Join us in celebrating with the CDIS students honored at Chancellor’s Undergraduate Awards Ceremony on April 28, 2026. They were selected for their academic excellence, public service and undergraduate research at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Congratulations to all awardees!
Hilldale Undergraduate/Faculty Research Fellowships
About this award
Supported by the Provost’s Office and the Hilldale Fund, this fellowship provides undergraduate students with $4,000 to pursue an independent research project under the mentorship of UW–Madison faculty or staff.
Three Hilldale Fellowships are sponsored by the McPherson Eye Research Institute.
One Hilldale Fellowship is sponsored by the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, with support from the J & H Wang Family Fund.
Jonathan Buscher
Major: Biochemistry, Statistics
Project: Investigating the Effects of the Escherichia Coli RNA Polymerase Omega Subunit on Post-Initiation Transcriptional Processes
Faculty Advisor: Robert Landick
Adam Chu
Major: Data Science, Molecular & Cell Biology
Project: H4K16ac and H4K20me1 Gate Transcription to Regulate Muscle Stem Cell Activation
Faculty Advisor: Roméo Blanc
Jiarui Gong
Major: Mathematics, Statistics
Project: Synonymous Codon Usage as a Lever for Mutation Robustness: A Structure-Aware Genomic Analysis
Faculty Advisor: Aaron Ragsdale
Samanyu Jadhav
Major: Biochemistry, Data Science
Project: Epigenetic and Fragmentomic Enrichment of Tumor-Derived cfDNA for Improved Detection of Copy Number Aberrations in Low-Signal Melanoma
Faculty Advisor: Muhammed Murtaza
Keagan Kautzer
Major: Computer Sciences, Data Science, Mathematics
Project: A Digital Twin of the Human Voice for Clinical Assessment
Faculty Advisor: Jack Jiang
Sophia Komosa
Major: Data Science, Psychology
Project: Does Correcting Students Limited Understanding of the Equal Sign Improve Algebraic Outcomes?
Faculty Advisor: Martha Alibali
Diya Kothari
Major: Data Science, Economics
Project: Automated Gene Function Extraction from Vibrio fischeri Literature Using Natural Language Processing
Faculty Advisor: Mark Mandel
Zhiyuan Li
Major: Computer Sciences, Data Science
Project: Toward Context-Adaptive Prediction and Subtyping of Postpartum Hemorrhage
Faculty Advisor: Benjamin Lengerich
Jeffrey Liu
Major: Computer Sciences, Mechanical Engineering
Project: CAP-Grasp: Current-Adaptive Planning for Multi-Finger Robotic Grasping
Faculty Advisor: Bilge Mutlu
Qiushi Lu
Major: Computer Sciences, Data Science, Mathematics
Project: Riemannian Gradient Descent for Eigenvector Computation
Faculty Advisor: Jelena Diakonikolas
Kashika Mahajan
Major: Computer Sciences, Mathematics
Project: Vector-Augmented 3D Images for Deep Learning-Based Segmentation of Microglia Cells
Faculty Advisor: Liz Haynes
Jiangrong Qin
Major: Mathematics, Molecular & Cell Biology, Statistics
Project: A Transfer Learning Framework for De Novo Sequencing of Endogenous Peptides
Faculty Advisor: Lingjun Li
Shreshth Rach
Major: Data Science, Economics
Project: Planetary Eccentricities Across Galactic Time: Disentangling Stellar Age from Galactic Environment
Faculty Advisor: Elena D’Onghia
Anna Schellin
Major: Psychology, Statistics
Project: Do Words Slow Us Down? Investigating Fraction Processing Across Formats
Faculty Advisor: Percival Matthews
Arnav Joshi Shanbhag
Major: Mathematics, Statistics
Project: Advancing Optimization Algorithm Complexity Theory
Faculty Advisor: Vivak Patel
Tommy Sun
Major: Computer Sciences, Data Science, Mathematics
Project: Semantic-Aware Retrieval and Agent-Grounded In-Context Learning for Molecular Analysis via LLMs
Faculty Advisor: Xiao Luo
Yaqing (Amelia) Tang
Major: Communication Sciences and Disorders, Data Science, Psychology
Project: How Inner Speech Shapes Phonological Activation
Faculty Advisor: Gary Lupyan
Erika Wan
Major: Psychology, Statistics
Project: The Role of Grammatical Agency in Children’s Moral Judgments
Faculty Advisor: Pearl Han Li
Jieying (Iris) Xu
Major: Computer Sciences, Data Science
Project: Multi-Class Ovarian Ultrasound Segmentation with Retrieval-Augmented Explainability
Faculty Advisor: Irene Ong
Leo Xu
Major: Computer Sciences, Mathematics
Project: Learning to Assist: Generative Behavior-Cloned Policies for Implicit Human-Robot Collaboration
Faculty Advisor: Mike Hagenow
Jake Yun
Major: Computer Engineering, Computer Sciences
Project: MedRankAI: A Benchmark for Evaluation of Vision Foundation Models in Medical Imaging
Faculty Advisor: Alan McMillan
Sophomore Research Fellowships
About this award
Generous grants from the Brittingham Wisconsin Trust, the Knapp Bequest, and the Division for Teaching and Learning provide undergraduates with $3,000 to pursue a research project under the mentorship of UW–Madison faculty or staff.
