185 seniors and 62 juniors were elected to the University’s chapter of Phi Beta Kappa this spring, according to Stephen Merriam Foley, associate professor of English and comparative literature and the secretary of the University’s chapter.
Click to jump to the list of elected juniors or seniors.
Phi Beta Kappa, according to Foley, is the nation’s “oldest and most prestigious academic honors organization.”
Founded in 1776 at the College of William and Mary, “Phi Beta Kappa seeks to encourage intellectual distinction among undergraduates by recognizing academic excellence in the course of a broad liberal education,” reads a press release announcing the elected students.
According to Foley, only 10% of higher education institutions in the U.S. have Phi Beta Kappa chapters. Established in 1830, Brown’s chapter is the sixth oldest in the country.
Students are selected through a “highly selective, merit-based invitation process” that aims to honor “the best and brightest liberal arts and sciences undergraduates,” according to the honor society’s website.
At Brown, the top 12% of students in any graduating year will be elected to Phi Beta Kappa, Foley wrote in the press release. 3% of these students are elected during their junior year, while the remaining 9% are elected as graduating seniors.
Until 2022, only the top 10% of students in each class were elected to Phi Beta Kappa, The Herald previously reported. The chapter expanded the society in hopes of making elections more inclusive and “reflective of the student body at Brown,” Richard Rambuss, professor of English and chapter president, told The Herald at the time.
Students were notified of their election to the society in an email sent on March 31. Some students, like Owen Lockwood ’25, had not heard of the society until receiving the email. “I did not know what (Phi Beta Kappa) was but after looking it up and consulting with my parents I was moderately happy about it,” Lockwood wrote in an email to The Herald.
“I feel that there aren’t many opportunities to be recognized for your academic record at Brown, so I was happy to receive some type of academic honors,” Larisa Esposito ’24, who was inducted to Phi Beta Kappa last month, wrote in an email to The Herald.
In addition to Phi Beta Kappa, “I appreciate that Brown offers other types of recognition for students who have excelled in other ways, like doing research or getting involved in the broader community,” Esposito added. “Making distinctions among students based on academic performance alone is becoming an outdated measure.”
In order to qualify for Phi Beta Kappa, at least 40% of a candidate’s course work must take place in the arts, humanities, social sciences, cognitive linguistic & psychological sciences or public health, The Herald previously reported.
Esposito appreciated this approach, as “receiving a well-rounded education with the opportunity to explore multiple departments is what attracted” her to Brown, she wrote.
In previous years, students who were elected to Phi Beta Kappa were required to pay a one-time $85 membership fee to officially join the society. But this year, this membership fee was waived to all students by “a partnership between the Rhode Island Alpha of Phi Beta Kappa and the College,” according to an email sent out to elected students.
“Given that the membership fee was waived for students who were elected this year, I didn't see a reason not to join,” Esposito added.
“I think Phi Beta Kappa is useful as a sign of academic achievement on a resume, and I am hoping that it connects me with a community of other college students and alumni in the future,” Esposito wrote.
Those elected with the senior class are as follows:
Madeleine Adriance
Yukti Agarwal
William Albright
Nicholas Alioto-Pier
Njari Anderson
Zeeshan Andoh
Kashif Ansari
Eliza Atwood
Anika Bahl (former Herald columnist)
Saadhya Bahudodda
Noah Ball-Burack
Janelle Barnett
Cecilia Barron
Ahad Bashir
Augustus Bayard (former Herald senior editor)
Joseph Belfield (former Herald sales general manager)
Olivia Bemis-Driscoll
Jacquelyn Benjes
Emma Berman
Cassandra Berns
Sophia Block
Elsa Block
