Undergraduate Prizes and Awards 2023-2024
Congratulations to this year’s prize and award recipients!
Captain Jonathan Fay Prize
The annual award for the top theses of Harvard College’s graduating class.
The recipient of the prize with a concentration in mathematics is Dhruv Goel ‘24 for his submission entitled “The Joys of the Atiyah-Singer Index Theorem”.
Sophia Freund Prize
In accordance with the terms of the Sanford H. E. Freund Bequest to the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, a prize was established in 1964 to be awarded annually to the highest ranking undergraduate as determined at the final degree meeting of the Faculty. The award will be made to that student graduating summa cum laude who has the highest grade point average.
Recipients of the prize with a concentration in mathematics are Wittmann Goh ’24, Dhruv Goel ’24, and Dora Woodruff ’24.
Thomas Temple Hoopes Prize
From the estate of Thomas T. Hoopes, Class of 1919, Harvard received a fund from which to grant annual awards to undergraduates on the basis of outstanding scholarly work or research.
Recipients of the prize with a concentration in mathematics are:
Jonathan Buchanan for his submission entitled “The Atiyah-Bott-Shapiro Orientation in Bordism and Field Theory”—supervised and nominated by Dr. Stephen McKean.
Lauren Chen for her submission entitled “The Graphex Model for Multilayer Networks”—supervised and nominated by Professor Subhabrata Sen.
Dhruv Goel for his submission entitled “The Joys of the Atiyah-Singer Index Theorem”—supervised and nominated by Professor Joe Harris.
Arav Karighattam for his submission entitled “Explicit Modular Parametrizations and Heegner Point Constructions”—supervised and nominated by Professor Barry Mazur.
Edis Memis for his submission entitled “Beyond Empirical Averages: Berry-Esseen Bounds in Transport Distances”—supervised and nominated by Professor Morgane Austern.
Ivan Specht for his submission entitled “Reconstructing Viral Epidemics: A Random Tree Approach”— supervised and nominated by Professor Michael Mitzenmacher and Dr. Pardis Sabeti.
David B. Mumford Undergraduate Mathematics Prize
From the income of the gift in 1997 of Peter L. Falb, A.B. 1957, A.M. 1957, Ph.D. 1961 to establish the David B. Mumford Undergraduate Mathematics Prize, to be given annually to the most promising senior concentrator in mathematics, provided such concentrator is outstanding.
Shared by Dhruv Goel ‘24, Kaiying Hou ‘24, and Dora Woodruff ‘24.
Robert Fletcher Rogers Prize
From the income of the gift in 1921 of the late Robert Fletcher Rogers, A.B. 1886, there have been established a first prize and second prize to be awarded annually to the College students who present the best talks before the Mathematics Table during an academic year. In making the awards, emphasis is laid primarily on the excellence of the oral presentation. It is not essential that the material presented is original, but mastery of the subject and adaptation of the presentation is regarded as important. The prizes are awarded by the Department of Mathematics on the recommendation of the Mathematics Table.
First place is shared by Ivan Specht ‘24 and Daniel Sheremeta ‘25.
Honorable mention to Dora Woodruff ‘24.
Friends Prize
The prize is shared by Dhruv Goel ‘24 and Dora Woodruff ‘24.
Herb Alexander Prize
Each year, this award recognizes a deserving student who will use the money for research and travel to math conferences.
The prize goes to AnaMaria Perez ‘24.