Dean's Scholars

Each spring, at the Dean's Forum, the Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences recognizes nine College students for their outstanding academic achievements. Students are nominated by faculty from among those with a grade point average of 3.8 or higher.

Congratulations to this year's recipients

Ayan Bhattacharjee, C’23, G’23

Ayan is a Biophysics and Chemistry major and a Roy and Diana Vagelos Science Challenge Award recipient as well as a submatriculant in the M.S. in Chemistry program. He did research in synthetic organic chemistry in the lab of Professor Gary Molander, working on innovative synthetic methods for the preparation of drug-like materials. He then moved to computational chemistry, using high-level calculations to develop a tool to model proteins and ribosomes at D. E. Shaw Research, and has continued this line of research with Professor of Engineering Greg Bowman, employing computational methods using molecular dynamics (modeling the motions of large biomolecules) to design new proteins and to understand how these structures inform their function.

Elena Isasi Theus, C’23, G’23

Elena is a student in the Roy and Diana Vagelos Scholars Program in Molecular Life Sciences. She is majoring in Biochemistry, Biophysics, Physics and Mathematics. Her research has evolved from wet-lab work on molecular biology of neurodegenerative disease to areas of mathematical biology and the recent developments in single cell biology. Elena’s research portfolio has unusual breadth and depth. Research supervisor Junhyong Kim, Patricia M. Williams Term Professor of Biology, noted that Elena “is the most relentlessly intellectual student I have met in my 30+ years of teaching at Penn and Yale.” Elena is a Roy and Diana Vagelos Science Challenge Award recipient and is currently working on a master’s thesis on topological data analysis.

Sarah Kane, C’23

Already a skilled experimental astrophysicist, Sarah and a student colleague devised a new method for detecting transiting exoplanets using machine learning in the lab of Bhuvnesh Jain, Walter H. and Leonore C. Annenberg Professor in the Natural Sciences. Majoring in Physics, she conducted research this past summer in galactic astronomy through a National Science Foundation Research Experiences for Undergraduates program at the University of Texas-Austin. As a person whose visual impairment poses challenges for observing the stars, Sarah works at the intersection of disability advocacy and science to create innovative strategies promoting inclusivity in science, particularly for people with disabilities. She has been awarded a Marshall Scholarship that she will use to pursue a Ph.D. in Galactic Astronomy at the University of Cambridge.

Emma Keeler, C’23, G’23

Emma is majoring in Biology and is also a submatriculant in the Biology master’s program. She has upended the prevailing idea of established researchers in the field that redondoviruses infect human cells and proved instead that redondoviruses infect protozoa that live in the mouth. She is interested in studying a family of viruses that can avoid the host immune system and cause a variety of human illnesses ranging from hepatitis to encephalitis, so that more effective treatments can be found. Emma is editor of the Penn Bioethics Journal and founder and president of the Penn Infectious Disease Club (PIDC). She has been awarded a Goldwater Scholarship that she will use to pursue a Ph.D. in microbiology or virology.

Amy Krimm, C’23

As a Visual Studies major, Amy aims to expand and advance their knowledge in the emerging field of neuroaesthetics. She has forged this path by combining her academic interests with a commitment to community service. Amy finds meaning in art and craft, and seeks to broaden understanding of the biological basis for how we conceptualize art and beauty and its impact on human behavior. She also has a minor in American Sign Language and Deaf Culture. Under the Marshall Scholarship, Amy will pursue an M.Sc. in Psychology of the Arts, Neuroaesthetics, and Creativity at Goldsmiths University of London, and an M.A. in Fine Art at Lancaster University.

Alessandra Pintado-Urbanc, C’23

Alessandra is a Linguistics major who has a passion for connecting theoretical perspectives with the psychological reality of language, in both acquisition and adult psycholinguistics. She joined Linguistics Professor Anna Papafragou’s Language and Cognition Lab, supported by a highly competitive MindCORE Summer Fellowship Program, in the summer of 2022, and worked on numerous projects on how people process ongoing dynamic events in their environment and map such events onto language. This joint lab work was accepted for presentation at the 2023 meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, with Alessandra’s contribution earning her a co-author role on the talk.

