The Henry T. Mudd Prize recognizes faculty and staff members whose extraordinary service has significantly benefited the College. Recipients are honored for contributions that may include superior teaching, leadership in curriculum development or research supervision, effective administrative work or other exceptional service to Harvey Mudd. Awardees receive $6,000, with $3,000 designated for use within the College at the recipient鈥檚 discretion.

Angemi was recognized for her extraordinary and sustained service to Harvey Mudd. Her accomplishments include supporting the College through periods of growth, change and transition; helping ensure continuity, clarity and excellence at the highest levels of administration; and advancing major institutional priorities with precision, discretion and care.

She also was honored for her role as a trusted adviser, steward of institutional knowledge and mentor to colleagues. Through her sound judgment, collaborative spirit and ability to bring clarity to complex work, Angemi has strengthened relationships across the community and helped others succeed. Her service reflects humility, generosity, professionalism and a deep commitment to Harvey Mudd鈥檚 mission and values.

鈥淩eceiving an award that bears the Mudd family name is a profound honor, especially having the privilege of knowing and working with many members of the Mudd family. My respect for their vision, generosity and foundational impact on 无忧视频 is immense, and connecting my contributions to their legacy is a privilege,鈥� said Angemi.

Alves was recognized for a lifetime of devoted service to Harvey Mudd and for his role in expanding the place of the arts within the College鈥檚 academic and cultural life. He has shaped programs, curriculum and artistic opportunities that connect intellectual rigor with creative expression, helping students see the arts as an essential part of a Harvey Mudd education.

His accomplishments include decades of teaching, mentoring and welcoming students into musical and artistic practice; creating sustained opportunities for creativity, experimentation and performance; and building a vibrant musical community across Harvey Mudd and The Claremont Colleges. Over the span of 25 years, Alves has developed a program of remarkable scope, created hundreds of performances and helped establish The Claremont Colleges as a global center for microtonal music, while also contributing as a leading composer and advocate for innovative forms of performance.

鈥淚t鈥檚 always been a joy and privilege to bring music to our community and help our students, but this unexpected recognition from the College is a lifetime honor,鈥� said Alves. 鈥淚 love teaching and facilitating performances by our students, whose dedication, talent and creativity continue to astonish me. I think of what I do more of a service to myself, but I鈥檓 glad to be contributing what I can to make the College a place where the arts flourish.鈥� 

The annual Henry T. Mudd Prize reflects 无忧视频鈥檚 commitment to recognizing exceptional service and fostering a supportive, inclusive workplace community.

Text of the Henry T. Mudd Prize citation awarded to Karen Angemi

For extraordinary and sustained service to 无忧视频, carried out with distinction, humility, and unwavering commitment over many years;

For exceptional leadership in supporting the institution at its highest levels, ensuring continuity, clarity, and excellence through periods of growth, change, and transition;

For a remarkable ability to orchestrate complex endeavors with precision and grace鈥攁nticipating needs, navigating challenges, and enabling others to succeed;

For serving as a trusted advisor and steward of institutional knowledge, offering wise counsel, sound judgment, and steadfast discretion;

For fostering connection and collaboration across the community, strengthening relationships and advancing a shared sense of purpose;

For mentoring and uplifting colleagues with generosity of spirit, cultivating confidence, belonging, and professional growth in others;

For embodying the highest ideals of service鈥攚ith an unflappable spirit, a generous heart, and a sense of joy that uplifts those around her and carries the College forward, even in its most challenging moments;

For leadership that enables the success of the College鈥檚 most important work with insight, foresight, and exceptional care;

For bringing clarity to complexity and ensuring that the critical priorities of the College move forward with purpose and cohesion;

For being at the very heart of the College鈥檚 administration, reflecting in daily practice the values and spirit of the community we each serve;

Karen Angemi, chief of staff and secretary to the board of trustees, is hereby designated as a 2026 recipient of the Henry T. Mudd Prize.

