2024-25 Annual Report
Fellowship Highlights from 2024-25
The Fellowships Advising staff actively encourage students to pursue fellowship opportunities as undergraduates and early alumni. Many aspects of the fellowship application process, such as creating an application narrative, writing a fellowship proposal, and building relationships with potential mentors and recommenders, are relevant and helpful to other professional and academic endeavors, such as applying to jobs and graduate school programs.
The data below shows the interactions we had with fellowships applicants last year.
In the 2024-25 year, Cornell endorsed 41 applicants across 8 competitions this year. We had 309 student appointments and saw 175 unique students. We held more than 13 exploratory programs for different targeted groups of students, 3 information sessions with foundation representatives, 2 coffee hours and 12 writing workshops.
On April 23rd, we celebrated our applicants at a reception attended by applicants, endorsement committee members, recommenders and advising staff. Marla Love, Dean of Students, delivered remarks recognizing the excellence of these students in representing Cornell.
Applicants and Recipients from 2024-25
Endorsed applicants
Marshall – 16 - 2 Finalists
Rhodes – 10 - 1 Finalist
Knight-Hennessy - 3 - 1 Winner
Michel David-Weill - 1 Endorsed
Carnegie – 2 - 1 Winner
Truman – 3 - 3 Finalists
Goldwater – 4 - 3 Winners
Udall – 1 endorsed
Beinecke – 1 endorsed
Academic Community and Alumni Engagement
For the 2025-26 application cycle, Cornell faculty endorsement committees supported eight competitions. These committees were comprised of 21 total faculty members, representing 14 academic areas including; Plant Science, Industrial and Labor Relations, Public Policy, Mathematics, Performing & Media Arts, Indigenous Studies, Latin American Studies, Government, Natural Resources, Art, Art History, Hotel and Molecular Biology. An additional 12 faculty and 15 alumni supported student finalists in their preparation for interviews with the national selection committees. Those faculty represented the Johnson School, the Law School, the Atkinson Center, Economics, Computer Science, Government and China and Asia-Pacific Studies Program.
Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans
Carina Shiau, Class of 2021 - CALS, Computational Biology
Carina is working towards an MD at Harvard. Carina’s fascination with the intersection of art, math, and life science led her to study computational biology, where she developed tools to model complex biological systems that underlie disease. Throughout her academic and professional journey, Carina has been driven by a belief in the unity of science and humanism.
Tahmid Mahbub, Class of 2017 - Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering
Tahmid will be a PhD student in electrical engineering and computer sciences at the University of California, Berkeley in the fall. Tahmid Mahbub was born in Dhaka, Bangladesh, where he experienced scorching summers with frequent power outages, often up to twelve hours a day. His current research in Professor Robert Pilawa’s group addresses practical challenges in power electronics to help accelerate the adoption of renewable energy and electric transportation, and to reduce power consumption in data centers. Tahmid is committed to applying his engineering expertise towards the climate crisis solution.
Max Gotts, First year PhD student in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Max is a current PhD student in ecology and evolutionary biology. Max Gotts’s family immigrated to the United States from the United Kingdom in pursuit of economic opportunity, first in 2010, and then again in 2013. Having lived half of his life in the UK and half in the US, Max has experienced two parallel worlds that share a common language but hold different perspectives on freedom, self, and ambition. He was a 2023 Udall Scholar, a 2020 Gold Presidential Service Awardee, and an associate member of Sigma Xi. His research focuses on how climate change is causing rapid evolution in birds, such as the red-winged blackbird and violet-fronted brilliant. Max is committed to making scientific research more equitable and reliable.
Knight-Hennessy Scholarship
Juntao Ren, Class of 2024 - Arts & Sciences, Mathematics and Computer Science
Junato is pursuing a PhD in computer science at Stanford School of Engineering. Juntao aspires to create augmentative technologies ranging from assistive home robots for the elderly and disabled to personalized educational platforms for children worldwide.
Humanities at Hertog
John Kubinec, Class of 2023 - Arts & Sciences, Sociology
John is a reporter and podcast host at the crypto news outlet, Blockworks, with a passion for reading and exploring the great books of the world.
Schwarzman Scholarship
King Yiu Brandon Man, Class of 2023 - Engineering
King studies Generative AI (GenAI) for Engineering Design under the Mechanical Engineering Department at MIT. With a wealth of experience in all things robotics, from assistive robots to next-gen spacesuits for NASA to Tencent’s robot dog Max, he is now a cofounder of Sequestor, a GenAI-powered data aggregation platform that enables carbon credit investors to perform faster due diligence.
Zilu Wang, Class of 2021- Arts & Sciences, Economics
Zilu is passionate about the intersection of AI and art, with a particular focus on AI music. He has founded several AI-related projects, such as using large language models (LLMs) to help multinational companies with tariff code lookup, as well as using LLMs to advise college students on course selection.
Thomas Pickering Fellowship
Logan Bonn, Class of 2025 - CALS, Global Development
Logan’s senior honors thesis focused on supporting community adaptation to climate change in northwest Botswana, where he previously interned through the CALS Global Fellows Program. Logan will pursue graduate studies at Johns Hopkins SAIS and begin a career in the Foreign Service, building on his deep commitment to global engagement and community impact.
Goldwater Scholarship
Abra Geiger, Class of 2026 - College of Arts and Sciences, Physics and Math
Abra is a junior majoring in physics and math in the College of Arts and Sciences. She is a research assistant focused on probing interstellar plasma with pulsars.
Ananda Kalukin, Class of 2026 - Biological Sciences with a concentration in Molecular and Cell Biology
Ananda works with the fruitfly Drosophila melanogaster to study innate immunity against pathogens.
Marcel Latasa, Class of 2026 - College of Engineering, Physics
Marcel has been studying the optical cycle of a spin defect in gallium nitride. The optical cycle describes the behavior of the defect when it is illuminated with light.
Carnegie
Rafaela Uzan, Class of 2025 - College of Arts & Sciences, Government and German Studies
Rafaela acquired a strong academic understanding of Transatlantic relations through my coursework in Government and German Studies. My long-term goal is to work at the intersection of academia, policy, and journalism.