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Academic Awards and Prizes
The Academic Awards and Prizes Ceremony at which students are recognized for their
academic achievements is a highlight of graduation week. Dean James J. Valentini and
Dean of Academic Affairs Kathryn Yatrakis were on hand to congratulate the students
at the ceremony, held on May 21 at Faculty House. Yatrakis, along with several noted
faculty members, presented the awards. Following are the 2013 recipients.
Special Achievements
To Be Noted
Presented by Dean of Academic Affairs
Kathryn Yatrakis
HARRY J. CARMAN FELLOWSHIP
Yoonjin Ha ’13
CLASS OF 1939 SUMMER
RESEARCH FELLOWSHIP
Priom Ahmed ’14
Margarete Diaz Cuadros ’14
Emma Gilheany ’14
Alexa Semonche ’14
Yifei Zhao ’15
JARVIS AND CONSTANCE DOCTOROW
FELLOWSHIP
Matthew Jacobs ’13
HENRY EVANS TRAVELLING FELLOWSHIP
Gerard Ramm ’13
SOLOMON AND SEYMOUR FISHER CIVIL
LIBERTIES FELLOWSHIP
Celina Aldape ’14
Andrew Gonzalez ’15
ALBERT ASHER GREEN MEMORIAL PRIZE
Joel Dierbeck ’13
EURETTA J. KELLETT FELLOWSHIP
Adam Formica ’13
Gavin McGown ’13
RICHARD LEWIS KOHN TRAVELLING
FELLOWSHIP
Chioma Ngwudo ’15
ARTHUR ROSE TEACHING
ASSISTANTSHIP
Roko Rumora ’14
Norman Toy III ’14
DAVID B. TRUMAN ALUMNI AWARD
Simon Jerome ’13
SALUTATORIAN
Yoshiaki Ko ’13
VALEDICTORIAN
Leah Friedman ’13
Prizes in the
Core Curriculum
Presented by Professor Susan Boynton,
Department of Music
JOSHUA A. FEIGENBAUM PRIZE IN
LITERATURE HUMANITIES
Maxwell Nelson ’15
Miriam Rosen ’15
WALLACE A. GRAY PRIZE IN LITERATURE
HUMANITIES
Jack Klempay ’15
DEAN HAWKES MEMORIAL PRIZE IN THE
HUMANITIES
Sara Lavenhar ’14
Leah Wajnberg ’14
JONATHAN THRONE KOPIT PRIZE IN
LOGIC AND RHETORIC
Fabio DeSousa ’16
JAMES P. SHENTON PRIZE IN
CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION
Reid Jenkins ’14
Prizes in Science
and Mathematics
Presented by Professor Emlyn Hughes,
Department of Physics
RICHARD BERSOHN PRIZE
Julia Oktawiec ’13
COMPUTER SCIENCE DEPARTMENT
AWARD
James Nugent ’13
Madhavan Somanathan ’13
Henri Stern ’13
THOMAS J. KATZ PRIZE
Cyril Bucher ’13
ALFRED MORITZ MICHAELIS PRIZE
Samuel Kohn ’13
PROFESSOR VAN AMRINGE
MATHEMATICAL PRIZE
First Year: Ha-Young Shin ’16
Sophomore: Yifei Zhao ’15
Junior: Sicong Zhang ’14
JOHN DASH VAN BUREN JR. PRIZE IN
MATHEMATICS
Sung Chul Park ’13
BRIDGES AND STURTEVANT PRIZE IN
BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
Georgia Squyres ’13
THE HERBERT DERESIEWICZ SUMMER
RESEARCH FELLOWSHIP
Matthew Tsim ’16
Prizes in the
Social Sciences
Presented by Professor John Huber,
Department of Political Science
CHARLES A. BEARD PRIZE IN POLITICAL
SCIENCE
Shelley Liu ’13
CHARLES A. BEARD PRIZE IN HISTORY
Elisa Quiroz ’13
CARL B. BOYER MEMORIAL PRIZE
Claire Sabel ’13
CHANLER HISTORICAL PRIZE
David Fine ’13
TARAKNATH DAS FOUNDATION
AWARD
Lewis West ’13
ALBERT MARION ELSBERG PRIZE
James Wiseman ’13
LILY PRIZE IN HISTORY
Myrsini Manney-Kalogera ’13
GARRETT MATTINGLY PRIZE
Eric Kutscher ’13
SANFORD S. PARKER PRIZE
Yuxiao Huang ’13
SANFORD S. PARKER SUMMER
RESEARCH PRIZE
Evan Munro ’14