Text of the Henry T. Mudd Prize citation awarded to Bill Alves

For a lifetime of devoted service to 无忧视频, marked by humility, generosity, and an extraordinary commitment to the life of this community;

For enriching the College through a vision of education that joins intellectual rigor with artistic expression, expanding what it means to learn, create, and belong at Harvey Mudd;

For steadfast dedication to students as a teacher and mentor, welcoming learners of all backgrounds into artistic practice and nurturing their confidence, imagination, and growth;

For leadership that has shaped not only programs and curriculum, but also elevated the place of the arts within the identity, culture, and mission of the College;

For opening sustained opportunities, over many years, for students, colleagues, and the broader community to encounter creativity, experimentation, and joy through the arts;

For a rare generosity of service, giving countless hours鈥攐ften quietly and without fanfare鈥攖o the performances, collaborations, and shared experiences that have enlivened this campus and connected it to the wider world;

For bringing to Harvey Mudd an extraordinary breadth of musical life, from recitals and ensembles to internationally recognized artists and innovative new forms of performance;

For helping to make this campus a home for music in all its range and possibility, shaping a vibrant artistic community whose reach extends across the Claremont Colleges and beyond;

For a quarter century of singular dedication to the musical life of 无忧视频, personally building a program of remarkable scope, creating hundreds of performances that have become a defining part of this community while also serving as a leading composer and establishing The Claremont Colleges as a global center for the avant-garde genre of microtonal music;

Bill Alves, Louisa and Robert Miller Professor of the Humanities, is hereby designated as a 2026 recipient of the Henry T. Mudd Prize.

This research focuses on the final chapter of Wilson鈥檚 book, which examines the National Day Projection Mapping Show (National Day SLS) at the presidential office building in Taipei. The building, constructed in the Japanese colonial era, is a symbol of national pride in Taiwan, similar to the White House in the United States. Using cutting-edge projection technology and original soundtracks and narrations, this annual event transforms the building into a canvas for contemporary Taiwanese identity, shaping viewer understanding of culture and citizenship.

During his summer research, Wilson aims to secure interviews with key creative figures behind the show, including lead designer Agi Chen and composer Wang Hsi-wen. By gaining these insider perspectives, he hopes to shed light on how this spectacle of nationhood is assembled and how it articulates values like democracy, environmental stewardship and inclusion.

In Wilson鈥檚 previous interviews with Taiwanese audience members at the National Day SLS, people expressed the desire that this vision of Taiwan would reach a global audience. He hopes his scholarly account might increase Western understanding of the formation of contemporary Taiwanese identity.

To that end, in fall 2026, Harvey Mudd students will have the opportunity to take Wilson鈥檚 course Documents of an Island Nation: Taiwan through Documentary, Film, and Music, which will be taught in parallel with a course at National Taiwan University via the virtual workspace Gather.Town (provided with support from the Alumni Association Board of Governors). Harvey Mudd students and those in Taiwan will meet online throughout the semester to explore diverse viewpoints. At the end of the semester, HMC students will meet their Taiwanese counterparts in person when they travel to Taiwan for a winter break study tour, arranged by Wilson and Sarah Repetto, assistant dean for study abroad. 

Sullivan and Bhatia were part of a four-person team that tackled a challenge from Array Technologies: creating a tool to weigh tradeoffs between steel cost and carbon footprint across global supply chains and consider purchasing methods. Their solution incorporated climate-adjusted pricing for carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide and freshwater use for large steel mills within top steel-producing countries, along with modeling for various steel and steel derivatives purchasing strategies.

Bhatia, a physics and computer science major (political science concentration), said the team approached the event eager to contribute to meaningful climate solutions. Although new to hackathons, she conducted extensive preparation, researching industrial decarbonization and meeting with professors for insight. She and Sullivan, a computer science-math and economics double major, formed a team with students from MIT and Harvard, combining strengths in research, software development, and finance.

