Celebrating the 2026 HSS Student Prizewinners

The Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences proudly presents the 2025–2026 student prizewinners.

The Gordon McClure Memorial Communications Prizes are awarded to undergraduate students for their academic writing in three categories: English, history, and philosophy. The winners this year are senior Qianhui (Natasha) Hong (BS '26, computation and neural systems) (Philosophy, "Desert Under Unequal Conditions: Meritocracy, Luck, and Moral Worth"), junior Clara Yu (History, "The Tasmanian Devil: A Genomic Arms Race Against Extinction"), and junior Navya Lam (English, "The Fairy and the Goddess: Lady Audley and Clara Talboys as Competing Models of Femininity").

Junior Navya Lam also received a Mary A. Earl McKinney Prize in Literature for her poem, "A Siren Chef on the Safe Preparation of a Pufferfish." The humanities faculty awarded the McKinney prize for best original work of prose fiction to senior Bram Schork (BS '26, mechanical engineering) for his piece, "Coincidence."

The Hallett Smith Prize was established in 1997 to commemorate Professor Smith's long career as one of this century's most distinguished Renaissance scholars and recognizes outstanding essays on English literature. Junior Damian Musk received the 2026 prize for their paper, "The Geology of Light: Myth / Magic / Control After Gravity's Rainbow—A Pynchonic Archipelago."

Established in 1986, the Rodman W. Paul History Prize recognizes a junior or senior who demonstrates a notable interest in and affinity for history. This year's prize went to junior Emily Yu, nominated by Mordechai Feingold, Kate Van Nuys Page Professor of the History of Science and the Humanities, and Patrick Morgan, Howard E. and Susanne C. Jessen Postdoctoral Scholar Teaching Fellow in Medieval History.

Junior Sophia Gershaft received the Eleanor Searle Prize in Law, Politics, and Institutions, which honors a student whose work in history or the social sciences exemplifies Searle's interests in the use of power, government, and law. Gershaft was nominated by postdoc Patrick Morgan for her outstanding work in his course, Laying Down the Law: Legal Culture in the Medieval Mediterranean, c. 530-1230.

The social sciences faculty awarded the David M. Grether Prize in Social Science to senior Siddhartha Ojha (BS '26, applied and computational math and economics). The prize rewards outstanding performance and creativity by a Caltech undergraduate who completes one of the social science options. Robert Kirby Professor of Behavioral Economics Colin Camerer nominated Ojha, citing his design, implementation, and analysis efforts on their paper, "LLM Agents Do Not Replicate Human Market Traders: Evidence From Experimental Finance," which is already in circulation as an arXiv preprint.

Congratulations to Natasha, Clara, Navya, Bram, Damian, Emily, Sophia, and Sidd, and the graduating class of 2026!

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