2024 School of Arts and Sciences

Outstanding Undergraduate Student

The School of Arts & Sciences Outstanding Undergraduate Student Award recognizes the School’s top scholar. To qualify, a student must be a senior who has earned a minimum 3.5 GPA, exhibited a strong master of understanding/ performance element in their discipline, and demonstrated a significant service element related directly to their department or program.

Jaden Lynn Smith

Jaden Lynn Smith is completing her double major in African and African American Studies and English, with a concentration in creative writing, and minors in philosophy and religion and culture — all with a 3.99 GPA. During her time here, she served as editor-in-chief for Jigsaw literary magazine, features copy editor for The Stylus, president of the English Club, student manager for the Brockport IT Service Desk, and digital repository archival assistant for the Writers Forum. Jaden is an orientation leader, peer mentor, and member of Brockport Women in Technology, Phi Sigma Tau, and Omicron Delta Kappa Honor Societies. She also aided professors in their academic scholarship by editing their articles and finding and vetting sources. An Honor’s College student, her thesis is a poetry chapbook exploring the idea of identity and voice, especially as it pertains to her as a biracial woman, accompanied by an essay on her creative writing process. After graduating, Jaden will attend graduate school to receive a Master of Library and Information Sciences on her way to becoming a BIPOC librarian specializing in outreach and resources for communities of color and other marginalized populations. Her goal is to serve the communities that need access to equity the most, and she hopes to continue this work in her local community in Rochester, NY.

Outstanding Graduate Student

The School of Arts and Sciences Outstanding Graduate Award is presented to an outstanding graduate student who has completed or is completing a program of study within the School of Arts and Sciences in the academic year of nomination. The nominee must have a minimum GPA of 3.85 and significant scholarly activity in their field of study.

Jarrod Michael Ludwig

Jarrod Michael Ludwig is completing his Master of Science in Environmental Science and Ecology with a 4.0 GPA. He graduated with his baccalaureate degree in Environmental Science and Ecology with honors from SUNY Brockport in December 2022. While attending Brockport, he was employed as a research assistant and promoted to senior research support specialist in Dr. Jacques Rinchard’s fish research lab. As an undergraduate student, he also worked as a creel survey technician for the New York’s Reimagine the Canals Initiative Program and as a fish technician for the Environmental Protection Agency funded Great Lakes Coastal Wetland Monitoring Program. Jarrod has also served as a student ambassador (assisting during open houses to prospective students and sharing his experience) and as a tutor. He received two scholarships to participate in the Summer Undergraduate Research Program, the Kenneth E. Damann Research Award for his scholastic achievement, the Friends of Drake Library Research Award, and the Distinguished Professor’s Graduate Award. Additionally, he was awarded the James and Carol Haynes Graduate Research Fellowship supporting his travel to California for graduate research, and has received numerous travel awards from the Great Lakes Research Consortium, Coastal and Estuarine Research Federation, American Fisheries Society, and SUNY Brockport to present his research in Spokane, WA, Seattle, WA, Long Island, NY, Sacramento, CA, Grand Rapids, MI, and Portland, OR. As an undergraduate, Jarrod began his first research project investigating deepwater sculpin reproduction in Lake Ontario to better understand potential reasons for the resurgence of their population. As a graduate student, he explored thiamine deficiency in California salmon and trout caused by shifts in the Pacific Ocean food web, which contributed to severe population declines of endangered species. He also participated in several research projects including lake trout food web interactions, the Great Lakes lake trout thiamine monitoring program, scuba diving in Lake Ontario to better understand early mortality of lake trout, and thiamine analysis of lake whitefish eggs from all the Great Lakes. Recently, Jarrod was hired by the NYSDEC as an aquatic biologist at the Lake Erie Fisheries Research Unit. He intends to spend several years aiding in the management of the sport and commercial fisheries of Lake Erie to maintain its productive fishery.

Departmental Scholar Awards

The Departmental Scholar Awards that follow are presented in recognition of outstanding achievement within the academic majors. Although award criteria differ among departments, faculty from each academic major nominate and select the Departmental Scholar based on performance in the classroom, scholarly activity outside the classroom, and commitment to the discipline and/or profession.

DEPARTMENT	RECIPIENT
AFRICAN AND AFRICAN AMERICAN STUDIES	Jaden Smith
ANTHROPOLOGY	Evelyn Patterson
ART	Grace Wentlent
BIOCHEMISTRY	Allyson Isereau
BIOLOGY	Angela Ferreras Feliz
CHEMISTRY	Trevor Gienau
COMMUNICATION	Keegan Beamish
COMPUTER INFORMATION SYSTEMS	Mackenzie Hiddie
COMPUTER SCIENCE	Ajay Bhattacharyya
CRIMINAL JUSTICE	Rebecca Allis
DANCE	Heather Boorman
EARTH SCIENCES: EARTH SCIENCES	Shannon Aubin
EARTH SCIENCES: GEOLOGY	Andrew Lembo-Ehms
EARTH SCIENCES: METEOROLOGY	Patricia Hutton
EARTH SCIENCE: WATER RESOURCES	Tess Eichner
ENGLISH	Emily Bishop
ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE AND ECOLOGY	Hailey Mitchell
HISTORY	Brady Giles
INTERNATIONAL STUDIES	Clara Rodriguez
JOURNALISM AND BROADCASTING	John Lutz
MATHEMATICS	Marina DelVecchio
MODERN LANGUAGES AND CULTURES	Clara Rodriquez
NEUROSCIENCE	Erica Andre
PHILOSOPHY	Amalia Morris
PHYSICS	Emma Sargent
POLITICAL SCIENCE	Payton Price
PSYCHOLOGY	Gavin Stone
SOCIOLOGY	Katherine Owens
THEATRE	Seth Bailey
WOMEN AND GENDER STUDIES	Jesse Hall