鈥淲e were really happy with our team鈥檚 variety of strengths,鈥� said Bhatia, who enjoys research. 鈥淥ur teams鈥� engineering and software experience helped us move quickly. And Lucas鈥檚 economics background was crucial to coming up with our idea. His climate economics course with Dede Long, assistant professor of economics at Harvey Mudd, informed my contribution: researching ways to price the social costs of environmental damage.鈥�

鈥淟ucas shared that they estimated carbon and sulfur dioxide pricing using models we discussed in class鈥攁nd even used a method from one of my assigned readings,鈥� Long said. 鈥淭heir success demonstrates what makes Mudd special: when a liberal arts education is deeply intertwined with rigorous 无忧视频 training, students are prepared to take on the world鈥檚 most complex problems.鈥�

The team worked through the weekend, culminating in an all-night coding session for Bhatia and Sullivan. They presented their final product to Array Technologies鈥� judges on the final morning, and to their surprise, advanced to the semifinals and ultimately earned second place overall.

Reflecting on the experience, Bhatia said, 鈥淭he sponsors from Array Technologies were incredibly supportive and gave us valuable guidance. Our solution stood out because it met the sponsor鈥檚 needs and approached the problem differently than other teams. I loved the experience and learned so much.鈥�

Sullivan and Bhatia are active members of the Harvey Mudd community, pursuing research and leadership roles across campus.

Approximately 2,000 vacant lots throughout Los Angeles are owned by the city. Small Lots, Big Impacts tasked designers, architects and students to propose viable alternatives to the detached house homeownership model on a selection of the lots. Participants鈥� designs addressed architectural and community resilience, strategies for expedient construction and cost-effective development approaches. 

Gu鈥檚 project, 鈥�,鈥� was produced via the Spinagu studio, which Gu co-founded with Maxi Spina. 鈥淗ouseholds鈥� demonstrates an innovative approach to residential architecture, challenging the traditional one-to-one definition of a household by the U.S. census. The Small Lots, Big Impacts initiative, says Gu, advocates for small-scale development and to convert single-family neighborhoods into slightly denser communities.

鈥淐ontemporary household structures are fluid, frequently doubling, dividing or merging due to life events such as divorce, cohabitation, caregiving for kin or integrating home businesses and even during climate emergencies,鈥� Gu says. Therefore, architecture should be adaptable to these changing shapes. The idea is that by changing the architectural norms of single-family homes, 鈥済entle density鈥� can foster connections between diverse households, generations and living arrangements.

Gu’s project addresses several obstacles facing housing development in Los Angeles. 鈥淪ome of the biggest challenges with housing right now in Los Angeles is that any changes to housing design to accommodate life events like a divorce or a child entering adulthood takes a long time through the permitting processes,鈥� she says. 鈥楬ouseholds鈥� addresses this by providing a compelling vision for flexible living, where simple architectural devices like a share-door allows families to change the way they share or shape spaces. The competition jury praised the design for its “successful material quality, strong interior-exterior relationships, and compelling narrative,” also noting that the building “already looks like it is from Los Angeles.” 

In the second phase of the Small Lots initiative, the city of Los Angeles will award small, underutilized parcels of city-owned land to qualifying architect-developer partners to construct housing prototypes. Developers may select the designs as their projects, and their developments will be open source so that the entire process, including lessons learned, design approaches, policy implications and strategies for practice, will contribute to strengthening the city鈥檚 housing development community.

At Harvey Mudd, Gu and her students think about the ideas and processes that shape the built environment. This fall, Gu is teaching several courses, including one on ecological material supply chains for design, the history of Harvey Mudd campus architecture, and a course of the history of Los Angeles architecture with a focus on postmodern design, in preparation for a major exhibition in 2028.

