Each year at commencement, we recognize our graduate, master’s, and undergraduate students for their academic and research accomplishments.
The following 2026 Chemistry & Biochemistry Commencement Awards were presented to our students at the department’s annual commencement ceremony. Congratulations to all the recipients!
We are incredibly grateful to our donors, whose generous gifts make these awards possible!
GRADUATE STUDENT COMMENCEMENT AWARDS
Herbert Newby McCoy Commencement Awards
Mai Abdusamad (Torres group), AJ Addae (Caram/P. Weiss groups), Nesibe Akmansen Kalayci (Tolbert group), William Borrelli (Schwartz group), Belle Coffey (Caram group), Gabriella Cooper (Harran group), Brady Dehnert (Kwon group), Jeremy Dworkin (Kwon group), Caitlyn Fick (Srivastava group), Jordan Gonzalez (Garg group), Emma Greene (Harran group), Prairie Hammer (Sletten group), Grace Kim (Tolbert group), Paige Kotowitz (Sletten group), Eric Yu Lin (Sletten group), Helen H. Lin (Sletten group), Xinyu Liu (Rubin/Tolbert groups), Aleksandras Lotuzas (Harran group), Lajoyce Mboning (Bouchard/Pellegrini groups), Emily B. Mobley (Sletten group), Ethan T. Ng (Sletten group, not pictured), Glenn Nurwono (Park/Tang groups), Eileen Olivares (Loo group), Judah Raab (Doyle group), Madeline Ruos (Doyle group), Georgia Maxine Scherer (Garg group), Zachary Schuman (Liu group), Jingran Shan (Garcia-Garibay/Houk groups), Jingwen Sun (Liu group), Kodi Thurber (Tolbert group), Sophia Uemura (Kaner group), Shelby Danielle Vexler (Chen group), Carolyn Wu (Quinlan group), Zhiyin (Tara) Yang (Sautet group), Qingyang Zhou (Houk group), and Ling Lan (Katie) Zhu (Sletten group).
MASTERS STUDENT AWARDS
Excellence in Research Award
Matthew Hendrickson (Athavale group), Kilmer Bennewitz (Diaconescu group), and Xiangbeier Li (Nava group)
OUTSTANDING CAPSTONE RESEARCH AWARD
Christian Dueñas (Kaner group), Fengya Jin (Kaner group), and William Prater (Andrews group)
UNDERGRADUATE STUDENT AWARDS
ACS DIC Undergraduate Award in Inorganic Chemistry
Colin Leong (Shafaat group)
Arthur Furst Commencement Award
Hannah Auchynnik (Spokoyny group, not pictured), Cheyenne Fernandes (Sletten group), Doyeon Han (Tolbert group, not pictured), Nicholas Machin (Rodriguez group), Gus Mantone (Athavale group), Donovan Southall (Rodriguez group), and Jane Spellman (Petrovic group).
Daniel E. Atkinson and Charles A. West Commencement Award
This award honors Professors Daniel Atkinson and Charles West for their significant contributions to biochemistry at UCLA, their valued mentorship, and their impact on the research community and education.
Anna Chassion, Madeline Hoekstra (Jacobsen group), and Lillian Ott (Mohanty group).
Dolores C. Southam Commencement Award
This award is named in memory of Dolores Cannon Southam, who, as a UCLA undergraduate, worked for Professor Chris Foote. In honor of Dolores, this award is given in recognition of outstanding achievement in research.
Soobin Lim (Tinoco Valencia group), Idaly Maldonado (Gutierrez group, not pictured), Sydney Nguyen (Petrovic group), Kasey Parks (Schmitt group), Jackson Parr (not pictured), Kieran Pearson (Diaconescu group), Henley Roy (Petrovic group), Margaret Sasere (C. Clarke group), Tiffany Thai (DeWeese group), and Jon Trujillo.
James Blaine Ramsey Commencement Award
These awards honor Professor Emeritus James Blaine Ramsey (1892-1965) and are awarded to outstanding undergraduate students in the UCLA Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry.
Josh Hong (Rubin group)
Maria Rebecca and Maureen Bellettini Commencement Awards
Established in 2019 by the Bellettini family, this award recognizes outstanding undergraduate students studying chemistry in the department.
Isabel Rosales (Diaconescu group), Joanna Sung (C. Clarke group), Lauren Van Auken (Garg group), and Anna Yan (Schmitt group).
The Department is extremely grateful to our generous donors and alumni whose support makes these many award programs possible.
To learn how to contribute to our student departmental award funds or to establish a new named award or fellowship, please contact the Chair’s Office, cbchair@ucla.edu, (310) 825-3958. Your gift of any size will directly impact one of our world-class students and aspiring scientists!
Penny Jennings, UCLA Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry, penjen@g.ucla.edu.
Many thanks to Anna Minasyan for creating the images for this article.
