Cheers to the 2023 HSS Student Prizewinners!

The Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences is proud to present its prize recipients for the 2022–2023 academic year.

Katherine Chang (BS '23, Applied & Computational Mathematics and Economics) received the David M. Grether Prize in Social Science, which rewards outstanding performance and creativity by a Caltech undergraduate who completes one of the social science options.

MohammedSaid L. Alhalimi is the recipient of the Eleanor Searle Prize in Law, Politics, and Institutions, awarded to a student whose work in history or the social sciences exemplifies Eleanor Searle's interests in the use of power, government, and law.

The Gordon McClure Memorial Communications Prizes are awarded to undergraduate students for excellence in written and oral communication skills in English, history, and philosophy. The 2023 honorees are:

• Shwetha Kunnam (BS '23, Electrical Engineering) for "The Influence of Négritude and Black Postcolonial Thought on Derek Walcott's The Odyssey: A Play" (English);
• Aramis Mendoza for "Dismantling The Help: The Hollywoodization of The Civil Rights Movement in 1963" (History); and
• Lark Mendoza for "Good Expectations: The Paradox of Expecting Great Things" (Philosophy).

The faculty awarded this year's Hallett Smith Prize, which recognizes the best essay on English literature, to Grace Liu (BS '23, Biology and English), for "The Reproduction of Homosocial Domesticity Aboard the Pequod in Melville's Moby Dick."

Margaret (Maggie) Sui (BS '23, Bioengineering and English (minor)) received the Mary A. Earl McKinney Prize in Poetry for "Dance before the music stops," and Darleine Abellard was honored with the Mary A. Earl McKinney Prize in Prose Fiction for "Michéline."

The Rodman W. Paul History Prize is awarded annually to a junior or senior who has shown unusual interest in and talent for history, and Reggy M. Granovskiy (BS '23, History and Computer Science (minor)) is the 2023 recipient.

Vansh Tibrewal received the Alexander P. and Adelaide F. Hixon Prize for Writing for their essay "The Chinese Room Argument." Established in 2000, the prize is awarded annually to an undergraduate student for the best composition in a first-year humanities course.

And the social science faculty committee selected Zhenlin Kang as the recipient of the 2023 John O. Ledyard Prize for Graduate Research in Social Science for her second-year paper, titled "On the Biology of Rational Inattention: Associating Inferred Information Costs with Cognitive Workload."

To learn more about each HSS prize and see a list of recent winners, click here.

Updated August 1, 2023