Yale College 2026: Meet some of the graduates

Here, Yale News spotlights a few of the exceptional members of the Yale College Class of 2026, a group whose accomplishments and contributions have strengthened the Yale campus and the world beyond.

Selected from nominations submitted by residential college heads and deans, these outstanding students include authors and engineers, global health advocates and biomedical scientists, singer-songwriters and computer scientists.

One came to Yale so that he could work alongside the quantum pioneers he’d admired since he was a kid – and established his own place at the frontier of this critical field. Another channeled her experience navigating borders, displacement, and inequality into community building. One student arrived on campus with a Broadway pedigree but a focus on studying aerospace engineering. Another built community by creating whimsical zines and comics.

When they weren’t in the classroom, they were mentoring young people in New Haven, joining dance groups, volunteering at the Yale Farm, or performing with jazz ensembles.

We hope this small sampling offers a sense of the creativity, compassion, and resilience of the undergraduate Class of 2026.

Audrey Aslani-Far

Before she ever arrived on the Yale campus as a first-year student, Audrey Aslani-Far already knew she’d focus her studies on two distinct fields: the Russian language and molecular, cellular, and developmental biology.

While some people thought this was an odd combination, she didn’t see it that way. “In both genetics and in languages, the world is composed of a set of letters,” she says. “Studying these subjects just gives you a new way to read it.”

Indeed, she chose to attend Yale because it was a place where she could dive fully into each of these worlds. And over the past four years, she has done just that — as well as discovering other interests and communities that have widened her intellectual range.

Zakira Bakhshi

Zakira Bakhshi’s early life often involved crossing borders. Born to Afghan parents, she moved between Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan — and each country shaped her understanding of displacement, belonging, and home.

“Those experiences came with their own political, social, and economic realities,” she says. “They made me very aware of the most overlooked aspects of the world and how access to stability and opportunity is so uneven.”

At Yale, Bakhshi has channeled these experiences to help open doors for those who lack the opportunities that she has had.

Evan Bowman

Evan Bowman came to Yale with a clear path already mapped out: to be pre-med student, with a focus on public health.

Her commitment to that specialty began in ninth grade, when she did a public health internship at a university near her home in Los Angeles. That led her to another internship as a peer health educator and then a position on the youth advisory council at the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health.

“I just really enjoyed the work of connecting with people about their health and providing them with resources,” she says.

That appreciation only deepened at Yale, particularly after what Bowman describes as a “transformative” study-abroad experience that enabled her to study local health systems in India, South Africa, and Argentina.

Britney Gramajo Barrios

From a young age, Britney Gramajo Barrios understood the importance of community. As the daughter of immigrant parents, she saw how hard they worked to raise four children while also supporting their family members back in Guatemala. Her parents were also always the people their neighbors would turn to in times of need.

“All of their experiences and sacrifices have motivated my commitment to giving back to my communities in the same way that they do,” she says. “They always taught me to use whatever skills I might have to listen to people and just do good in this world.”

Gramajo Barrios found many ways to give back to her community at Yale — in her residential college, Jonathan Edwards; in her extracurricular work; and in her double major of ethics, politics, and economics and Latin American studies.

Jonah Halperin

Jonah Halperin started in his local theater by the time he was four, and at five took part in a showcase for young actors in New York City. He went on to play roles in the original cast of “Kinky Boots” and “Doctor Zhivago,” and in the Broadway production of “Matilda.”

But by the time he was applying to college, he knew he wanted to work in aerospace.

At Yale, he had the chance to pursue his dream of aerospace engineering while remaining connected to his roots in the performing arts. “I was able to grow across all fronts,” he said. “I could learn engineering, but also history, acting, film, theater.”

Nolyn Mjema

For Nolyn Mjema, service is at the heart of everything he does. It’s something his parents instilled in him at a young age.

“They have influenced me a lot in terms of being very service-oriented,” he says, “and always having a reason of why I’m doing anything that I’m doing.”

At Yale, he found his “why” inside and outside the classroom. A rising start in the study of biomedical sciences, he juggled a rigorous academic workload with community service work through soup kitchens, mobile health clinics, and mentoring middle school students in greater New Haven.

Shaun Pexton

Sean Pexton — Shaun Pexton

Photo by Daniel Havlat

When he was a kid, Shaun Pexton would pore through popular science magazines to keep up on the latest advances in astrophysics or biology. But by the time he was 12 or 13, one particular topic really started to fire his imagination: quantum mechanics.

