Who won the Sophia Freund prize in 2009 and before 1997?

Colleges & Universities Harvard University
1

<p>On its site, Harvard lists some but not all recent winners of the Sophia Freund prize (graduated seniors with highest grade-point average) . Can anyone here provide names of the winner from 2009, or any of the years before 1997? Here’s what I found so far:</p>

<p>1998 to 2008 : listed at [Harvard</a> FAS Prize Office](<a href=“http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~secfas/PrizeOfficeHome.htm]Harvard”>http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~secfas/PrizeOfficeHome.htm)</p>

<p>1997 Aaron Brown and Jeffrey Gell
1996 ???
1995 Reshma Jagsi
1994 David Liu
1993 Jason Jacobs
1992 Noah Feldman
1986-1991 ???
1985 Christopher Landau
1984 ???
1983 Amy Remensnyder
1973-82 ??
1972 Robert Waldinger
1971 Claude Bernard
1966 David Kelly Campbell</p>

2

<p>add: </p>

<p>1970 Scott Boorman</p>

3

<p>

Is now a bad ass professor in the life sciences.</p>

4

<p>Several of the above are academics, such as Feldman (HLS), Remensnyder (Brown medievalist), Bernard (physicist). Others are MD’s, MD/PhDs, one is a practicing lawyer, several held Rhodes or Marshall scholarships. This is why they can be found in web searches.</p>

<p>Certainly the predominant incentive for people with a “me Number One!” sticker attached to their foreheads is to enter fields where that ticket can be cashed in. Indeed, some of the gaps in the list may be from those who went into finance, where there is more anonymity and a less credential-based pecking order.</p>

5

<p>wow, what GPAs did these people have?</p>

6

<p>updated list annotated with [US or foreign origin, field of concentration; academic or career path after graduation]</p>

<p>2011 *Sophie Cai [US, chemical physics ; Harvard Medical School], *Zachary Frankel [US, physics; Rhodes Scholar], *Darius Imregun [UK, chemical physics]
2010 Jeremy Aron-Dine [US, linguistics]
2009 ???
2008 Seth Philip Herbst [US, English & American literature, music; doctoral student in English at Harvard]
2007 Alexandra Harwin [US, history; Yale Law School JD, works in family law]
2006 Kirsten Frieda [US, chemistry & physics; Stanford biophysics graduate student]
2005 David Camden [US, classics; Harvard PhD candidate in classical philology]
2004 Andrew Goldstone [US, physics and mathematics; Yale PhD in English literature]
2003 *Elias Reinhold Sacks [US, comparative religion; Princeton doctoral student in religion] and *Lisa Beth Schwartz [US, government; Yale Law School JD, Harvard MBA, lawyer at Wachtell]
2002 Stephen Sachs [US, history (medieval Europe); Yale Law School JD, Oxford MA; lawyer, Mayer Brown]
2001 Kevin Schwartz [US, government; Oxford MBA+PhD (Marshall scholar); Yale Law School JD, lawyer at Wachtell]
2000 Matthew Strahl Levine [US ; Yale Law School JD, lawyer at Wachtell Lipton Rosen Katz]
1999 Chelsea Helen Foxwell [US ; art history professor at U. Chicago]
1998 Daniel Philippe Mason [US, biology; novelist]
1997 Aaron Brown [US, computer science; Berkeley PhD in computer science, Google] and Jeffrey Gell [US, economics; Marshall scholar, Boston Consulting Group VP]
1996 Yeoh Yong Yeow [Singapore IMO medalist; DE Shaw]
1995 Reshma Jagsi [US; Rhodes Scholar, MD, doctor]
1994 David Liu [US, chemistry; Harvard Chemistry dept professor]
1993 Jason Jacobs [US, physics; MD, ophthalmologist]
1992 Noah Feldman [US, Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations; Rhodes Scholar, Oxford PhD, Yale Law School JD, Harvard Law School professor]
1991 Constantin Teleman [US/Romania, mathematics; math professor at UC Berkeley]
1990 Jonathan Bolton [US; professor of Slavic studies]</p>

<p>1985 Christopher Landau [US, history; lawyer, Kirkland & Ellis]
1983 Amy Remensnyder [US; Berkeley PhD in history; medievalist at Brown]
1972 Robert Waldinger [US, history and science; Harvard Medical School MD, psychiatry]
1971 Claude Bernard [US, physics; physics professor at WUSTL]
1970 Scott Boorman [US; Junior fellow upon graduation from College, Yale Law School JD, mathematical sociologist at Yale]
1966 David Kelly Campbell [US, physics and chemistry; PhD, Cambridge (theoretical physics, math), physics professor at Boston University]</p>

7

<p>

The ones listed with an asterisk above, plus Kevin Schwartz, have perfect GPA (4.0) according to the online articles I used to compile the list, and for about 20 years before K.Schwartz there were no perfect GPAs. Usually the grades are not published so it is possible that some others on the list have a perfect record.</p>

<p>There was also a disclosure of the two highest (summa) GPAs for 1991 due to a political brouhaha over the award. The highest GPA summa graduate was Constantin Teleman, a mathematician from a family of mathematicians, who had emigrated sometime during high school from Romania to the USA. Teleman breezed through Harvard in three years, won the Putnam competition at least once during his time as an “undergraduate”, and finished a math PhD with two very famous advisors three years after graduation. In practical terms he was a graduate student on a fast track to a research career, but as the Freund award shows he also took all of his undergraduate classes seriously enough to compile a near-perfect record of 24 A’s and one A-minus.</p>

