2026 End-of-Year Reception Honors Graduate and Undergraduate Student Prize Winners

RLL faculty, instructors, and students gathered in Classics 110 for the annual end-of-year reception Wednesday, May 20th. Both undergraduate and graduate students were honored for their achievements from the 2025-2026 academic year.

After a welcome address from Department Chair Miguel Martinez, the awards and recognitions were presented by various faculty members, including Maria Anna Mariana, Pauline Goul, Noel Blanco-Mourelle, and Armando Maggi.

A comprehensive list of awardees is included below. Keep scrolling to see the three winning photos from the RLL 2025-2026 Study Abroad Photo Contest!

Congratulations to all of our amazing students for their remarkable work throughout the year. Wishing the best of luck to our Class of 2026 graduates as they embark on their new chapters!

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Undergraduate Student Honors & Prizes

Neff Prize for Excellence in the Study of French Literature and Culture: Ernest Leong: “Le point de vue du peintre : écriture picturale et regard moral chez La Bruyère” (Norman)

• Honorable Mention: Alexis Truta: “La bande dessinée marocaine francophone : créativité artistique etengagements sociopolitiques" (Lyamlahy)

Samuel T. Fleck Prize for the best paper written by a student minoring or majoring in Italian: Giacomo Mevio; "We Are All Migrants: Shared Vulnerability, Visibility, and the Criminalization of Care in Emanuele Crialese’s Terraferma” written in ITAL 23880: Migration, Identity, and Belonging in Italian and Spanish Cinema (Vegna/Santana)

HLBS Award for the Best Honors Thesis or Essay by a graduating Major: Elena Eisenstadt: "El umbral de la conversión. La vida múltiple de Cristóbal Méndez, judío sefardita (1624 – 1703)" (Martinez)

Fulbright Alternate, Alexis Truta: Teaching Assistant Award by the French Government

FLAG: Sadie Davis-Suskind (Italian Minor); Grant to Italy

Global Honors: Alexis Truta (French Major), Jack Foley (Spanish Major), Elena Eisenstadt (Spanish Major), Ana Emilia Davalos (ML Major), Francisco Barradas (Spanish Major), Hayley Yeung (French Major- AUT Grad), Michelle Oritz (Spanish Major), Eden Anne Bauer (French Major), Nicole Millan Ortiz (ML Major), Alex Liakeas (Spanish Major), Ruby Martinez (Spanish Minor), Eric Stehmann (Spanish Minor), Winston Park (Spanish Minor), Liv Moreno (Spanish Minor), Ellie Kalili-Felbinger (French Minor)

Phi Beta Kappa (Election to Phi Beta Kappa represents a commitment to the liberal arts and sciences, laying the foundations of personal freedom, scientific inquiry, liberty of conscience, and creative endeavor. Members demonstrate intellectual integrity, tolerance for other viewpoints, and a broad range of academic interests.)

• Juniors: Mia Bocian (French Minor), Cooper Costello (French Major), Nina Dolenac (Spanish Minor)

• Seniors: Isabel Alvarez (Spanish Minor), Mella Bettag (Spanish Minor), Milla Dobrovolska-Ivanova (Spanish Major), Ernest Leong (French Major), Alex Liakeas (Spanish Major), Kelli Lynch (French Minor), Nicole Millan Ortiz (ML Major), Alexis Truta (French Major), Sarah Willrich (Spanish Minor)

RLL Photo Prize Contest Winners

1st Prize: "The Bedazzled Doves” Lucas Ribeiro (Andalusia, Spain)

2nd Prize: “Steps Up”; Sofia Shewfelt (Basque Country, Spain)

3rd Prize: “Close to home at the Westernmost point of Africa.” Margaret Nakiganda (Dakar, Senegal)

 

French and Francophone Studies Graduates (*Graduating with honors)

Majors

• Eden Anne Bauer*
• Clara Deimling
• Karolina Dorosz
• Bri Kay*
• Ernest Leong*
• Alexis Truta*

Minors

• Tolade Bademosi
• Jonny Brinkley
• Ellie Kalil-Felbinger
• Ahna Kim
• Kelli Lynch
• Ana Sofia Meza
• Olivia Shanler

