“I congratulate this class on the successful completion of your Princeton academic journey," said department chair James Sturm, the Stephen R. Forrest Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering. "I am especially proud of your work where you had to build on the basics from classes and go off-script. You had figure it out on your own and learn from each other — late at night in Car Lab, in your senior theses and independent work, in hackathons and Princeton Racing Electric and other student-led activities.”

Director of undergraduate studies Prateek Mittal, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, urged the graduates to remain ambitious in the face of uncertainty and to use their training to be resilient in the face of failure.

"Go for the moonshot," Mittal said. "You have the ability to truly change the world. Have the confidence to make bold decisions."

The event was held in person and on campus for the first time in three years. Due to the sharp rise of Covid-19 cases in March 2020, the Class of 2022 pivoted from regular instruction to remote instruction during the spring semester of their sophomore year. This cohort’s junior year was primarily remote, with some students living on campus and carrying out independent work. The whole class completed their senior year and thesis projects entirely on campus.

Hoang Le received the department's top honor, the Charles Ira Young Memorial Tablet and Medal, recognizing his extraordinary research efforts. Le explored new platforms for quantum bits with his adviser Andrew Houck, professor of electrical and computer engineering. Le also won the Engineering Physics Senior Thesis Award.

Cole Becker and Manya Kapoor won the John Ogden Bigelow, Jr. Prize, awarded to those students who have shown the greatest improvement since entering Princeton.

Matthew Shih won the G. David Forney, Jr. Prize, awarded for outstanding accomplishments in communication science, systems and signals.

Youqi Gang and Janet Wong won the Peter Mark Prize, awarded for outstanding accomplishments in electronic materials and devices.

Tobias Zypman won the Optical Engineering Award of Excellence, awarded for outstanding accomplishments in optical engineering.

Petru Cotrut won the Hisashi Kobayashi Prize, awarded for outstanding accomplishments in computing.

William Makinen won the Bradley Dickinson Award for System Design, awarded for outstanding accomplishments in the design and implementation of complex electronic systems.

Nishaad Khedkar, Dhyan Patell, Nicole Meister and Ben Herber each won a Sigma Xi Book Award for Outstanding Research.

Of the 39 graduates, 10 earned the University's academic honors; eight more earned high honors; and five students earned highest honors.

Fourteen of the graduates were inducted into one or more honor society: Sigma Xi, for distinguished scientific research; Tau Beta Pi, recognizing outstanding engineering achievements; and Phi Beta Kappa, the nation's preeminent liberal arts honor society.

Later in the afternoon, the School of Engineering and Applied Science held a separate ceremony to recognize the graduating seniors as part of the full BSE program. SEAS selected three ECE students for awards:

Hoang Le won the Lore von Jaskowsky Memorial Prize, honoring his dedication and tenacity as a researcher and his all-around contributions to campus life, and the Jeffrey O. Kephart '80 Prize in Engineering Physics, for the outstanding quality of his work on superconducting qubits, including device design, fabrication and error correction.

Cole Becker won the George J. Mueller Award, recognizing his outstanding combination of scholarly and athletic achievements. Becker was captain of the men's squash team and was named Academic All-Ivy. He focused on decision making in machine learning systems for his thesis.

Nicole Meister won the Calvin Dodd MacCracken Senior Thesis Award, honoring her work as distinctively innovative. She developed a way to make computer vision applications less biased around gender norms, thinking carefully not only about technical solutions but their downstream effects on society.

Princeton ECE's Great Class of 2022

The full list of electrical and computer engineering students graduating in the Class of 2022, along with any honors and awards they received, is below:

Musab Almajnouni

Cole Becker
High Honors, Sigma Xi
John Ogden Bigelow, Jr. Prize
George J. Mueller Award (SEAS)

David Booth

Mayalen Brock
Honors

Mark Castellano

Joe Chen
Honors

Jackie Chu

Petru Cotrut
High Honors, Sigma Xi    
Hisashi Kobayashi Prize

Youqi Gang
Highest Honors, Phi Beta Kappa, Tau Beta Pi, Sigma Xi
Peter Mark Prize

Sonia Gu
High Honors

Ben Herber
High Honors, Sigma Xi
Sigma Xi Book Award for Outstanding Research

Gerald Huang
High Honors

Warren James

Manya Kapoor
High Honors, Sigma Xi
John Ogden Bigelow, Jr. Prize

Nishaad Khedkar
High Honors, Tau Beta Pi, Sigma Xi
Sigma Xi Book Award for Outstanding Research

Hoang Le
Highest Honors, Phi Beta Kappa, Sigma Xi
Charles Ira Young Memorial Tablet and Medal, Engineering Physics Senior Thesis Award
Lore von Jaskowsky Memorial Prize, Jeffrey O. Kephart '80 Prize in Engineering Physics (SEAS)

Cindy Li

Cynthia Liang

William Makinen
Honors, Sigma Xi
Bradley Dickinson Award for System Design

Nicole Meister
Honors, Sigma Xi
Sigma Xi Book Award for Outstanding Research
Calvin Dodd MacCracken Senior Thesis Award (SEAS)

Aaron Nguyen
Honors

Raphael Njoku

Begum Ortaoglu
High Honors

Maria Clara Otani
Honors

Dhyan Patell
Honors, Sigma Xi
Sigma Xi Book Award for Outstanding Research

Andrew Paul

Linda Pucurimay

Rikita Ramprasad

Sabrina Reguyal
Honors, Sigma Xi

Colin Reilly

Damian Rodriguez Regalado

Jack Scherlag

Matthew Shih
Highest Honors, Phi Beta Kappa, Tau Beta Pi, Sigma Xi
G. David Forney, Jr. Prize

Will Stevens

Elie Svoll

Ryan Thorpe
Honors

Janet Wang
Highest Honors, Tau Beta Pi, Sigma Xi
Peter Mark Prize

Vincent Yang
Honors

Tobias Zypman
Highest Honors, Tau Beta Pi, Sigma Xi
Optical Engineering Award of Excellence