Khiyali Pillalamarri

Class of 2025
Majors in Theater Studies and Mathematics

Greetings! My name is Khiyali and I am the co-president of Duke Players, which does a mainstage play and a New Works festival every semester, a Silly Shakespeare in the Gardens day in spring, and more. We are student-run, and would love to have you join us. I'm also part of Hoof 'n' Horn, which is the student-run group for musicals, and am frequently found in professor-run shows as well. Recently, the theater department was kind enough to fund my studies at Shakespeare & Company's actor training program through the Forlines Family grant. You can also find me hanging out at the CSGD, talking about Good Omens and Our Flag Means Death, and/or having existential crises in semipublic environments. I did math research for two summers with DOmath/Math+, during which I came up with a new family of minimal surfaces mod 3, drew link diagrams, and hung out in the math shelves of Perkins. During my first semester, I was part of the Medieval and Renaissance Focus program, during which I nearly fainted due to sudden exposure to 17th-century books. Looking forward to hearing from you!

Favorite Class: I can't pick just one! But since I've already talked about math, theater, and MedRen, I'll shout out American Indian Nations Today with Prof. Courtney Lewis. All the Indigenous civics that high school should've taught you, but probably didn't. (Note - photo credit - Artivista Karlin)