Promotion to full professor

Albert Dato, professor of engineering and associate chair of the Department of Engineering, researches the synthesis and applications of nanomaterials. He directs the Energy and Nanomaterials Lab, which seeks to develop solutions to energy and environmental challenges through applications of advanced materials. Founder and CEO of Graphene LLC, Dato has worked as a scientist at Air Liquide Electronics U.S. and as a process development engineer at Novellus Systems Inc.

The Dato Research Group seeks to develop solutions to energy and environmental challenges through the synthesis and applications of advanced materials. Students in the group conduct research on (1) strong lightweight nanocomposites that could replace heavier metallic components on vehicles to reduce emissions and fuel consumption, (2) advanced membranes that are capable of capturing carbon dioxide, (3) novel materials for storing energy, and (4) superhydrophobic surfaces that can harvest drinking water directly from air. Dato also mentors undergraduate researchers by working closely with the students in the laboratory, holding weekly lab meetings, hosting social activities with the research group, advising students on applying to graduate school and positions in industry and supporting the dissemination of their research results through scientific publications and presentations at national meetings.

Granted tenure and promotion to associate professor

Joshua Brake, associate professor of engineering, leads a research group in biophotonics, a field at the intersection of optics and biology that is increasingly playing a role in biomedical diagnostics and therapies. He teaches across the curriculum with a focus on digital electronics, embedded systems, and optics. In addition to his work in the classroom, Brake is deeply interested in the relationship between technology, education and human flourishing. He explores these themes, with a particular focus on the impact of AI in education, in his weekly Substack newsletter, The Absent-Minded Professor.

Steven Santana, associate professor of engineering, Joseph B. Platt Chair in Effective Teaching, and Engineering Clinic director, relishes his work with students in all areas of life at HMC. Through research with an amazing group of Mudders in the CuTE Lab, the students, together with Santana, employ a transdisciplinary approach to solve questions with high potential for impact in bio- and biomedical engineering with a focus on cell biology, microfluidics and tissue engineering. Students of all majors have contributed to the work and bring their passion, talent and toolkits from across HMC鈥檚 courses to accomplish great things as they work together in community. Santana received a National Science Foundation grant to enhance the understanding of cell communication through extracellular vesicles and a seed grant from the Social Science Research Council鈥檚 Sloan Scholar Mentoring Network to fund research on printing biomaterials for tissue-engineering applications. He has taught across the curriculum in design, engineering sciences, systems, and upper-division electives in fluid mechanics and microfluidics. He cares deeply about students鈥� technical expertise and development as leaders who deeply interrogate the impacts of their work. Toward this end, he devotes his time to deep mentoring of students through his teaching, research and service activities in formal and informal settings.

Alexandra (Xanda) Schofield 鈥�13, associate professor of computer science, uses tools from natural language processing to assist in digital humanities and computational social science work. Her teaching goal has been to integrate ethically minded and human-centered material across the computer science curriculum, including designing and teaching a new required course for computer science majors, Computing Practices, Projects, and People. Schofield spent the previous two years supervising the HMC Summer of CS program for undergraduate research, including managing the NSF grant for HMC CS’s Research Experience for Undergraduates site from 2023 to 2025 alongside colleague George Monta帽ez.

Reappointment

Dede Long, assistant professor of economics, focuses on examining the economic and environmental implications of public and private incentives aimed at promoting ecosystem services. She enjoys working closely with students, helping them understand how economic tools can be applied to address environmental challenges. Long looks forward to mentoring students through collaborative interdisciplinary research. She is part of the project team that secured a $918,485 grant from the National Science Foundation in 2024 to acquire a high-performance computing cluster, significantly expanding research capacity across The Claremont Colleges. That same year, she also received a $799,343 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture as a co-principal investigator on a project that develops new economic measurement systems that better reflect the full value of forest ecosystems.

