MIT’s School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (SHASS) has announced that 35 MIT undergraduate sophomores and juniors have been named Burchard Scholars for 2024.
Elected by the Burchard Committee from a large pool of impressive applicants, all students chosen for the program have demonstrated excellence and engagement in the humanistic fields, but can major in science, design, and engineering fields as well as the humanities, arts, and social sciences.
In the course of this calendar year, the Burchard Scholars will attend seminar dinners with members of the SHASS faculty, during which they will have the chance to engage with the faculty and one another. The program is designed to both broaden horizons for promising students and provide scholars the chance to engage in friendly but challenging discussions in which to hone skills for expressing, critiquing, and debating ideas with peers and mentors.
During the course of the calendar year, the scholars also attend several cultural events in the Boston metropolitan area.
The key features of these dinners are presentations by SHASS’ faculty, on topics ranging from nuclear security to an economic view of artificial intelligence to cross-cultural histories in centuries-old manuscripts. Drawing on the school’s vast and varied fields of expertise, the seminars offer near-endless avenues of exploration for ambitious scholars.
It is perhaps no surprise that a high percentage of the MIT students who receive Rhodes, Marshall, and other major scholarships and fellowships are former Burchard Scholars. “These students are an extraordinary group of MIT undergraduates," says Margery Resnick, associate professor of literature and director of the Burchard program. “They are thoughtful, smart, and enthusiastic about the opportunity to discuss a wide range of ideas with faculty and fellow students.”
The 2024 Burchard Scholars, their academic years, and majors are:
- Mustafa Al-Obaidi, junior, mechanical engineering;
- Saul Balcarcel-Salazar, junior, physics;
- Miguel Buitrago, sophomore, philosophy;
- Julia Camacho, junior, urban studies and planning;
- Kaelyn Dunnell, junior, literature;
- Isabella Gandara, junior, biological engineering;
- Renee Ge, junior, electrical engineering and computer science;
- Graham Guite, sophomore, biological engineering;
- Janka Hamori, junior, electrical engineering and computer science;
- Vivian Hir, junior, electrical engineering and computer science;
- Sashko Horokh, junior, mathematics;
- Janvi Huria, junior, electrical engineering and computer science;
- Emily Kang, junior, electrical engineering and computer science;
- Kelly Kim, sophomore, literature;
- Esther Kinyanjui, junior, electrical engineering and computer science;
- Alice Le, junior, writing;
- Rumi Lee, junior, electrical engineering and computer science;
- Effaima Longe, junior, chemistry;
- Tarang Lunawat, junior, electrical engineering and computer science;
- Ariel McGee, sophomore, writing;
- Leena Mehendale, sophomore, biological engineering;
- Zev Moore, sophomore, management;
- Franklin Nguyen, junior, electrical engineering and computer science;
- Mishael Quraishi, junior, materials science and engineering;
- Syd Robinson, junior, materials science and engineering;
- James Rock, sophomore, political science;
- Katie Spivakovsky, sophomore, Biological Engineering;
- Mohamed Suufi, junior, electrical engineering and computer science;
- Alex Tang, sophomore, biology;
- Margaret Wang, junior, mathematics;
- Ashley Williams, junior, electrical engineering and computer science;
- Felicia Xiao, junior, physics;
- Kaitlyn Yanna, junior, nuclear science and engineering;
- Elizabeth Zhang, sophomore, electrical engineering and computer science; and
- Grace Zhang, junior, mathematics.
