Students awarded prizes for academic achievement, discuss Princeton experience

As part of Opening Exercises, the University awarded prizes to seven students for their exceptional academic accomplishments at Princeton thus far.

Awards were given to recognize students for academic achievement in their first year, sophomore year, junior year, or all preceding college work. Two students from each class received academic achievement prizes, and Noah Dorn ’27 won the overall achievement award, named the Class of 1939 Princeton Scholar Award.

The University has awarded prizes for achievement in a particular academic year for over a century, and began awarding the Class of 1939 Princeton Scholar Award in 1964. The sophomore and junior awards are both named after George B. Wood, a physician and professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania in the mid-19th century. The award recognizing first-year achievement is named the Freshman First Honor Prize.

Multiple students who received a prize told The Daily Princetonian that they received an email notification of their awards near the end of July.

Dorn is an economics major with minors in classics, Spanish, and European studies. He founded and currently serves as the president of the Princeton Opera Society.

“I am speechless, humbled, and immensely grateful to everyone who has helped me along the way,” Dorn wrote in an email to the ‘Prince.’

Dorn is researching opera funding models in his senior thesis to find ways to make opera more sustainable and accessible.

“As I started looking into the industry a bit more, I realized there are a lot of financial and structural issues that prevent people from being able to access it and for the art form to be sustainable,” Dorn wrote.

“It was a surreal moment,” Haruka Nabeshima ’27, one recipient of the George B. Wood Legacy Junior Prize, told the ‘Prince.’ “I was in the last week of my internship, and it was the day before my final presentation, so I had been super stressed. Then I went to the bathroom to check my phone, and I just had the email.”

Nabeshima, a psychology major pursuing minors in cognitive science and finance, is researching people’s perceptions of intrapersonal inconsistency and belief in her senior thesis.

“We’re all here because we’re very lucky to have this opportunity to use resources and learn about the world,” Nabeshima said. “We should feel endowed to use that not just in the service of humanity, but to find purpose beyond success.”

Divija Durga ’27 was a recipient of the junior year prize alongside Nabeshima. 

“First of all, a huge thank you to all of my professors, TAs, and mentors who tolerated me being in their office hours for hours on end, and all my friends who also tolerated me crying about a lot of different things,” Durga, an electrical and computer engineering major pursuing minors in robotics and cognitive science, told the ‘Prince.’

“Jokes aside, I don’t think any of this is possible without the huge bucket loads of support,” she added.

This past summer, Durga interned at Nvidia, and she hopes to attend graduate school and continue her research with robotics.

“It definitely made me very happy. I think it gave me a little bit of confidence in what I was doing. Also, more confidence to take more risks,” Isaac Badipe ’28, one recipient of the George B. Wood Legacy Sophomore Prize, told the ‘Prince.’

Badipe is a computer science major pursuing minors in mathematics and linguistics. In the future, he is interested in exploring computer security and AI.

“I just want to do as best as I can,” Jake Tessnow ’28, who received the sophomore year award alongside Badipe, said. He plans to follow a pre-med path, pursuing a major in molecular biology and a minor in music performance. He described music as a way to de-stress and take a break from school. Tessnow also does research for the te Velthuis Lab, which studies how RNA viruses replicate, amplify, and mutate.

Antonia Comaniciu ’29 and Eli Gold ’29 received the Freshman First Honor Prize.

“I’m very grateful to all the people that considered me and gave me recommendations,” Gold said. “But in terms of these awards existing, I think it’s kind of strange because we’re all amazing people, and just selecting two people is kind of impossible.”

During his first year, Gold worked to restart the Princeton University Percussion Players Ensemble, which was largely inactive at the time.

“When I was at Princeton, I spent hours upon hours trying to get this thing started,” Gold said. “If anything, I’d say even though I’m a math major, I do much more music than I do math on a daily basis. But I like it that way, because I really love music.”

Gold is a prospective mathematics major, with minors in music performance and Chinese language.

Comaniciu did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Five of the seven award recipients have previously received the Shapiro Prize for Academic Excellence. The Shapiro Prize is awarded annually to 3 percent of underclass students, including first-years and sophomores, for academic achievement. Badipe and Tessnow have both received the award once, and Durga, Nabeshima, and Dorn have received it twice.

“Princeton gives us the rare privilege of choosing how we get to make an impact on the world, and it is up to us to choose wisely,” Dorn wrote. “Always give your best, don’t fear failure, find something you care deeply about, and make the most of this place. Have no regrets when you walk out of FitzRandolph Gate!”

Mia Chen is a News contributor for the ‘Prince’ and a member of the Class of 2030.

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