 

Multiple Language Graduates (*Graduating with honors)

Majors

• Ana Emilia Davalos*
  • Spanish, French, Italian, and Catalan
• Lia Guerrero*
  • Spanish, Portuguese
• Nicole Millan Ortiz*
  • French, Italian

Minors

• Ishan Kumar
  • Spanish, Portuguese

 

Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian Studies Graduates (*Graduating with honors)

Majors

• Sara Afzal
• Francisco Barradas
• Milla Dobrovolska-Ivanova
• Elena Eisenstadt*
• Jack Foley
• Ashley Garcia
• Phoebe He
• Maya Kini
• Cameron Landin
• Victoria-Grace Leconte
• Alex Liakeas
• Lupita Lopez
• Mateo Lopez
• Michelle Ortiz
• Anna Perez*
• Neil Rowe

Minors

• Isabel Alvarez
• Mella Bettag
• Riley Bruce
• Maya Buckley
• Alyson Contreras
• Jasmine Cruz
• Luisana Encarnacion Amador
• Leonardo Giorgini
• Calvin Guerrero
• Alexandra Hamza
• Megan Maloney
• Ruby Martinez
• Liv Moreno
• Winston Park
• Adi Roura
• Manuel Santiz Navarrete
• Sage Smith
• Eric Stehmann
• Ricky Waite
• Sarah Willrich

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Graduate Student Honors and Prizes

Leora Baum: 2025-26 Franke Institute for the Humanities Affiliated Doctoral Fellow; 2026-27 Teaching Fellow in RLL

Gabriela Beduschi Zanfelice: 2026-27 François Furet Travel Grant; 2025 Tinker Field Research Grant

Cole Botta: 2026 UChicago Graduate Student Literary Translation Prize finalist

Yuting Cai: 2025 Marguerite Fellowship Program; 2025-26 ENS Exchange Student

Enya Calibuso: 2026-27 Franke Residential Dissertation Completion Fellowship

Cristina Esteves-Wolff: 2025-26 Franke Institute for the Humanities Affiliated Doctoral Fellow

Eve Glasergreen; 2025-26 François Furet Travel Grant

Etienne Grateau: 2025-26 ENS Exchange Student

Esther Kim: 2025-26 Stuart Tave Course Design Award; 2025 Division of the Arts & Humanities Conference Travel Grant; 2026 Travel Grant, La Méditerranée globale, National Museum of Ethnology in Tokyo

Alessandro Minnucci: 2026-27 Provost Dissertation Completion Fellowship

Caterina Nicodemo: 2025-26 Franke Institute for the Humanities Affiliated Doctoral Fellow; 2026-27 Teaching Fellow in RLL

Léon Pradeau: 2025-26 Franke Institute for the Humanities Affiliated Doctoral Fellow; 2026-27 Teaching Fellow in RLL

Andrea Reed-Leal: 2025-26 Franke Institute for the Humanities Affiliated Doctoral Fellow; 2025-26 Princeton University Library Research Grant; 2026-27 Teaching Fellow in RLL

Matthew Stahlman: 2026-27 François Furet Travel Grant

Quentin Vaganay: 2026-27 ENS Exchange Student

Jean Vallejo González: 2026-27 Teaching Fellow in RLL

Reached candidacy: Quentin Vaganay, Yuyang Zhang

Class of 2025-2026

• Lizette Arellano (HLBS): "Un retrato me has pedido": Gender, Beauty, and the Female Gaze in the Spanish Golden Age (Director: Frederick de Armas); with honors
• Ysé Bourdon (HLBS): Lenguas (latino)americanas. Entre literatura y diplomacia: vindicaciones por un universal plural. João Guimarães Rosa y Octavio Paz en la alargada Segunda Guerra Mundial (1936-1948) (Director: Dain Borges)
• Ryan Brown (French): Self-Writing as Self-Defense: The Literary Role of Judicial Proof in the French Enlightenment (Director: Robert Morrisey); with honors
• Fara Taddei (Italian): "Le Muse son donne": sessualità, comunità e lettura al tempo del Decameron (Director: Justin Steinberg)