Five Indian American students at Harvard have been awarded the 2026 Thomas Temple Hoopes Prize for their exceptional undergraduate work, each receiving $5,000 to support their future studies.
Five Indian American students from Harvard University have been honored with the 2026 Thomas Temple Hoopes Prize, recognizing their excellence in undergraduate scholarship and teaching. The recipients—Kashish Bastola, Sandhya Kumar, Ashini Modi, Arundhati Oommen, and Gauri A. Sood—are among 71 students and faculty members awarded this prestigious prize.
The Hoopes Prize is awarded primarily for outstanding senior theses, and each of the winning students will receive $5,000 to support their future academic endeavors. Faculty members who nominated the winners will receive $2,000 each.
Kashish Bastola, hailing from McKinney, Texas, earned the prize for his thesis titled “The CIA’s ‘Young Turks’: Tibetan Nationalists in the Cold War University.” His work was supervised and nominated by Professor Erika Lee.
Sandhya Kumar, from Tallahassee, Florida, was recognized for her thesis, “Enteric Neurons Rapidly Prime Systemic Immunity in Response to Mucosal Infection,” which was supervised by Dr. Ruaidhri Jackson.
Ashini Modi, representing Louisiana, received the award for her project entitled “Finding the Right Match Fast: Factors Influencing the Speed-Stringency-Stability Tradeoff in RecA-Mediated Homology Recognition During Double Strand Break Repair.” Her work was guided by Professor Mara Prentiss.
Arundhati Oommen, from Salt Lake City, Utah, was selected for her thesis “When Luck Becomes the Arbiter: Responsibility, Risk, and the Limits of Outcome-Based Judgment.” This project was supervised by Professors Edward Hall and Xiao-Li Meng.
Finally, Gauri A. Sood from Rochester, Minnesota, won for her thesis titled “Who Is Human? Biases in Frontier Image Generation Models,” which was supervised by Professor Mahzarin Banaji and Dr. Lindsey Davis.
The Hoopes Prize is funded by the estate of Thomas T. Hoopes, a member of the Harvard class of 1919. Winning projects are archived in the University Archives, and written copies are made available in Lamont Library for a minimum of two years. The selection process begins with faculty nominations accompanied by a two-paragraph evaluation of the student’s project.
Bastola expressed gratitude for the support he received throughout his thesis-writing process, particularly from his friends and mentors. He noted that his family initially struggled to understand the concept of his thesis, making the recognition all the more special. “I really could not have written this thesis without the support of my friends and mentors,” he stated. “My thesis advisor has been an extraordinary source of guidance and inspiration.”
This recognition highlights the achievements of these students and their contributions to academic scholarship at Harvard, showcasing the talent and dedication present within the Indian American community.
According to The American Bazaar, the Hoopes Prize continues to celebrate and encourage outstanding scholarly work among Harvard students.