Joonwoo Park ’14
Adam Stansell ’15
Xiaoshi Yang ’14
Samantha Zeller ’14
EDWIN ROBBINS ACADEMIC
RESEARCH AND PUBLIC
SERVICE FELLOWSHIP
Matthew Chou ’14
Emily Dreibelbis ’14
Nicole Dussault ’14
Jake Obeng-Bediako ’14
ROMINE PRIZE
Seminar Paper:
Steven Iglehart ’13
Honors Thesis: Lorna Zhang ’13
PHYLLIS STEVENS SHARP FELLOWSHIP
IN AMERICAN POLITICS
Bianca Capone ’16
Melissa Fich ’15
Jiawen Tang ’15
CAROLINE PHELPS STOKES PRIZE
David Baruch ’13
ALAN J. WILLEN MEMORIAL PRIZE
Grace Rybak ’13
MYRA KRAFT PRIZE FOR EXCEPTIONAL
PRACTICAL EXPERIENCE IN HUMAN
RIGHTS ADVOCACY
Erica Bower ’14
MYRA KRAFT PRIZE FOR SUPERIOR
ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT IN THE
STUDY OF HUMAN RIGHTS
Carrie Montgomery ’13
Prizes in the Humanities
Presented by Professor Courtney
Bender, Department of Religion
SENIOR THESIS PRIZE IN ART HISTORY
AND ARCHAEOLOGY
Isabel Losada ’13
CHARLES PATERNO BARRATT-BROWN
MEMORIAL PRIZE
Michelle Dawson ’13
DINO BIGONGIARI PRIZE
Isabel Losada ’13
BUNNER PRIZE
Peter Conroy ’13
DOUGLAS GARDNER CAVERLY PRIZE
Gavin McGown ’13
EARLE PRIZE IN CLASSICS
Gavin McGown ’13
JAMES GUTMANN PRIZE IN PHILOSOPHY
Sanford Diehl ’13
JOHN VINCENT HICKEY PRIZE
Amanda Gutterman ’13
ADAM LEROY JONES PRIZE IN LOGIC
Eric Shapiro ’13
HELEN AND HOWARD R. MARRARO
PRIZE
Casey Ross ’14
BENJAMIN F. ROMAINE PRIZE FUND
Ridge Montes ’13E
ERNEST STADLER PRIZE FOR EXCELLENCE
IN THE STUDY OF CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY
Aaron Primero ’13
Kyle Radler ’13
DEUTSCHER VEREIN PRIZE IN GERMAN
Samuel Walker ’14
COLUMBIA COLLEGE TODAY
Celebrating at the 2013 Academic Awards
and Prizes Ceremony were (left to right)
Jake Obeng-Bediako ’14, Dean James J.
Valentini and Emily Dreibelbis ’14.
PHOTO: CHRIS BALMER ’07
SUSAN HUNTINGTON VERNON PRIZE
Karina Yu ’13
RICHMOND B. WILLIAMS TRAVELLING
FELLOWSHIP
Lara Andersson ’14
Bernardo Sarmiento-Hinojosa ’14
Jennifer Schmeyer ’14
Kai Schultz ’14
Prizes in the Creative
and Performing Arts
Presented by Professor Susan Boynton,
Department of Music
ACADEMY OF AMERICAN POETS
POETRY PRIZE
Rebecca Liu Xu ’14
KAREN OSNEY BROWNSTEIN WRITING
PRIZE
Yanyi Luo ’13
Nicholas Pierce ’13
Abigail Struhl ’14
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS PRIZE IN
ORATION
Ankeet Ball ’16
ARTHUR E. FORD POETRY PRIZE
Andy Nicole Bowers ’13
PHILOLEXIAN CENTENNIAL
WASHINGTON PRIZE
William Tant ’14 GS
PHILOLEXIAN PRIZE FUND
Yanyi Luo ’13
AUSTIN E. QUIGLEY PRIZE
Lorenzo Landini ’13
Kyle Radler ’13
RICHARD AND BROOKE KAMIN
RAPAPORT SUMMER MUSIC
PERFORMANCE FELLOWSHIP
Joseph Betts ’15
J.D. Nathan Chan ’15
Maria Diez ’15
Anna Dugan ’14
Vicente Hansen ’15
Javier Llaca ’16
Annalise Perricone ’16
Amalia Rinehart ’14
Jennifer Schmeyer ’14
Caroline Sonett ’14
David Su ’14
Madeleine Tucker ’15
LOUIS SUDLER PRIZE IN THE ARTS
Averi Israel ’13
MARIANA GRISWOLD VAN RENSSELAER
PRIZE
Andy Nicole Bowers ’13
COLUMBIA COLLEGE TODAY
Senior Snapshots
The 1,169 members of the Class of 2013 are remarkable for their
achievements and their ambitions. Following are eight of their stories.
