Four members of the Class of 2026 received the Rena Gurley Archibald High Scholarship Prize this year for ranking highest in scholarship.
Arenaria Cramer ’26, Thomas Shaw ’26, Josephine Yip ’26 and Grace Zheng ’26 were announced as winners by President G. Gabrielle Starr during Commencement on May 17.
Selected from the pool of graduating seniors with perfect GPAs, the awardees were chosen for their performance on their senior exercise, diversity in courses taken, and other scholarly accomplishments.
Arenaria Cramer
A history major with a minor in music, Cramer received the John H. Kemble Senior Thesis Award, given for the best history thesis, and the Katherine J. Hagendorn Prize, awarded to a student for “exceptional loyalty and dedication to their music studies,” during Commencement weekend.
While at Pomona, he also won the John Hayes Beaver History Prize his sophomore year for demonstrating “integrity in their actions and perseverance in their work” and twice received The Claremont Colleges Library Undergraduate Research Award.
His senior thesis, titled “Eugenic Care: Institutionalization and Sterilization in Oregon, 1917–1983,” examined the history of Oregon’s developmentally disabled population in the 20th century.
The field of disability history is personal to Cramer, who is from Eugene, Oregon, as he has served as a caregiver for his sister who suffers from a major developmental disability called Prader-Willi Syndrome. He will continue his studies in this field this fall at Cambridge University as a Downing Scholar as he earns a master’s in multi-disciplinary gender studies.
Long term, he hopes to pursue a Ph.D. in U.S. history and become a writer, teacher and public historian “facilitating histories of, by and for the disabled community, specifically developmentally disabled populations,” he says.
Of the Rena Archibald Prize, he says, “As much as it recognizes the dedication I’ve put into my studies and the departments that have formed me, it recognizes the remarkable mentors I’ve found in my time here.”
Thomas Shaw
During Commencement weekend, Shaw was awarded both Sociology Department awards—the Ray E. Baber Prize in Sociology, which recognizes a senior who demonstrates exceptional service to the department, and the Robert D. Herman Prize in Sociology, awarded to graduating seniors who have demonstrated excellence in the sociology major, including the senior thesis. Shaw’s thesis was on transgender and non-binary people’s experiences of romance and intimacy.
“I never would have expected this,” says Shaw, a sociology major and gender and women’s studies minor who transferred to Pomona his sophomore year after starting community college at age 16.
“I had a lot of imposter syndrome,” he says. “There were a lot of times where I thought, ‘I’m not good enough to be here. Everyone’s smart.’”
The recent accolades helped lay those insecurities to rest.
“Tommy is an exceptional student whose dedication to fostering an intellectual community was evident in their contributions to robust discussions in and out of the classroom,” says Associate Professor of Sociology Pamela Prickett. “An unassuming leader, they took initiative to organize Sociology Department events, strengthening community among students and between students and faculty.”
Long term, Shaw hopes to attain a Ph.D. in sociology and work as a professor. In the meantime, he will return home to Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and conduct independent research with Prickett with the aim of publishing their work.
Josephine Yip
Yip transferred to Pomona to study linguistics, which wasn’t offered as a major at her previous university. For her linguistics major, she wrote a senior paper on gender variation in Cantonese sentence-final particles. She also majored in psychological science, and for that senior thesis, Yip looked at cultural influences on how parents teach children how to express and regulate emotions.
During Commencement weekend, Yip was recognized with the Glass Linguistics Prize, awarded to an outstanding student in linguistics, and the Psychological Science Senior Prize, awarded to the outstanding graduating senior based on the senior thesis.
The summer after her sophomore year, Yip held a research internship supported by the Pomona College Internship Program focusing on interventions for children with ADHD. On campus, she conducted research in the Culture, Race and Brain Lab with Sharon Goto, professor of psychological science and Asian American studies, and Richard Lewis, professor of neuroscience and psychological science.
“I am honored to share the award with others from my transfer cohort (Tommy Shaw) and my hometown of Hong Kong (Grace Zheng),” says Yip. “It affirms the value of curiosity, collaboration and community, in spite of and especially in a new and unfamiliar environment.”
Yip will head to South Korea next to teach English through the Fulbright program with long-term plans to pursue graduate training in psychology to improve educational and mental health outcomes using a culturally sensitive approach.
Grace Zheng
With majors in politics and economics and a minor in philosophy, Zheng also found time to serve as the Associated Students of Pomona College president, where she championed student voice in campus governance. Prior to that, she also served as the Judicial Council head chair, Mock Trial vice president and Claremont Journal of Law and Public Policy editor-in-chief.
Zheng, who arrived at Pomona from Hong Kong, participated in the Summer Undergraduate Research Program after her sophomore year, where she helped build a dataset on anti-immigration candidates in Ireland’s 2024 local elections. That project became the foundation for Zheng’s economics senior work. During Commencement weekend, Zheng was awarded the Morris B. Pendleton Memorial Prize in Economics, given to seniors who have distinguished themselves by their work in economics. Her sophomore year, she received the Brystine Prize for Economic Reasoning.
She was also awarded the John A. Vieg Prize in Politics this year as the most outstanding senior politics major. Her politics capstone examined how technology is reshaping liberal democracy, focusing on how technological inequality, algorithmic governance, and the erosion of in-person interactions can shift power toward corporations and the state while weakening democratic accountability.
Drawn to the possibility of law school long-term, Zheng will begin work as a legal fellow at a litigation firm in Baltimore.
“This award reflects the support of so many people who believed in me, invested in me and continually pushed me to try harder,” says Zheng.