Excellence in Honors Thesis Advising Award

“I would like to recommend Professor Raquel Kennon for this nomination in recognition of her outstanding mentorship and impact on my research and writing. Her guidance extended beyond just helping me find sources or refine my writing. She approached her mentorship with support and intentionality that shaped how I engaged with my research and ideas. Professor Kennon consistently challenged me to think more deeply. Rather than simply offering answers, she asked insightful questions that pushed me to clarify, expand, or reconsider arguments. This not only improved the quality of my research, but also helped develop my own analytical skills. Her feedback was always constructive and genuine, meeting me where I was at but pushing me further. A key aspect of her mentorship style was collaborative and open dialogue where my ideas could develop in a way that felt dynamic and genuine. This conversational approach helped me trust my own thinking and engage more deeply with my research. Most importantly, Professor Kennon inspired me to recognize the value of an interdisciplinary approach to literature, particularly in intersections with other perspectives and lived experiences. Her impact continues outside of the scope of the thesis, encouraging the direction of my future career and research, and influencing how I see my academic work as an ongoing, meaningful part of my life beyond the classroom. Professor Kennon’s mentorship has had a lasting impact on my academic development, and I believe she is deserving of this recognition.”

“I could not have asked for a more thoughtful, supportive, and instructive advisor throughout my thesis process. Dr. Schmidt gave me the opportunity to join a valuable study at the WNPRC for my honors thesis, and in the process has taught me immeasurably in scientific writing, research processes, working in a lab, and being a member of a team. Her mentorship style went far beyond filling a formal role; she consistently made me feel like a valuable member of the lab she was eager to share knowledge with. She included me in all planning aspects of lab projects, allowing me to gain as much insight as I could into the entire research process rather than just what was needed for my thesis. She also challenged me to understand and explain the “why” beyond project aspects rather than just telling me. Dr. Schmidt also found an ideal balance in checking in on my writing process but also entrusting with my work. This allowed me to develop my skills in writing and independence, and helped me have initiative in the research process. Dr. Schmidt’s commitment to undergraduate research is evident in the care she gives to students in her lab. I overall felt beyond supported and learned so much through writing my thesis, all due to the rigorous yet supportive environment she cultivated. Her mentorship has been instrumental in this process, and I strongly recommend her for this award.”

“I nominate my thesis advisor, Professor Matthew Otten, for the Excellence in Honors Thesis Advising. His mentorship through the difficult hurdles in the research process was of great support throughout my undergraduate research experience. He impacted my ability not to be afraid of presenting my results and pushed me to learn independently and confidently. His commitment to helping me perfect my academic writing helped me a lot with being ready to properly record all of the relevant information and present it in a cohesive manner. He even encouraged me to take a graduate course in physics, which was a very difficult, but very rewarding experience at the same time. He is committed to all of his students and is creating a great environment of researchers in his group, and it was great to see the group grow and expand profoundly.”

“Under Prof. Matthew Otten’s mentorship over the past year, I conducted independent research in quantum error mitigation for bosonic codes. The project resulted in a co-authored paper now under review at npj Quantum Information, a contributed talk at the 2026 APS March Meeting, and a citation in the Error Correction Zoo, a community reference catalog for quantum codes. These outcomes grew directly from Matt’s approach to undergraduate research. After a few warm-up activities, Matt encouraged me to find my own research topic and bring it back to him. From there, I drove the project from problem identification through simulation, analysis, writing and presenting. He mentors multiple undergraduates with this same expectation, trusting students with real problems where they set the direction. When I learned that many peers’ advisors assigned them fragments of a larger agenda, I understood how invaluable his trust was. His guidance showed up when it mattered most. When I hit a computational bottleneck — an optimization step that took days per iteration — Matt returned from a conference where he had spoken with Victor Albert, whose foundational work I was building on, and pointed me to a recent work on optimal recovery map. Once I implemented it, simulation times dropped from days to hours, and I could iterate, make mistakes and learn, much faster. This year shaped me as a researcher. I learned to develop physical intuition into a thesis, conduct literature analysis, run simulations, iterate on results, and communicate findings to both specialist and general audiences. Matt made this possible by being someone I could think freely around, ask honestly, and grow alongside.”

“Professor Remzi has shaped not only my thesis but the way I think about systems research. Remzi is co-author of Operating Systems: Three Easy Pieces, a textbook that has taught operating systems to hundreds of thousands of students worldwide. Working with him was the single most formative experience of my undergraduate career. What makes Remzi exceptional as a mentor is how he guided me from the very beginning. When I was still figuring out what “pod startup latency” even meant and how to measure it, he sent me key research papers that showed me what rigorous container measurement looks like and where the field’s open questions were. He helped me understand what success would look like for this project and gave me a framework for isolating and measuring each stage of the pod lifecycle. That early guidance shaped every decision I made afterwards: building a two-surface measurement pipeline, discovering and eliminating three silent measurement bugs, and running a same-environment replication that confirmed my model’s slope within 0.1%. None of that would exist without his willingness to invest time pointing me in the right direction before I even knew the right questions to ask. Remzi’s influence extends beyond technical guidance. He made time for a senior thesis student even while running a major research group, and held me to the same standards he holds his PhD students. I leave this thesis with a durable sense of what serious systems research looks like. Remzi gave me that, and I cannot think of a more deserving recipient of this award.”

“When I first began my honors thesis, I had an idea I was excited about, but I didn’t yet know how to turn it into meaningful research. My advisor, Dr. Karen Schloss, completely transformed that uncertainty into one of the most intellectually rewarding experiences of my undergraduate career. From the very beginning, she adapted her mentorship to my learning style and helped me grow from there. What I appreciate the most about her mentorship style is her remarkable ability to ask questions – an ability that pushes you to think critically without ever feeling overwhelmed. Whether I was refining my research design, troubleshooting challenges, or reframing my hypotheses, her guidance was always thoughtful, encouraging, and attentive to the tiniest of details. What sets her apart is not just her expertise but also her commitment to mentorship. She created an environment where I felt supported enough to explore different methods and independent enough to develop my own voice as a researcher. Her feedback was always detailed, consistently enabling me to produce work that was clearer, stronger, and more rigorous than I thought I was capable of. Beyond the thesis itself, her mentorship has had a lasting impact on how I approach my future goals. She has helped shape my confidence as a researcher and my desire to continue pursuing research beyond undergraduate study. I am incredibly grateful to have the opportunity to pursue my graduate studies as a PhD student under Dr. Schloss’s mentorship, and I cannot think of a more deserving candidate for this recognition of excellence in advising.”