking in cooperation with the Corporation’s Project on Islam.

McKay is currently a Fellow of the U.S.-Japan Leadership Program, which is designed to forge a network of communication and understanding among the next generation of leaders in each country. Her background includes designing an English-language program for K-12 children in rural Taiwan, working on environmental education and nonprofit advocacy in the Czech Republic, and serving as a press officer for the United Nations Association of the USA in New York. She previously served as an associate of the Arnold P. Gold Foundation for Humanism in Medicine.

McKay earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from Columbia University with a concentration in Russian and European History. She also studied linguistics and political history at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. Currently, she is undertaking graduate studies in epidemiology at the John P. Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University. As part of this program, she participates in the school’s Global Health Forum, Columbia University Partnership for International Development, and is involved with a New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene partnership assisting in outbreak investigations.
Her volunteer activities include work with the International Voluntary Service in Latvia and serving as a volunteer in the emergency department at St. Vincent’s Hospital, New York.