鈥婩rom Jan. 27 to Feb. 17, Fandell stayed at the residence in Big Rock Campground in Joshua Tree, making photographs of the park鈥檚 vast landscapes and unique geological features. An artist who explores themes of place, formalism, time, histories, iterative practice and the interplay between the artist鈥檚 hand and machine processes, Fandell challenged himself to 鈥渃ome up with something that’s not cliche and superficial in this landscape that is so familiar and photographed.鈥澛�

The residency provided a unique opportunity for Fandell, who holds the Michael G. and C. Jane Wilson Chair in Arts and the Humanities and is on sabbatical until fall. He was able to immerse himself deeply in the landscape and focus without distractions. Fandell first visited Joshua Tree in 2012 when Michael Wilson 鈥�63 asked if he鈥檇 like to take a break from the College鈥檚 annual Saddle Rock retreat to visit the park.

鈥淚鈥檇 never been to Joshua Tree, and I remember being immediately amazed by the sheer scale of it,鈥� Fandell says. 鈥淣ever had I felt so close to personally experiencing the infinite. And I surf; I鈥檓 out on the ocean all the time. But there was something about the weirdness of the desert, where there’s little, tiny rocks and big, giant, giant rocks. And some of them are in your face and are tiny, some are in your face and huge, and some of them are really far away. Scale gets confused and quantity gets confused. Everything was overwhelming.鈥� 

The solitude of the residency allowed Fandell to create images that show the park and its features in new ways. He explored his ideas of scale and the infinite nature of the desert environment. 鈥淥ne of the things that I liked about doing this is that the rocks are so easily anthropomorphized. You see an eye and a weird mouth there or body part 鈥� another mouth,鈥� he says. 

Fandell has compiled rock images, which show the sun rising or setting over the rocks from multiple perspectives, into a collection called 鈥淪unrise, Sunset.鈥� He is also printing a series of images of a juniper tree that he photographed by moonlight and a series of Joshua tree images in which the trees are easily anthropomorphized, like the rocks. 

Fandell鈥檚 time in Joshua Tree is part of his broader, long-term project exploring landscapes. In June, he will participate in the Wilappa Bay Artist-in-Residence Program in Oysterville, Washington. There, he will collaborate with other visual, musical and literary artists on a multi-modal project concerning the ecosystem of Willapa Bay and its surroundings.

In her book, Dadabhoy investigates why Shakespeare doesn鈥檛 write about Islam. 鈥淚n聽The Merchant of Venice, the Prince of Morocco is never identified as a Muslim,鈥� she says. 鈥淗owever, if he鈥檚 the Prince of Morocco, he can聽only聽be a Muslim. There鈥檚 no other option.鈥�

Shakespeare鈥檚 work clearly contains Islamic characters and influences. Dadabhoy describes how Shakespeare removes Muslims or makes them peripheral or referential because he鈥檚 creating a Europe and a 鈥榞lobe鈥� that is free from Islam, racial otherness, and religious otherness. By consigning the diverse cultures of the Islamic regimes that occupied and populated the early modern Mediterranean to the peripheries, Shakespeare constructs a Europe and Mediterranean freed from the presence of non-white, non-European and non-Christian Others, which belied the reality of the world he occupied.

Dadabhoy hopes the book will encourage readers to consider that even if something isn鈥檛 explicit, it鈥檚 still worth searching for traces of it. 鈥淭he book is very much a project where I鈥檓 trying to put Muslims back in the places from which they were evacuated by Shakespeare,鈥� she says.

Dadabhoy recently participated in the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies鈥� online teaching resource Throughlines, which was created to support educators in bringing these conversations into their classrooms and to offer new ways of engaging students in discussions of race and its nascent forms.

In a short video, , Dadabhoy shares how she guides her students through early modern texts that reveal the relationship between Christian Europe and Muslim culture. This exercise helps students understand ways the Western world鈥檚 perception of Muslims has been shaped over centuries and how these perceptions continue to inform contemporary ideas. 