Richard Fineman Hopes To Have “The Right Stuff”
It is with some trepidation that Richard Fineman ’13 reveals
his life’s dream, which came into focus during an internship
last summer at the NASA Ames Research Center in
his home state of California. Not too many of his peers, he
suspects, are leaving the College with the intention of becoming
astronauts.
At NASA, Fineman studied the ways
in which the properties of light change
as a wave travels through the interstellar
medium (dust and other matter that fills
the space between stars). The highlight of
his experience came in August, when he
watched via livestream as the rover Curiosity
landed on Mars, marking the beginning
of a two-year mission to determine if the
planet’s Gale Crater could have ever supported
microbial life. “Seeing the complicated
sequence that had to take place for it to
land successfully was amazing,” says Fineman.
“I saw 60-year-old scientists cry; they
were so happy that it worked. There was so
much innovation that went into it.”
As a result of that experience, Fineman, Richard Fineman ’13
who majored in chemical physics with a
PHOTO: CHAR SMULLYAN
concentration in math, plans to pursue
graduate study in aerospace engineering with the goal of fulfilling
a long-held but previously unexpressed ambition to explore
space. “There are so many opportunities right now with the
privatization of space flight. I want to be a part of it,” he says.
Fineman will first take a year off from academia, during
which he plans to compete in several triathlons. In July, through
Engineers Without Borders, he will spend two weeks in rural
Zuzanna Fuchs ’13 looks forward to spending the next
few years of her life “playing with word endings.”
Beginning this fall, Fuchs will pursue a Ph.D. in linguistics
at Harvard, where she will delve into her fascination
with morphology, a subfield that studies the structure of
words and the processes through which words are created.
As a College student, Fuchs, who is fluent in English and Polish
and advanced in Spanish, declared a major in statistics but
decided to add an independent major in linguistics after enjoying
“Introduction to Linguistics.”
Nahualate, Guatemala, where he will help build a pump, well
and filtration system that will provide the community with a
reliable source of drinking water.
Born in Palo Alto and raised in his mother’s native Guatemala
City, Fineman chose the College in part for the opportunity to explore
New York City, his father’s hometown.
He also was drawn by the Core Curriculum,
which he found attractive for the same reasons
that he studies physics. “I feel that I am
more well-rounded knowing the origins of
the way we think,” says Fineman. “One of
the things that appeals to me about physics
is that it goes into the core understanding of
everything and every other science builds on
those ideas; I believe that studying the fundamental
background of different concepts
gives you a greater understanding of the
picture as a whole.”
Fineman joined the Columbia swim team
as a first-year and was president of the Columbia
University Student-Athlete Advisory
Committee as a senior. He cherishes the bond
he shares with his coaches and teammates,
many of whom also belong to his fraternity,
Sigma Nu. “I can’t think of anyone better to
have shared my college experience with,” Fineman says.
Fineman so enjoyed his undergraduate years that he volunteered
with the Columbia College 2013 Senior Fund, a campaign
that encourages seniors to donate to alma mater. “The College
has given me so much that I should give back in any way that I
can,” he says.
Nathalie Alonso ’08
For Zuzanna Fuchs, Wordplay Is Subject for Further Study
“Linguistics is something that people don’t realize is around
us all the time,” she says, citing a favorite example. “‘Haha’ and
‘LOL’ are modal particles. They don’t mean anything; they just
set the tone for whatever is being said. It’s fun to be at a party and
say, ‘Do you know that when you text ‘haha’ or ‘LOL’ you’re using
a modal particle’ It’s a nerdy fun fact, but it’s interesting.”
For her senior thesis, Fuchs examined the gender and grammatical
cases assigned to English nouns adopted into the Polish
lexicon. “Because nouns in English have neither cases nor
genders, I wanted to see what happens to them when they
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