Carnegie Mellon University

More Than 50 Seniors Inducted Into Phi Beta Kappa Society

May 21, 2019

More Than 50 Seniors Inducted Into Phi Beta Kappa Society

By: Stefanie Johndrow

Fifty-six seniors were inducted into Carnegie Mellon University’s chapter of the Phi Beta Kappa Society (PBK) this spring. Only about 10 percent of college students across the United States are invited to join PBK.

Senior Eric Barrett delivered the keynote speech. Barrett is one of three inductees who have immediate family members who have also been inducted into PBK. Barrett, along with Alexandra Halberstadt and Rebecca Jesurum, interviewed their family members on the meaning of their election into PBK. Barrett’s keynote speech was comprised of their responses.

Among the common themes they shared were a sense of pride in being inducted into the society and the doors that can open up for members of PBK professionally. The final theme, Barrett said, was the most significant.

“The last, probably most important, common theme that came up in everyone’s initiation ceremony, was an emphasis not just on the past but looking toward the future,” Barrett said. “We’ve all been nominated for our hard work at Carnegie Mellon. This is certainly a recognition of all of our past accomplishments, but it’s also more than that. We’ve come here and learned lots of things and gotten good grades, but now it means nothing if we don’t use it.”

Spring 2019 Students Initiated into Phi Beta Kappa:

Eric Barrett, Physics; Mathematical Sciences

Yi Chen, Business Administration
Additional Major: Statistics

Ricson Cheng, Computer Science
Minor: Machine Learning

Anne Crumley, Statistics and Art
Additional Major: Social and Political History

Forrest Cullings, Business Administration
Additional Major: International Relations and Politics
Minor: Arabic Studies

Chloe Desaulles, Cognitive Neuroscience and Art
Minor: Intelligent Environments

Bryan Ding, Mathematical Sciences
Minors: Japanese Studies; Computational Finance

Yilin Dong, Chemistry
Minors: Biomedical Engineering; Human-Computer Interaction

Alex Fernez, Physics
Minor: Mathematical Sciences

Emma Flickinger, Creative Writing
Additional Major: Professional Writing

Brandon Foster, Biological Sciences; Music Performance

Madeline Gardner, Cognitive Science
Additional Major: Human-Computer Interaction
Minor: Hispanic Studies

Amelia Gilson, Economics
Minors: Mathematical Sciences; Biomedical Engineering

Evan Glauberman, International Relations and Politics
Additional Major: Social and Political History
Minor: Arabic Studies

Zachary Goldstein, Statistics

Alexandra Halberstadt, Biological Sciences; Psychology

Derek Hamersly, Music Performance (Piano); Physics

Yutong Han, Business Administration
Additional Major: Statistics and Machine Learning

Ian Holst, Physics

Eric Huang, Economics
Additional Major: Chinese Studies
Minor: Business Administration

Rebecca Jesurum, Computer Science
Minor: Physics

Prerana Katiyar, Neuroscience
Minor: Chemistry

Erin Kavanagh, Chemistry
Minor: Biomedical Engineering

Bo Kim, Ethics, History & Public Policy; Art
Additional Major: Human-Computer Interaction

Anne Kohlbrenner, Computer Science
Additional Major: Philosophy

Stephanie Kuang, Chemistry
Minor: Creative Writing

Esther Lee, Biological Sciences; Music Performance

Izabela Litwin, Business Administration
Additional Major: Statistics
Minor: Russian Studies

Jason Ma, Computer Science
Minor: Art

Renee Madrigal, Anthropology; Drama

Hera Miao, Information Systems
Minors: Business Administration; Media Design

Cameron Montag, Mathematical Sciences
Additional Major: Computer Science

Amadou Ngom, Computer Science
Minor: Machine Learning

Paige O’Riordan, Decision Science
Additional Major: Ethics, History & Public Policy
Minor: Creative Writing

Nadia Razek, Mathematical Science
Additional Major: Human-Computer Interaction

Margaret Reager, Decision Science
Additional Major: Hispanic Studies

Stefan Romero, Social & Political History; Drama

Sydney Roslin, Music Performance (Voice); Creative Writing

Matthew Salim, Psychology; Computer Science

Juliana Schnerr, Creative Writing; Design

Megan Seiler, Computational Finance
Minor: Statistics

Qian Sha, Economics; Statistics

Zachary Snow, Computer Science
Minor: Business Administration

Isabella Starvaggi, Psychology; Statistics

John Verser, Decision Science
Additional Major: Russian Studies
Minor: Politics and Public Policy

Elisa Wang, Business Administration
Additional Major: Statistics

Xinni Wu, Mathematical Sciences; Economics
Minor: Business Administration

Xinyu Wu, Computer Science
Additional Major: Mathematical Sciences

Yu Wu, Statistics and Machine Learning
Minor: Economics

Grant Xu, Business Administration; Statistics and Machine Learning

Yue Xu, Computer Science
Additional Major: Physics
Minor: Neural Computation

Hyunho Yoon, Psychology
Additional Major: Creative Writing

Huiwen Zhang, Mathematical Sciences
Additional Major: Statistics

Katherine Zhang, Linguistics
Additional Major: Chinese Studies

Nan Zhang, Biological Sciences
Minors: Computer Science; Neural Computation

Xiaorong Zhang, Mathematical Sciences
Additional Major: Computer Science
Minor: Computational Finance

Yishan Zhou, Cognitive Science; Computer Science

Photography by Michael Haritan.