Awards

The Sigma Xi Book Award

Granted by the Sigma Xi Society and is given to the senior or seniors who have demonstrated outstanding research ability and clear writing in the senior thesis.

  • Samantha Chen: “Modeling Movement in Ancient Pompeii: An Urban Network Analysis of Pedestrian Flow and Economic Change," advised by Margaret Holen
  • Carson Irons: “Evaluating Domain-Specific Topic Reduction for Sparse Vector Document Retrieval," advised by Boris Hanin
  • Shlok Patel: “Optimizing Ambulance Dispatch and Relocation," advised by Bartolomeo Stellato
  • Clay Reiferson: “A VaR Cry from Tradition: Rethinking the Joint Estimation of Risk Measures Using LSTM Neural Networks,” advised by Alex Dytso
  • Matthew Willer: “Bayesian Adaptive Clinical Trials: A Soft Actor-Critic Reinforcement Learning Approach,” advised by Daniel Rigobon

S. S. Wilks Memorial Prize

Awarded to a graduating senior(s) who has written the best thesis on “Statistics and its applications to solving societal problems."

  • Stephen Jiang: “Inferences on Parameters in Severely Heterogeneous Degree Corrected Stochastic Block Models," advised by Jianqing Fan
  • Edward O'Keefe: “Arbitrage-Free and Simulation-Based Election Forecasting," advised by Ludovic Tangpi 

The Procter and Gamble Prize

Awarded to a graduating senior(s) who has written the best thesis in operations research or finance.

  • Elaine Huang - “A Sustainable Extension of the Fama-French Factor Models: The Role
    of Carbon Emissions-Based Factors in Describing U.S. Stock Returns," advised by Matias Cattaneo
  • Avery Woolbert:  “Incorporating Skew in Hedge Fund Evaluation and Portfolio Allocation," advised by Amir Ali Ahmadi

The Eric F. S. Pai ‘83 Prize

Awarded to a graduating senior(s) who has written the best thesis in finance.

  • Helen Zhao: “Multi-Period Optimization of Portfolio Transitions: Incorporating Short-Term Alpha
    Signals and Practical Constraints," advised by Robert Almgren

Admiral W. Mack Angas Memorial Prize

Given in recognition to one or more students who, through senior thesis research, summer internships, or extracurricular activities, have made significant contributions to society.

  • Aaron Dantzler: “Blood Glucose Prediction and Control for Type I Diabetes Management: A Machine Learning Approach," advised by Ioannis Akrotirianakis
  • “How to Win Nodes and Influence Networks: A Multidimensional Approach to Opinion Dynamics and
    Influence Games, advised by Daniel Rigobon

Ahmet S. Çakmak Prize

Awarded to senior(s) for innovative research and an exceptional senior thesis.

  • Yavuz Gonen: “Market Making & Stochastic Optimal Control in Live Sports Betting,” advised by Rene Carmona

Kenneth H. Condit ‛13 Prize

Awarded to a senior(s) who has demonstrated leadership through academic achievement and community service.

  • Kiran Biddinger: “Population Genetics for Heart Failure: A Multi-Trait Analysis of Rare, Protein-Coding Variants," advised by Sanjeev Kulkarni 

The Frank Castellana Prize

Established in 1999, the prize is awarded to senior(s) for outstanding scholarship and academic achievement.

  • Jacob Colchamiro: “Physically Misinformed Neural Networks: Evaluating PINN Assumptions, with Applications to European Option Pricing," advised by Jason Klusowski 

Past Award Recipients