Recipients of Hoopes Prizes Announced

The prestigious Hoopes prize for outstanding research or scholarly work was awarded last week to 83 undergraduates for their theses or projects.

The prize—funded by the estate of Thomas T. Hoopes ’19 and administered by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Prize Office—comes with a rigorous application process, requiring nomination from a faculty member and review by a prize committee.

At the end of the process, winners receive an award, which totalled $3,500 for students and $1,000 for the winners’ faculty advisers last year. Hoopes Prize recipients Evan B. Kornbluh ’09 and Matthew M. Spellberg ’09 said that they were not told how much the prizes would pay this year.

After spending the past summer in Mexico City digging through government archives, Kornbluh wrote his thesis about the government’s reaction to Chinese political factions in Mexico during 1911—the year of the Chinese Revolution.

Spellberg, a joint English and Romance Languages and Literatures concentrator, submitted his senior thesis entitled “Art and Dream in Marcel Proust,” which explores the theme of dreaming in Proust’s novels, a topic he said has fascinated him for years.

“While reading Proust, a lot of the things I was thinking about crystallized into something that became more concrete, and I realized I wanted to write about these topics using Proust as a template,” he said.

Hoopes Prize winner Megan L. Srinivas ’09, a Human Evolutionary Biology concentrator, spent this past summer in Peru and wrote her winning thesis on the evolution of malaria’s ability to resist treatment.

But though she conducted her research in Peru, Srinivas said she doesn’t plan on spending her award money in the Americas. Rather, she’ll be backpacking with friends in a different part of the world—Europe.

—Staff writer Naveen N. Srivatsa can be reached at srivatsa@fas.harvard.edu.

See full list of winners by House below:

Adams House: Anna Katherine Barnett-Hart, Hattie J. Bluestone, Joanna W. Bronowicka, Julie A. Duncan, Audrey Kim, Matthew M. Spellberg, Alice Speri, Olga Zhulina

Cabot House: James S. Miller, Yunxue Xu

Currier House: Charles C. Young

Dunster House: Evan B. Kornbluh, Sara A. Manning, Brandon C. Weissbourd

Dudley Co-op: Paul G. Nauert

Eliot House: Pierpaolo Barbieri, Kirsten E. Kester, Roy Kimmey, Ana I. Mendy, John J. Snidow

Kirkland House: Meera E. Atreya, Lewis E.M. Bollard, Wilmarie Cidre Serrano, James E. Goldschmidt, Scott D. Kominers, Firth M. McEachern, Nan N. Ransohoff, Daniel R. Rasmussen, P. Justin Rossi, Dmitry Taubinsky, Adam B. Wheeler, Leah S. Zamore

Leverett House: William K. Chen, Marina Fisher, Matthew J. Hall, Alana I. Mendelsohn, Noah L. Nathan, Yuliya S. Nikolova, Michael L. Schachter, Adam R. Singerman, David J. Tischfield, Sara K. Trowbridge, Jarret A. Zafran

Lowell House: Megan K. Bartlett, Jane K. Cheng, Jung Eun Hwang, Jean A. Junior, Stella Lee, Xianlin Li, Lev Menand, Christopher R. Miller, Charles J. Redlick, Ava R. Tramer

Mather House: Tiffanie K. Hsu, Shi Lin Loh, Megan L. Srinivas

Pforzheimer House: Roger R. Fu, Kevin M. Jonke, Teresa A. Knickman, Paul Jeffrey R. Leopando, Karen R. Lovely, Jennifer J. Malin, Wangui M. Muigai, Boyce R. Owens, Julia L. Renaud, John M. Sheffield II

Quincy House: Killian B. Clarke, Kimberly D. Hagan, Bradley A. Hinshelwood, Russell P. Kelley IV, June-Ho Kim, Grace C. Laubacher, Albert S. Li, Benjamin B. Schoefer, Shrenik N. Shah, Nils C. Wernerfelt, Jimmy C. Yang

Winthrop House: David J. Andersson, Justin S. Becker, Ying-Qiu-Qi Lei, Norman Y. Yao,

Other: Jeremiah Hendren, Ana Huang