The Mathematics Department held its annual Awards Ceremony on April 23, 2026, recognizing students, faculty, and community members for their outstanding achievements over the past year.
From academic excellence and research innovation to teaching, outreach, and service, the event highlighted the breadth of work shaping the department’s community. Awards were presented by Associate Teaching Professor Evan Dummit, chair of the awards committee, and Professor Ken Duffy, chair of the department.
Undergraduate Awards
The ceremony opened with undergraduate honors, recognizing exceptional academic achievement and engagement across the department.
The Award for Outstanding Academic Achievement in Mathematics was presented to Toby Busick-Warner, with honorable mentions awarded to Ang Barrett, Thomas Bond, Schuyler Coulson, Celia Jenkins, and Minhao (Howard) Yin. All of these students achieved exceptionally high mathematics GPAs and completed numerous advanced and graduate-level mathematics courses.
The Mathematics Outreach and Community Award recognized Abby Jiang and Eve Listerud for their impactful contributions to departmental and community initiatives. Abby has been deeply involved in department clubs, helping organize events and activities, while Eve played a key role in the Bridge to Calculus outreach program, serving as a dedicated mentor.
Top performers in the William Lowell Putnam Competition were also honored. Toby Busick-Warner (top 200 nationally), along with Luca Miniati, Rahul Tacke, and Henry Abrahamsen (all top 1000 nationally), contributed to Northeastern’s strong performance, placing 53rd out of 487 institutions.
The department also celebrated the Integration Bee, where Ben Ecsedy was named Grand Integrator after an undefeated performance, followed by Toby Busick-Warner, Michael Wen, and Alomostafa Mohamed. All four competitors competed in a previous iteration of the Integration Bee. This year Ben went a perfect 5-0 in the round-robin, while Toby was 4-1 and Michael was 3-2. The thematic integral this year was:which was evaluated by all four of the winners working collaboratively.
The Undergraduate Course Assistant Award recognized Toby Busick-Warner (Math 3527) and Krishna Singh (Math 5010 and 6241) for their exceptional contributions as teaching assistants, going above and beyond expectations.
The Mathematics Capstone Award honored outstanding research projects, including Akul Sethi’s work on “Lower Bound for Region of Non-Distillable Magic States,” and a collaborative project by Ahyan Maya, Maya Kai, Seth Williams, and Chien En Fu on stochastic emergency department operations.
Undergraduate research excellence was further recognized through multiple awards. Senior Research Awards were presented to Toby Busick-Warner, for work spanning algebraic geometry, group theory, and game theory, and Ang Barrett, for research in point cloud embeddings and matrix Lie groups. Both also contributed to interdisciplinary projects beyond mathematics.
The Outstanding Mathematics Research Award (Underclass) was awarded to Jiarui (Erica) Cheng and Quella Wang for their innovative research projects and presentations.
The undergraduate awards concluded with the Alberto Galmarino Award, presented to Ang Barrett, Evelyn Brylow, and Lucas Collins for their exceptional service and leadership. Each played key roles in student organizations and departmental initiatives, including leadership in the American Women in Mathematics chapter, Math Club, and Actuarial Club.
Graduate Awards
Graduate awards highlighted excellence in teaching, research, and service across both master’s and doctoral programs.
The Best TA Award (PhD) was presented to Rahul Hirwani, Nathan Zelesko, and Jordan Martino, recognizing exceptional graduate instruction. Rahul has served as a teaching assistant for Math 2341 ten times and as an instructor for Math 1251. Nathan has taught Math 1251 twice and most recently served as a highly effective floater TA, stepping in as a substitute instructor across multiple courses. Jordan has contributed as a teaching assistant for several proof-based courses and is currently the instructor for Math 1465. All three were nominated by faculty for going well beyond standard expectations in their teaching roles.
The Best PhD Thesis Award recognized three doctoral students for their outstanding dissertations across different areas and graduation timelines. Alon Duvall (Fall 2025) was honored for “Monotonicity and Contractivity in Reaction Networks: Algorithms and Theory.” Sean Carroll (Spring 2026, Pure Mathematics) was recognized for “Matrix factorizations and Euler characteristics for groups via Gorenstein projective approximation.”
Brad Turow (Spring 2026, Applied Mathematics) received the award for “Discrete Approximate Circle Bundles for Data Analysis and Machine Learning.” Each of these works represents a significant contribution to their respective research fields.
The Outstanding Academic Achievement Award (Master’s) was awarded to Harris Bubalo, Lea Luchterhand, Elias Rapkin-Stiles, Alexandre Wolff, and Yixiao Zhang, recognizing their consistently high GPAs and success in completing some of the most rigorous graduate-level coursework offered by the department.
The Outstanding Co-op Performance Award (Master’s) honored Maria Georgieva, Zexin Lin, Tianyu Lu, and Yifan Wang for excellence in both their co-op coursework and professional placements. In addition to strong performance in their roles, these students contributed to the co-op program by supporting course organization and related departmental activities.
The Outstanding Masters Research Award recognized Cory Eckert and Haoran Wu for their high-quality research contributions. Cory’s work includes “Constraints on L1LK(2)S at n = p = 2 Homotopy in Abstract Categories,” while Haoran’s research includes “Two families of reducible spherical conical metrics” and “Euler equation on a fast rotating ellipsoid.”
Both students have also presented their research at local and regional conferences, demonstrating strong engagement with the broader academic community.
The Outstanding Departmental Service Award (Graduate) was presented to Ildi Hoxhallari (Master’s), Kushala Rani Manjunath (Master’s), and Zach Greenfield (PhD) for their contributions to the department and its programs. Ildi was recognized for going above and beyond as a mentor in the Bridge to Calculus program. Kushala was honored for her outstanding work as an administrative assistant supporting the same program. Zach was recognized for his contributions to the Math Webpage Committee, helping improve the College of Science website for the mathematics department.
The Special Graduate Service Award was awarded to Tanishq Bhatia and Na’ama Nevo for their exceptional efforts in the Bridge to Calculus program. They worked closely with a differently-abled student who faced significant challenges in participating, providing individualized mentorship in statistics and precalculus, developing tailored lessons, and offering one-on-one support that made it possible for the student to fully engage in the program.
The Lakshmibai Fellowship was awarded to Jordan Martino and Austin Mbaye. Established in honor of Professor Lakshmibai Venkatramani, a distinguished member of the department from 1987 to 2019 and an inaugural fellow of the American Mathematical Society, the fellowship recognizes PhD students for their outstanding academic records, strong potential for future excellence, and commitment to fostering a welcoming and inclusive environment within the department.
Faculty Awards
The ceremony concluded with recognition of faculty contributions to teaching and service.
The Mathematics Part-Time Teaching Award was presented to Marco Rainho, whose dedication to teaching and student success has been reflected in consistently strong evaluations and leadership in coordinating key courses.
The Mathematics Part-Time Service Award recognized Raj Jesudason for her significant contributions to the Bridge to Calculus program, including serving as its director. The department also honored the legacy of Professor Bob Case, founder of the program, who passed away earlier this year.
The Postdoctoral Teaching Award in Mathematics was awarded to Anh Hoang, recognized for excellence in instruction and leadership in coordinating courses and capstone projects.
Congratulations to all award recipients, and to everyone who contributed to the department’s work over the past year.