<p>The second highest summa GPA that year was Jonathan Farley, a black math major with West Indian ancestry. It’s not clear from online sources whether he was born in the USA. He was an ambitious regular-track math major who in four years compiled a transcript with 29 A’s and 3 A-minuses.</p>

<p>The political dispute arose over claims from some black students and faculty that Farley should be awarded the prize, or should share the prize. This was partly for the symbolism of having a black student as the unofficial number one college graduate in the nation, and also due to the extra year of high grades on Farley’s transcript. However, the only way Teleman could have not beaten Farley’s record numerically if had he stayed a fourth year (assuming all grades would continue to be A-minus or higher) would have been to artificially reduce his course work to seven classes and, despite the easier load, have 2 of the 7 courses be A-minus where of the previous 25 classes, 24 were A’s. Also, I think that a summa degree required writing a thesis, and stretching this out into the fourth year would have increased the chances of a perfect transcript in the first three years. In short, Teleman clearly outperformed all others, and Harvard duly awarded him the prize. (<a href=“http://www.latticetheory.net/media/pdf/boston_globe.pdf[/url]”>http://www.latticetheory.net/media/pdf/boston_globe.pdf&lt;/a&gt; ).</p>

<p>Farley later on became a sort of “public math personality”, writing op-ed pieces for newspapers, running for elected office, consulting for TV shows, founding institutes in the Caribbean and claiming to fight terrorism using techniques from his research. Teleman continued in pure mathematics and is a well known researcher in active areas at the interface of geometry and physics.</p>

8

<p>2009 - Charlie Nathanson or Sam Lichtenstein?? (During our commencement ceremonies in 2009, a university officer – I think it was President Drew Faust or Dean Evelyn Hammonds --mentioned that someone from Adams House got a perfect 4.0 GPA though she did not mention who it was)</p>

9

<p>(edit)</p>

<p>Thanks for the hint. I checked the FAS prizes site and they updated the 2009 list since the first posting. As you suspected, the answer is:</p>

<p>2009 Samuel F. Lichtenstein (US, mathematics ; PhD student in math)</p>

<p>Unless there are some multiple awards in the earlier years that were not caught by a web search, the data is now complete for the years since 1990.</p>

10

<p>updated list for 1990-2011, annotated with [US or foreign origin, field of concentration; academic or career path after graduation] and an asterisk to indicate perfect GPA, where known.</p>

<p>2011 <em>Sophie Cai [US, chemical physics ; Harvard Medical School], *Zachary Frankel [US, physics; Rhodes Scholar], *Darius Imregun [UK, chemical physics]
2010 Jeremy Aron-Dine [US, linguistics]
2009 Samuel F. Lichtenstein (US, mathematics ; PhD student in math; (</em>4.0) is likely but unconfirmed)
2008 Seth Philip Herbst [US, English & American literature, music; doctoral student in English at Harvard]
2007 Alexandra Harwin [US, history; Yale Law School JD, works in family law]
2006 Kirsten Frieda [US, chemistry & physics; Stanford biophysics graduate student]
2005 David Camden [US, classics; Harvard PhD candidate in classical philology]
2004 Andrew Goldstone [US, physics and mathematics; Yale PhD in English literature]
2003 *Elias Reinhold Sacks [US, comparative religion; Princeton doctoral student in religion] and *Lisa Beth Schwartz [US, government; Yale Law School JD, Harvard MBA, lawyer at Wachtell]
2002 Stephen Sachs [US, history (medieval Europe); Yale Law School JD, Oxford MA; lawyer, Mayer Brown]
2001 *Kevin Schwartz [US, government; Oxford MBA+PhD (Marshall scholar); Yale Law School JD, lawyer at Wachtell]
2000 Matthew Strahl Levine [US ; Yale Law School JD, lawyer at Wachtell Lipton Rosen Katz]
1999 Chelsea Helen Foxwell [US ; art history professor at U. Chicago]
1998 Daniel Philippe Mason [US, biology; novelist]
1997 Aaron Brown [US, computer science; Berkeley PhD in computer science, Google] and Jeffrey Gell [US, economics; Marshall scholar, Boston Consulting Group VP]
1996 Yeoh Yong Yeow [Singapore IMO medalist; DE Shaw]
1995 Reshma Jagsi [US; Rhodes Scholar, MD, doctor]
1994 David Liu [US, chemistry; Harvard Chemistry dept professor]
1993 Jason Jacobs [US, physics; MD, ophthalmologist]
1992 Noah Feldman [US, Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations; Rhodes Scholar, Oxford PhD, Yale Law School JD, Harvard Law School professor]
1991 Constantin Teleman [US/Romania, mathematics; math professor at UC Berkeley]
1990 Jonathan Bolton [US; professor of Slavic studies]</p>

<p>The predominance of math and science majors is interesting. For the known #2 GPA’s that I came across while looking for the Freund winners, both were in math: Jonathan Farley in 1991, and Manjul Bhargava in 1996. Bhargava had an illustrious research record as an undergraduate and his PhD thesis made him famous. He was tenured at Princeton in his late 20’s.</p>