Finn Blomquist Eggerling
Eliana Blumberg
Fiametta Boffey
Adam Brandt
Noble Brigham (former Herald staff writer)
Emory Brinson
Anna Brodsky
Paloma Burgos
Alexander Burt
Sophie Butcher
Marielle Buxbaum
Madeline Canfield
Matthew Chan
Naya Chang
Jadis Chen
Chloe Chen
Jennifer Cheng
Alaina Cherry
Po Wei Chiu
Seoeun Choi
Jun Young Chung
Cosmo Coen
Liam Cohen
Olivia Cohen
Annika Coleman
Stanley Conklin
Jenna Cooley
Samara Cummings
Logan Danker
Gabrielle Day
Jordan De Padova
Nuruliman Dhar
Imran Dharamsi
Evan Donnachie
Ethan Drake
Luca Duclos-Orsello
Claudia Dyer
Larisa Esposito
Nina Faynshtayn
Madeleine Florida
Hayley Gasbarro
Michael Geisinger
Yuhao Geng
Max Goldstein
Matthew Granquist
Zoey Grant
Alisha Guerrero
William Guo
Claire Hightower
Jaehyun Hong
Amelia Jarell
Renny Jiang
Qile Jiang
Moksha Kachhia
Joseph Kahn
Arushi Kalpande
Lucia Kan-Sperling
Chaerim Kang
Esha Kataria
Anushka Kataruka
Catherine Kawaja
Amber Keown-Lang
Emma Keuler
Revyn Kim
Elisa Kim
Ekaterina Komarova
Nicole Konecke
Mia Lane
Mary Lau
Caleb Lazar (former Herald senior editor)
Jillian Lederman
Alexandra Lehman
Canqi Li (former Herald senior staff writer)
Annie Liang
Andrew Lu
Alison Lu
Lia Lubit
Lorenzo Mahoney
Taylor Marchant
Emily Mayo
Alexander Mayo
Justin McAllister
Ashley McCoy
Brynn McGlinchey
Isaac McKenna
Aakash Mehta
Juliana Merullo
Amelia Michael
Ethan Minkoff
Nasim Mohammadzadeh
Andrew Morehead
Sarosh Nadeem
Menaka Naidu
Hyunjee Nam
Olivia Nash
Margaret Nesi
Zimu Niu
Megan O'Connor (former Herald copy editor)
Roshan Parikh
Chelyn Park
Elijah Parsons
Gabriela Paz-Soldan
Paige Pedrero
Ben Piekarz
Daniel Poloner
Colby Porter
Alexander Pralea
Eli Pullaro
Margherita Rampichini
Rebekah Rest (current Herald staff writer)
Zachary Rogers
Matthew Rose
Ariela Rosenzweig
Joseph Rotella
Annabel Roth
Anne-Emilie Rouffiac
Haley Rowe
Imaad Said
Georgia Salke
Kate Salke
Nicole Samios
Anna Sander
Anna Luiza Sant'Anna Arantes
Nicholas Sanzi
Ya'el Sarig (current Herald senior staff writer)
Yuna Sato
Cecile Schreidah
Charlize Sentosa
Giordana Serretta Fiorentino
Angela Sha
Kolya Shields
Rita Slaoui
Ainsley Smith
Claudia Spelman
Anjali Srinivasan
Ariel Stein
Isabel Stronski
Riley Suh
William Sun
Julia Terra-Salomao
Claire Thompson
Benjamin Thornton
Lily Tran
Elliott Trendell
Keanna Vaitohi
Sashank Varanasi
Julia Villani
David Vojtaskovic
Katherine Waisel
Fengyuan Wang
Chongmo Wang
Anne Wang
Emily Wang
Xiru Wei
Viviana Wei
Anik Willig
Chuyi Zhang
Jonathan Zhang
Caroline Zhang
Yihan Zheng
Lily Zhou
Xucong Zhu
Estelle Zhu
Those elected with the junior class are as follows:
Artem Agvanian
Michelle Alas Molina
Louisa Cavicchi
Nishitha Chaayanath
Nevin Chin
Elvin Choi
Jonathan Citron
Charles Clynes (current Herald managing editor)
Kenneth Daici
Vaibhav Duggirala
Calvin Eng (current Herald developer)
Jeremy Fleming
Keelin Gaughan
Eric Gottlieb
Isabel Greider
Oliver Grynberg
Mia Hamilton
Aidan Harbison
Jacob Hirschhorn
Amelia Holl
Katherine Jain (current Herald University News editor)
Maggie Jiang
Rachel Kamphaus
Kiana Kelii
Alexander Lee
Paul Lestz
Andrew Li
Emma Lo
Owen Lockwood
Jia Ning Ma
Isabella Mandell
Cole McCartney
Quetz Medina
Neil Mehta (current Herald editor-in-chief)
Mira Mehta
Benjamin Moshes (current Herald finance general manager)
Daniel Newgarden
Jared Ong
Cerulean Ozarow (current Herald copy editor)
Melissa Ponce
Tanya Qu
Sumaiya Ramsaroop
Myles Ringel
Laura Romig
Anna Roth
Kyoko Saito
Haley Sandlow (former Herald University News and Science and Research editor)
Dylan Sciscoe
Fengyu Seah
Minh Khai Spencer
William Suh
Kaila Sung
Logan Tullai
Charles Usadi
Ekaterina Vanurina
Madeline Wachsmuth
Samuel Walhout
Xiaokang Xue
Alexander Zeng
Mason Zhang
Yongkuan Zhang
Daniel Zheng
Clarification: This article's language has been updated to include students whose class years may fall on midyear graduation dates.
Julianna Chang is a University News Editor who oversees the academics and advising and student government beats. A sophomore from the Bay Area, Julianna is studying Biology and Political Science on the pre-medical track. When she's not in class or in the office, she can be found eating some type of noodle soup and devouring bad books.