Vita Raskeviciute, C’23

With majors in Russian and East European Studies and International Relations, Vita is interested in the geopolitics and post-Communist transition in Eastern Europe. As an Undergraduate Fellow at the Wolf Humanities Center, she has built on her work on Lithuanian history and memory. Her honors thesis is titled Mythmaking on the Crossroads: Rethinking National Narratives in Communist and Post-Communist Lithuania. Vita has worked as a research assistant with Julia Verkholantsev, Associate Professor of Russian and East European Studies, exploring the origin myths in medieval chronicles. Her Undergraduate Research Conference paper, “Fragility of Lithuania’s Nationalism and Obfuscation of its Holocaust Memory,” won best essay at the 2022 Slavic Bazaar.

Sylvie Tuder, C’23

Sylvie is majoring in Sociology and has long had an interest in interrogating the links between the criminal legal system and population health. The COVID-19 pandemic only intensified their desire to study the topic. Sylvie worked as a research assistant on several projects focused on COVID-19 impacts on mortality patterns and has co-authored a paper titled “Trends in Non-Hispanic Black Mortality,” recently presented at the 2022 meetings of the Population Association of America and being finalized for publication. Sylvie has been a Learning Assistant for multiple undergraduate courses, such as Sociological Theory, Health of Populations, and Introduction to Sociological Research. Their senior thesis is investigating the impact of jail crowding on COVID-19 mortality between March 2020 and March 2022.

Wes Matthews, C’23

Majoring in Anthropology, Wes is concentrating in Cultural and Linguistic Anthropology and is interested in music, music performance, and religious considerations of the human condition. His research study addresses the experience of a group of young men he has known since childhood, describing their experience of rap music and music production and untangling the philosophical basis for their responses to social trauma, hopelessness, and violence. As a Wolf Humanities Center Fellow, Wes will receive funding to pursue the travel part of this study. He has received numerous honors: the 2022 W.E.B. Du Bois Prize in Africana Studies for his research on nihilism in Detroit hip hop, the 2020 College Alumni Society Prize for his poetry, and the 2020 Lillian and Benjamin Levy Award for his music criticism.

Kennedy Crowder, C’22 Sarah Payne, C’22 Nicholas Thomas-Lewis, C’22
Arnav Lal, C’23 Mira Potter-Schwartz, C’22 Adam Zheleznyak, C’22, G’22
Michele Caroline Meline, C’22, G’22 Jonathan Szeto, C’22  
Zoe Belardo, C’21 Carson Eckhard, C’21 Danielle Miles-Langaigne, C’21
Jean Chapiro, C’21 Regina Fairbanks, C’21 Varun Sudunagunta, C’21
Annah Chollett, C’21 Adam Konkol, C’21, G’21 Abigail Timmel, C’20, G’20

 

Fahad Ahmed, C’20 Melisande McLaughlin, C’20 Christina Steele, C’20
Omkar Katta, C’20 Leo Sarbanes, C’20 Piotr Wojcik, C’20
Srinivas Mandyam, C’20, G’20 Adithya Sriram, C’20, EAS’20 Qingyang (Freya) Zhou, C’20

 

