MCS Students Honored at Phi Beta Kappa Ceremony
By Stefanie Johndrow
Media InquiriesSeventeen Mellon College of Science students were among the 56 Carnegie Mellon students inducted into the university’s Phi Beta Kappa (PBK) chapter at a ceremony on Friday, May 17. Only about 10 percent of college students across the United States are invited to join PBK.
Science and Humanities Scholar and dual mathematical sciences and physics major 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 fellow inductees 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.”
Earlier in the fall, six Mellon College of Science students were among 20 Carnegie Mellon students selected for early election into the university’s chapter.
Mellon College of Science students initiated into Phi Beta Kappa this year:
Eric Barrett, Mathematical Sciences; Physics
Alisa Chang, Mathematical Sciences *
Minor: Computer Science
Bryan Ding, Mathematical Sciences
Minors: Japanese Studies; Computational Finance
Mike Dong, Chemistry
Minors: Biomedical Engineering; Human-Computer Interaction
Alex Fernez, Physics
Minor: Mathematical Sciences
Brandon Foster, Biological Sciences; Music Performance
Alexandra Halberstadt, Biological Sciences; Psychology
Ian Holst, Physics
Jessica Jue, Biological Sciences*
Additional Major: Chinese studies
Prerana Katiyar, Neuroscience
Minor: Chemistry
Erin Kavanagh, Chemistry
Minor: Biomedical Engineering
Stephanie Kuang, Chemistry
Minor: Creative Writing
Esther Lee, Biological Sciences; Music Performance
Cameron Montag, Mathematical Sciences
Additional Major: Computer Science
Nadia Razek, Mathematical Science
Additional Major: Human-Computer Interaction
Sarah Simon, Chemistry *
Victoria Van Benschoten, Chemistry*
Minor: Creative Writing
Echo Wu, Mathematical Sciences; Economics
Minor: Business Administration
Huiwen Zhang, Mathematical Sciences
Additional Major: Statistics
Minor: Computational Finance
Nan Zhang, Biological Sciences
Minors: Computer Science; Neural Computation
Sean Zhang, Mathematical Sciences
Additional Major: Computer Science
Minor: Computational Finance
Yixiu Zhao, Mathematical Sciences, Computer Science*
Minor: Physics
Emily Zhu, Mathematical Sciences*
*Students who were selected for early election
Photography by Michael Haritan.