Three senior Astrophysics concentrators win 2026 Hoopes Awards

Congratulations to three Astrophysics concentrators on winning 2026 Thomas Temple Hoopes Prize  for excellence in undergraduate work:

Larom Segev for her submission entitled “Cloudy with a Chance of Data: A Dynamic Scheduler for AllSky Surveys with Real-Time Optimization”—supervised and nominated by Professor Christopher Stubbs

Amaan Ijaz Khwaja for his submission entitled “Dancing in the Dust: Investigating the Binary Origin of Betelgeuse’s Long Secondary Period via 3D Hydrodynamic Simulations”—supervised and nominated by Dr. Morgan MacLeod

Logan Wilson for his submission entitled “Protoplanetary Disk Inheritance and the Evolution of SmallExoplanet Atmospheres”—supervised and nominated by Professor Robin Wordsworth

About the Hoopes Prize

From the estate of Thomas T. Hoopes, Class of 1919, Harvard received a fund from which to grant annual awards to undergraduates on the basis of outstanding scholarly work or research. Mr. Hoopes was Curator of the City Art Museum in St. Louis for over 25 years. He was an expert on firearms, from the crossbow of the 16th century to modern handguns, and wrote widely in the field.

The fund provides undergraduate prizes to be given for the purpose of “promoting, improving, and enhancing the quality of education . . . in literary, artistic, musical, scientific, historical, or other academic subjects made part of the College curriculum under [f]aculty supervision and instruction, particularly by recognizing, promoting, honoring, and rewarding excellence in the work of undergraduates and their capabilities and skills in any subject, projects of research in science or the humanities, or in specific written work of the students under the instruction or supervision of the [f]aculty.”

Student winners are awarded $5,000, and faculty nominators of winning projects are awarded $2,000. Written winning projects are bound and available in Lamont Library for two years.