Seven members of the Class of 2025 were awarded the Rena Gurley Archibald High Scholarship Prize at Commencement on May 18. The prize is given to seniors drawn from the list of students with perfect GPAs and uses as criteria: diversity of fields in which courses were taken, scholarly accomplishments, and performance on the senior exercise.
Emmie Appl ’25
For Appl, a molecular biology major and Japanese minor from Orinda, California, the prize caps off a series of accolades and accomplishments over the last year. She received the John Stauffer Endowed Summer Research Program in Chemistry Grant in 2024 to fund her senior thesis research during the summer. In April, she presented her senior thesis work “Exploring the Regulatory Mechanisms of Mannitol-Driven Biofilm Formation in Vibrio Cholerae” at the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Annual Meeting. During Commencement weekend, she was also recognized with the Molecular Biology Department prize.
Serving as a captain of the Pomona-Pitzer swimming and diving team last year, she was selected for the Academic All-America First Team and named the Pomona-Pitzer 2025 Scholar Athlete of the Year.
Throughout her time at Pomona, Appl served as a mentor for the Chemistry Department and as a student liaison for the Molecular Biology Program.
“This award does not just represent myself,” says Appl. “It represents the support and encouragement I received from my professors and coaches who unlocked my curiosity and ambition and my friends and teammates who were there for the late-night study sessions and pre-exam stress.”
Appl will attend graduate school at UC Davis to pursue a Ph.D. in immunology.
Willa Frank ’25
Frank, a double major in environmental analysis and English from Somerville, Massachusetts, wrote a thesis for each major, delving into subjects “dear to my heart,” she says. Her environmental analysis thesis investigates the relationship between femininity and environmental representation in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Her English thesis focuses on literary still life in the novels of Virginia Woolf.
She studied abroad in Christchurch, New Zealand, with an earth systems field research program. During the summers, she conducted independent research with grants from the English Department and the Summer Undergraduate Research Program (SURP) and participated in the Plant Humanities Summer Program at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, D.C.
Outside of classes, Frank worked at the Center for Speaking, Writing, and the Image and the Benton Museum of Art at Pomona College.
“I have felt immensely supported throughout my time at Pomona,” says Frank. “I was lucky to find great friends amongst my peers and wonderful mentors amongst my professors.”
In the fall, she will attend the University of Cambridge to pursue an MPhil degree in English.
Hubery Hu ’25
When Hu came to Pomona from Beijing, China, he did not have plans to major in computer science, but he graduated with a double major in computer science and mathematics.
“My time at Pomona has been more like a winding exploration than a straight academic path,” says Hu.
He conducted research with Professor of Computer Science Tzu-Yi Chen on complex systems, which led to a published conference paper and another journal paper under review. For his math thesis, he explored a network-based method that performs similarly to Latent Dirichlet Allocation.
In the Mathematics and Statistics Department, Hu served as mentor for several classes. Through the Pomona College Internship Program (PCIP), he completed internships as a software engineer, in venture capital and at an AI startup.
This fall, Hu will begin a Ph.D. program in computer science at the University of Colorado, where he hopes to conduct research in quantum computing.
“It wasn’t until last summer that I realized I wanted to seriously pursue research,” says Hu. “When I heard my name announced at Commencement unexpectedly, something shifted inside me. I felt a quiet strength rise in my chest—a belief that I could persevere on this scholarly path, even if it won’t be easy.”
Kara Mickas ’25
Mickas, from Lafayette, California, majored in neuroscience while on the pre-med track.
Last summer, she studied the impact of tracheostomy on premature infants with bronchopulmonary dysplasia at Boston Children’s Hospital, which resulted in the publication of the article “Improvement in Clinical Status Post Tracheostomy Using an Interdisciplinary Scoring Tool in Severe Bronchopulmonary Dysplasia,” which will be submitted for publication in the Journal of Perinatalogy. Mickas presented her research at the Pediatric Academic Societies meeting in April.
A member of Pomona’s advanced chamber choir The Glee Club, Mickas’ passions also include music, and she wrote a library thesis on the social neuroscience of group singing.
“I couldn’t be more grateful that I decided to come to Pomona,” she says. “The College has been such a supportive environment, and I am so glad that I was able to pursue all of my interests wholeheartedly.”
This August, she will start her MD degree at Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University.
Haakon Pihlaja ’25
Pihlaja, a physics major from Duluth, Minnesota, spent four years at Pomona conducting research on organic semiconductors in the lab of Professor of Physics Janice Hudgings, recently submitting this work for publication.
Following a semester abroad in New Zealand, where he studied environmental science, he spent a summer at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution researching recent extreme warming in the North Atlantic Ocean. This project became the foundation for his senior thesis on the same topic titled “Unraveling the 2023 Record High Temperatures in the Eastern Subtropical North Atlantic.”
Pihlaja served as a mentor for a variety of courses at Pomona: Asian Traditions, Introductory Classical Mechanics, and Introductory Electricity and Magnetism.
“I’m incredibly grateful for all the people—peers, professors and staff—who supported me during my time at Pomona,” says Pihlaja. “I’d like to emphasize the role that their friendship, mentorship and kindness played in helping me receive this award. This community made my learning and growth possible over these past four years.”
This coming academic year, Pihlaja will pursue an MPhil in quantitative climate and environmental science at the University of Cambridge as a Downing Scholar.
Eli Taub ’25
Taub, a biology major from Austin, Texas, racked up many awards in addition to the Rena Archibald Prize, including the Vaile Prize for outstanding academic achievement and meaningful contributions to the Biology Department; the ARCS scholarship for achievement in a STEM field and promise as future scientist; and the Ogelsby Fund to take biology courses at the University of Michigan Biological Station in summer 2023.
Among his accomplishments, Taub published the article “An Optimized Probe-Based qPCR Assay for the Detection and Monitoring of the Invasive Lionfish (Pterois volitans) in the Atlantic” and presented at a range of conferences and events.
Taub’s senior thesis about designing optimal protected areas for avian species required “ecological knowledge to computational skills to mathematical approaches to evaluating results to humanities for endowing meaning on my work,” he says, “making this something that could not have been achieved without the diversity of angles for approaching a problem that Pomona gave me.”
Taub served as a Biology Department liaison and president of the 5C Birding Club the past two years.
“I’m honored to receive this award and grateful for all the people who helped get me here,” says Taub.
Before attending graduate school at the University of British Columbia, he will research the environmental genomics of pipefish in Denmark through a Fulbright Award.
Xiaoxing Yu ’25
“I’m deeply grateful for the breadth of learning Pomona has allowed me to pursue,” says Yu, who came to Pomona from Beachwood, Ohio, “and I’m happy that the system has been flexible enough to allow me to achieve so many of my goals.”
Yu pursued a double major in mathematics and linguistics and an Asian studies minor.
During his time at Pomona, he conducted research through a SURP grant on Buddhist scriptures at The Claremont Colleges Library, which resulted in the exhibit Enlightenment In Ink: The Art of Buddhist Prints.
Yu also assisted Michael Diercks, professor of linguistics and cognitive science, in a project to typeset and develop problems for the textbook The Syntax of Natural Language. He served as a mentor in the Linguistics Department last year.
Additionally, Yu completed a Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) studying spiral waves at the University of Minnesota. He presented “Instability of anchored spirals in geometric curve evolution” at the 2025 Joint Mathematics Meetings earlier this year. His math thesis was titled “Geometry under the dynamicist’s toolkit: origami slope-gaps and the Hall distribution.”
Yu will serve as a Fulbright English teaching assistant in Galicia, Spain, before pursuing a Ph.D. in mathematics at the University of Minnesota.