Sohan Alleshwaram
Major: Computer Sciences, Mathematics
Project: Forward-in-Time Simulations of the Colorado Potato Beetle to Predict Gene Flow
Faculty Advisor: Sean Schoville
Helaina Grossmeyer
Major: Astronomy – Physics, Computer Sciences
Project: Identifying Extremely Young Post-Starburst Galaxies with SDSS-IV/eBOSS Spectroscopy
Faculty Advisor: Christy Tremonti
Samuel Kuemmel
Major: Statistics
Project: Mapping Green: A Geospatial Analysis of Neighborhood-Level Lawn Ownership Demographics
Faculty Advisor: Holly Gibbs
Ruda Lee
Major: Chemistry, Data Science
Project: Synthesis of High-Csp3 DNA-Encoded Libraries Using Thianthrenium On-DNA Chemistry
Faculty Advisor: Jefferey Martell
Aiyana Manglona
Major: English, Information Science
Project: One Size Does Not Fit All: Challenging the Use of Overarching Guidelines for Data Visualizations
Faculty Advisor: Karen Schloss
Cody McKenna
Major: Computer Sciences, Mathematics
Project: Using AI to Simulate Novel Physics from Text Descriptions and Mathematical Specifications
Faculty Advisor: Misha Khodak
Tirth Mihirbhai Patel
Major: Data Science, Economics
Project: Detecting Shifts Between Populist and Responsible Governance in Three Signature Episodes
Faculty Advisor: Matteo Camboni
Agastya Rathee
Major: Computer Sciences, Data Science
Project: Hardware-Agnostic Optimization and Massive Parallelization of the SPECTRAX Kinetic Plasma Solver
Faculty Advisor: Rogerio Jorge
Lyn Sepersky
Major: History, Information Science, Political Science
Project: Analyzing the Impact of Interpersonal Rural-Urban Relationships on Measured Levels of Rural-Urban Polarization
Faculty Advisor: Matthew Pietryka
Theodore Herfurth and Teddy Kubly Awards for Comprehensive Undergraduate Excellence
About this award
A generous gift from the Herfurth and Kubly families provides for these longstanding awards which honor senior students exemplifying superior academic achievement, community service and leadership in extracurricular activities, financial self-support, and effective communication skills.
Evelyn Browning
Majors: Data Science, Genetics & Genomics
National awards
The Truman Scholarship provides $30,000 for graduate study to outstanding juniors who plan a career in public service.
Miranda Garcia-Dove
Information Science, Political Science
Truman Scholar
A junior from Madison, Wisconsin, Miranda is majoring in political science and information science, and completing a certificate in public policy and Honors in the Liberal Arts. She is the co‑founder and co‑leader of BridgeMadison, a student organization dedicated to reducing political polarization through thoughtful, constructive dialogue. The goal is not to change minds, but rather encourage students to engage with differing beliefs and perspectives. Under her leadership, the group has earned national recognition and university support. Additionally, Miranda has been an important student voice in the university’s new initiative, The Wisconsin Exchange: Pluralism in Practice. After graduate study, Miranda plans to pursue a career in public service, working first with the International Organization for Migration and later with the U.S. State Department to use data‑driven insights to create safer, legal migration pathways in Latin America.
The Marshall Scholarship provides tuition, and stipend for completion of a graduate degree at any university in the United Kingdom.
Evelyn Browning
Data Science, Genetics & Genomics
Marshall Scholar
A senior, Evelyn is among the 43 Marshall Scholars selected from 1,023 candidates in 2026. Originally from The Woodlands, Texas, Evelyn spent her childhood in Hampshire, England but returned to the U.S. at age twelve. She will graduate May, 2026 with a Bachelor of Science in Genetics & Genomics and Data Science with Honors. Her senior honors thesis investigates the epigenetic regulation of familial epilepsy, supported by a Hilldale Research Fellowship. An active part of the campus community, Evelyn serves as the academic chair for the UW-Madison Undergraduate Genetics Association, and a student representative on the committees of the Wisconsin Agricultural and Life Sciences Alumni Association. She enjoys sharing her love of martial arts as a volunteer at a local YMCA’s Okinawan Karate class and can be found most Friday’s participating in on-campus swing dances. Evelyn will pursue a PhD in Biological Science at the University of Cambridge’s Wellcome Sanger Institute, a world-leading genomics research institute. Her ambition is to uncover the underlying genetic risk factors for rare neurodevelopmental disorders and harness them for better diagnoses and treatments. Evelyn hopes to improve the lives of those like Tori, her older sister, who has Prader-Willi Syndrome and whose perseverance in the face of challenges has been a lifelong inspiration.