Angus (Gus) Beane, C’19, G’19 Marcello Chang, C’19, GEng’19 Stephen Damianos, C’19
Eric Eisner, C’19 Nicholas Joyner, C’19 Mark Macerato, C’19, G’19
Deborah Rabinovich, C’19 Alexandra Siwulec, C’19, W’19 Derek Willie, C’19
Madeline (Maddie) Andrews, C’18 Alexis Ciambotti, C’18 Christopher D’Urso, C’18, GLPS’18
Adnan Zikri Jaafar, C’18, W’18 Claudia Kassner, C’18 Ivana Kohut, C’18
Tiberu Mihaila, C’19 Helena Von Nagy, C’18 Jimin Yoon, C’18
Isabella Auchus, C'17 Kevin Chen, C’18, G’18 Jordan Doman, C’17, G’17
Jaron Ma, C’17, EAS’17 Darby Marx, C’17 Sheridan Small, C’18
C’17, G’17 Kaitlyn Ugoretz, C’17, G’17 Sarah Wilson, C’17
Hannah Bucklin, C'16 Lucia Calthorpe, C'16 Neil Cholli, C'16
Laura Christians, C'16 Jennifer Hebert, C'16 Zachery Iton, C'17
Nicholas McGreivy, C'17 Kate Samuelson, C'17 Zeno Washburne, C'16
Deqa Farah, C'15 Xingting Gong, C'15 Vanessa Koh, C'16
Kimberly Kolor, C'15 Allison Siegenfeld, C'16, G'16 Elana Stern, C'15
Stefan Torborg, C'16 Emmett Wynn, C'15 Aisling Zhao, C'15
Michael Boreen, C'15, G'15 Christina Economy, C'14 Rachel Eisenberg, C'15
Vinicius Ferreira, C'15 Ben Freedman, C'14 Aleksandra (Saasha) Igdalova, C'14
Dahlia Klein, C'15 Ting Cho Lau, C'14 Rosaline Zhang, C'14
Priyanka Anand, C'13, W'13 Christopher Burcheri, C'14 Colin Fadzen, C'13, G'13
Sarah Foster, C'14, G'14 Kenneth Ginsburg, C'14, W'14 Vinayak Dumar, C'13, G'13
Marguerite Leone, C'13 James Sadler, C'13 Kalwen Zhu, C'14
Robert J. Berg, C'13 David E. Dunning, C'12, G'12 Anna C. Dusenbery, C'12
Matthew S. Klein, C'13 Shirley W. Leung, C'13, GLPS'12 Michael J. Masciandaro, C'12
Michael L. Morse, C'13 Ashley M. Reinchardt, C'12, G'12 Nicholas J. Rosculet, C'13
Ioana Aron, C'12, G'12 Ilana Cohen, C'11, G'11 Lauren Kapsalakis, C'11, G'11
Kathryn Llewellyn, C'12 Eileen Moison, C'12 Benjamin Moskowitz, C'12, G'12
Daniel Shiff, C'11 Jessica Wetstone, C'11 Doyle Yuan, C'11, G'11
Sarah Basham, C’10 Matthew Berck, C’10, G’10 Ava Childers, C’10
Paul Martin, C’12 Tariro Mupombwa, C’10 Luv Patel, C’10, G’10
Arber Tasimi, C’11 Linh Truong, C’11, G’11 Valeria Tsygankova, C’11
Phillip Benedetti, C'10, G'10 Thomas Dreisbach, C'09 Farhaan Hafeez, C'09, G'09
Kendall Hoechst, C'09 Sumeet Khetarpal, C'10 Benjamin Laitman, C'10, G'11
Alexander Lessie, C'09 Stefan Sapo, C'10, G'10 Hayley Walker, C'09
Jennifer Cohen Jane Kim Cynthia Padera
Elizabeth Raposa Naveed Rashid Alex Shaw
Serena Stein Lauren Wozniak Zhe Xu
Heather Alpino Kelly Asao Jessica Dweck
Brandon Egren Richard Lawrence Nuala McCullagh
Robert Medina Paul Scherer Benjamin Stinson
Sujit Sankar Datta Alex Dubilet Sara Gorman
Elizabeth Gurney Robert Henderson Steven Hershman
Tara Kaufman Andrea Seligman Jenny Suen
Heather Alpino Kelly Asao Jessica Dweck
Brandon Egren Richard Lawrence Nuala McCullagh
Robert Medina Paul Scherer Benjamin Stinson
Lauren Barr Jonathan Bronson Simon Brooke
Sarah Chesney Jeffrey Cohen Sonali Mishra
Michael Tseng Lauren Zeitels Nicholas Zwang
Laura Chang Dominic DiPlantino Peera Jaru-Ampornan
Eric Knibbs Jason Lewis Erica Miao
Katie Turner Avshalom Rubin James Shaw
Laura Geller Catherine LeGraw Vijay Sankaran
Rodrigo Guerra Afia Ofori-Mensa Daniel Stahl
Sanjay Kasturi Jean-Francois Mondon Anita Yu
AIlya Elson Jed Gross Daniel Sherman
Julie Brown Michelle Robbins Jacob Stahl
Susannah Engstrom David Scales Kathy Vernovsky
William Cook Joshua Gruber Anne Mani
Victor Essen Kristina Marie Herbert Tereza Slepickova
Gregory Grason Eric Lomazoff Amanda Tiffany
    Vikram Udani