Five Indian American students at Harvard University have received the 2026 Thomas Temple Hoopes Prize, one of Harvard’s top honors for outstanding undergraduate research and thesis work. The award recognizes projects that demonstrate exceptional originality, analytical rigor, and scholarly contribution across disciplines.
Kashish Bastola was recognized for the thesis “The CIA’s ‘Young Turks’: Tibetan Nationalists in the Cold War University.” Supervised by Professor Erika Lee, the project examined the relationship between Tibetan nationalism and U.S. Cold War strategy, exploring how geopolitical interests shaped academic and political institutions during that era.
Sandhya Kumar earned the prize for “Enteric Neurons Rapidly Prime Systemic Immunity in Response to Mucosal Infection.” Supervised by Dr. Ruaidhri Jackson, the research focused on how the nervous system and immune system interact during infection, contributing to a growing body of work connecting neuroscience and immunology.
Ashini Modi was recognized for her thesis “Finding the Right Match Fast: Factors Influencing the Speed-Stringency-Stability Tradeoff in RecA-Mediated Homology Recognition During Double Strand Break Repair.” Supervised by Professor Mara Prentiss, the project explored molecular mechanisms involved in DNA repair, a field with implications for genetics, cancer research, and biotechnology.
Arundhati Oommen received the award for “When Luck Becomes the Arbiter: Responsibility, Risk, and the Limits of Outcome-Based Judgment.” Supervised by Professor Edward Hall and Professor Xiao-Li Meng, the thesis examined philosophical and statistical questions around risk, accountability, and how societies judge outcomes shaped partly by chance.
Gauri A. Sood won for “Who Is Human? Biases in Frontier Image Generation Models.” Supervised by Professor Mahzarin Banaji and Dr. Lindsey Davis, the project investigated bias in advanced AI image-generation systems and how these models represent human identity. The work reflects growing concern around fairness, representation, and ethics in artificial intelligence.
The Hoopes Prize is awarded annually through Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences and is considered one of the university’s highest undergraduate distinctions. Winners are selected through faculty nomination and review, with projects spanning humanities, sciences, public policy, technology, and interdisciplinary research.
Collectively, the projects recognized this year reflect some of the most pressing questions facing academia and society today, including geopolitics, immune response, genetics, ethics, and AI bias. The breadth of topics also highlights how undergraduate research at institutions like Harvard increasingly operates at graduate and professional levels of depth and complexity.
Key Takeaways About the Harvard Hoopes Prize Winners
- Five Indian American students received Harvard’s 2026 Hoopes Prize
- Research topics included Cold War politics, immunology, DNA repair, ethics, and AI bias
- Projects were selected through faculty nomination and university review
- The Hoopes Prize is among Harvard’s top undergraduate academic honors
- Winning theses reflected interdisciplinary and high-impact research areas
