Graduate Awards

At the end of each academic year, the department gives two awards recognizing the work of two or more outstanding individuals.

The Bede Liu Best Dissertation Award is given to a recent graduate of the program who has earned the Ph.D. in the preceding year. (Prior to 2016 it was known as the Best Dissertation Award).

The Early Career Graduate Award is given to a student who has completed the second year of the program with an outstanding achievements in coursework, research and the general exam.

 The recipients are listed below by award-year.

Bede Liu Best Dissertation Award


2025

Xiangyu Qi
advised by Prateek Mittal

2024

Lila Rodgers 
advised by Nathalie de Leon 

2023

Zheng Liu 
advised by Kaushik Sengupta

2022

Hongyang Jia
advised by Naveen Verma

2021

Xuyang Lu
advised by Kaushik Sengupta

2020

Prashanth Venkataram
advised by Alejandro Rodriguez

2019

Mattias Fitzpatrick
advised by Andrew Houck

2018

Jingbo Liu
advised by Sergio VerdĂș

Tiffany Moy
advised by Naveen Verma

2017

Pramod Subramanyan
advised by Sharad Malik

2016

Christopher Brinton
advised by Mung Chiang

2015

Sonika Johri
advised by Ravindra Bhatt

2014

Victoria Kostina
advised by Sergio VerdĂș

Yang Liu
advised by Mansour Shayegan

Pramod Subramanyan *17 Early Career Graduate Award


2025

Minhao Jin

Lodovico Rossi

2024

Ruiyi Shen

2023

Atsutse Kludze

Tianhao Wang

2022

Shikhar Tuli

Sophia Yoo

2021

Aditi Jha

2020

Pranav Thekke Madathil

2019

Hooman Saeidi

2018

Zihuai Zheng

2017

Fengyu Zhang

2016

Prashanth Venkataram

2015

Ross Kerner

Changchang Liu

2014

Neereja Sundaresan

 

Distinguished PhD Graduate Alumnus Award


2025

Urbashi Mitra *94 
advised by H. Vincent Poor

2024

Avi Wigderson *83 
advised by Richard Jay Lipton

2023

Leah Jamieson *77 
advised by Kenneth Steiglitz

2022

Divya Arora *07 
advised by Niraj Jha

2021

John Smee *00
advised by Stuart Schwartz

2020

Vladimir Bulovic *98
advised by Stephen Forrest

2019

Al Hero *84 
advised by Stuart Schwartz

2018

Yan Huo *94 
advised by Ravin Bhatt

2017

Yanbing Li *98
advised by Wayne Wolf

2016

Anthony Ephremides *71
advised by John Thomas

2015

Yu Chen *99
advised by Sigurd Wagner

2014

Min Wu *01
advised by Bede Liu

2013

Karthik Vasanth *95
advised by Sigurd Wagner

2012

Laurence G. Walker '70

2011

H. Vincent Poor *70
advised by John Thomas