Top Academic Prizes Awarded to Seven Yale Seniors

Seven Yale College seniors were awarded prizes for superior academic work in their fields of study during Senior Class Day exercises on May 20.

Richard Brodhead, dean of Yale College, presented the awards during the ceremony on the Old Campus.

The names of the award winners and their prizes follow:

Eyi A. Tuakli-Wosornu of Timothy Dwight College - the James Andrew Haas Prize. This prize is presented each year to the senior “whose breadth of intellectual achievement, strength of character and fundamental humanity shall be adjudged by the faculty to have provided leadership for his or her fellow students, inspiring in them a love of learning and a concern for others.” Tuakli-Wosornu, who also won the Roosevelt L. Thompson Prize, graduates summa cum laude with distinction in American studies. She founded a mentoring group for high school students called Vision of Virtue and founded Yale’s first African dance troupe. She was student director of the Afro-American Cultural Center.

Elizabeth Austin Edmondson of Timothy Dwight College - the Warren Memorial High Scholarship Prize. The prize is awarded each year to the senior majoring in the humanities who ranks the highest in scholarship. Edmondson graduates summa cum laude with distinction in history.

Abha Khanna of Berkeley College - the Arthur Twining Hadley Prize. This prize is given to the graduating senior majoring in the social sciences who ranks the highest in scholarship. Khanna graduates summa cum laude with distinction in psychology.

Samuel Issac Elder of Calhoun College - the Russell Henry Chittenden Prize. The prize is awarded to the senior majoring in the natural sciences or mathematics who ranks the highest in scholarship. Elder graduates summa cum laude with distinction in two majors: electrical engineering and music.

Matthew Todd Jordan of Saybrook College and David Valdez of Davenport College - the Louis Sudler Prize for Excellence in the Arts. This prize is conferred each year upon a member of the senior class for distinguished work in the arts. Jordan, who is majoring in art, is a photographer. Valdez, who is majoring in theater studies, organized a commedia dell’arte troupe at Yale.

Luke Aaron Bronin of Silliman College - the Alpheus Henry Snow Prize. The award is given to a graduating senior who “through the combination of intellectual achievement, character and personality … has done the most for Yale by inspiring in his or her classmates an admiration and love for the best traditions of high scholarship.” Bronin graduates summa cum laude with distinction in philosophy. He organized a program for young people at the Juvenile Detention Center in New Haven and is a singer, instrumentalist and composer. Bronin received a prestigious Rhodes Scholarship for study at Oxford University next year.