At the time, he wasn’t quite sure how it might be relevant to his life. But there was something exciting about this scientific field which evoked mysteries that were almost impossible to grasp. “I would always try to find the page that had the word ‘quantum,’” he says. “The magazine would have these articles with almost magical diagrams that showed these cool processes. To me it really was magic because it was so distant from what I saw every day.”

At Yale, Pexton was able to work alongside some of those pioneering researchers he’d read about in the magazines of his youth — and to find his own place on the frontiers of quantum science.

Zaida Rio Polanco

A singer-songwriter, Zaida Rio Polanco had already put out a solo album of indie folk-inflected pop-soul songs in high school, but stepped away from music-making as a first-year student at Yale and shifted her artistic talents to an a capella group and a hip-hop dance troupe.

But when Yale’s student-run record label, 1701, invited artists to audition during her sophomore year, Polanco picked up her guitar again. After an audition the label signed her, and her musical talents have reached new heights since.

“I went from doing no gigging to gigging around campus all the time,” she says. “They assigned me a student producer, a student manager, a student graphic designer. We were all learning together what it means to operate in this microcosm of what a real record label would be.”

Isabel Rancu

When Isabel Rancu learned she was a finalist for the prestigious Marshall Scholarship last year, she was amazed at the ways that the Yale community rallied around her.

First-year students that she had been mentoring as a First Year Counselor at Pauli Murray College began mentoring her. The head of college and dean offered to help her prepare for a critical final interview. A professor emailed a Yale alum who was a Marshall scholar a decade earlier – and the alum emailed back in 10 minutes. “It was a sensation I’d never experienced,” Rancu says. “It was like I had an army behind me… Yale is a place where everyone’s gut instinct is just to help, and you really do get out what you put in.”

Indeed Rancu found multiple “pillar” communities on campus and beyond who helped shape her Yale journey.

Sidney Richardson

For every math and science accomplishment Sidney Richardson has racked up during her four years at Yale, she’s had an equally memorable experience outside of her comfort zone.

Co-authoring a scientific study on human interactions with robots? Major achievement. But so was learning to make quilts for Yale New Haven Hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit.

Indeed, Richardson’s college years took her to both a National Society of Black Engineers conference and an audition for a hip-hop dance group. “That was a wakeup call,” she joked about the dance audition. “They firmly rejected me, but I did end up taking salsa lessons in New York, which was amazing.”

Matthew Verich

As a first-year student, Matthew Verich sampled a variety of courses as he searched for his academic niche. All the threads came together during his sophomore year; that’s when he discovered a deep connection to science — and he found his people.

His “people” have included spirited jazz musicians, an inspirational colleague in one of Yale’s science labs, and other classmates exploring their religious faith. And his academic path has been marked by a growing commitment to medicine. At Yale, he has explored the intricacies of the brain in Yale labs, found purpose in psychiatry, and built community through music, mentorship, and faith.

“Science helps me understand the brain and body, while faith helps me think about meaning, purpose, and the parts of human life that are harder to measure,” he says.

Asa Xiao

The threads connecting Asa Xiao’s many passions — mathematics, filmmaking, physics, theater, psychiatry, fine art — are things that can’t be seen.

Xiao, a mathematics and physics major, is drawn to the powerful, invisible forces that prove a theorem, move an audience to tears, or give shape to the universe. They want to learn how such influences work and understand them better.

“Life is long and it’s important to explore,” said Xiao. “Yale is a place where I could explore.”

Miles Zaud

If Miles Zaud isn’t reporting and writing a story in the manner of Hunter S. Thompson or Tom Wolfe, odds aren’t half bad he’s writing or playing music in a style dear to you. Jazz, folk, gospel, classical, musical theater — they’re all in his repertoire.

Maybe he’s seated at a concert grand, maybe he’s stomping his foot, fiddle and bow in motion. Maybe he’s scoring cues for a film.

Whatever the endeavor, Zaud is absorbed, a young man immersed in the timelessness of a creative flow state.

Kai Zhang

Kai Zhang loves making art. He enjoys the sense of invention that accompanies transforming an idea into something tangible and unique.

But what really gives him joy is sharing the product of his imagination with others.

“To me, the magic of art is in the acts of sharing and receiving,” said Zhang, a Yale senior and resident of Davenport College. “I love seeing my art in the hands of others. It’s like little pieces of me that I give to other people.”