As a scholar of early modern literature, Dadabhoy pairs English plays from the period with extracts of early modern travel narratives. She frequently assigns excerpts from Leo Africanus鈥檚 Geographical History of Africa and Richard Knolles鈥檚 General History of the Turks alongside English drama. 鈥淭his methodology allows my students to see the construction of difference between Western culture and Muslims,鈥� she says. By first engaging with the plays and then examining historical documents, students gain a deeper understanding of how these texts shaped Western attitudes toward Islam.

Through these explorations and discussions, Dadabhoy asks students to question whether the portrayals of Muslims in early modern texts echo contemporary ideas. 鈥淥ften, students can point to the same rhetoric of prejudice and bigotry that we encounter in the Western world in the 21st century,鈥� she says. However, she also emphasizes that the narrative of inevitable conflict between Muslims and Christians obscures the positive. 鈥淭his narrative hides a history that includes collaboration, coexistence and exchange,鈥� she says.

Flores and MYOC are collaborating on the 鈥淎SIANetwork Mellon Asian American and Pacific Islander Voices and Stories Program鈥� to establish a Marshallese oral history archive of Southern California. MYOC is the largest Marshallese nonprofit, community-based organization in Southern California. The ASIANetwork grant provides $7,250 for one year.

鈥淚 am excited to be working with MYOC Executive Director Kelani Silk and members from the organization to interview Marshallese elders who will discuss their diasporic experiences,鈥� Flores says. 鈥淪ome of the things we hope to document are when, why and how the Marshallese community of southern California came into formation.鈥� They also hope to learn how the Marshallese have preserved their indigenous culture and maintained their ties to their home islands, as well as to document their experiences of living in Orange County, California, the third-most-populous county in the state.

鈥淭he interviews will take place in summer 2025, and we hope the interviewees will narrate their thoughts and memories,鈥� Flores says. Interviewers will use a set of questions to help guide the conversations, which will be video recorded and archived online, along with interview transcripts, for public access. 

As a scholar of Pacific Islander history, Flores鈥檚 approach to studying and documenting the past is based on the incorporation of community voices and perspectives. 鈥淲hile Pacific Islander communities share many similar cultural and historical experiences, there are also important differences that have impacted their diasporic movements to the continental United States,鈥� Flores says.

For example, Marshallese have moved in large numbers to the continental United States due to the U.S. military鈥檚 legacy of nuclear testing in Micronesia and the effects of anthropogenic climate change that has led to rising sea levels. Flores hopes the grant will lead to a greater understanding of how the Marshallese have endured these structural forces while also perpetuating their cultural identity and practices. 

鈥淥ral history is integral to this project because it is an Indigenous epistemology that is the foundation for how culture, history, memories, spiritual practices and values are passed from one generation to the next,鈥� Flores says. 鈥淭his grant will allow MYOC to establish an oral history archive that will preserve the experiences of their community in Orange County and Micronesia.鈥� Flores hopes this project will lead to the creation of a larger Micronesian oral history archive of Southern California.

The project is led by PI David Kling, an economist at Oregon State University. Co-PIs include landscape ecologists from Oregon State University and an economist and a fire ecologist from the U.S. Forest Service. Harvey Mudd student research assistants will work with the researchers to model how climate change and fire risks impact forest landscapes and forest-dependent biodiversity.

The research team will develop a more effective model of Forest Natural Capital Accounting Price (FNCAP), which assigns economic value to forests by integrating both market benefits, such as timber, and non-market benefits, such as biodiversity conservation. Accurately valuing these benefits is essential for capturing the importance of forests in economic planning and policy development, especially in the context of climate change and sustainable management.

The idea for this research was sparked by the , including the creation of a 鈥渇orest account.鈥� Current research has primarily focused on valuing forest-generated commodity and service flows, while methods for pricing forest natural capital stocks in a manner that is compatible with principles of the system of national accounts remain comparatively underdeveloped.

Long and the team will create a generalized FNCAP model that overcomes these limitations and develops one of the first comprehensive measures for forest natural capital valuation. The model will integrate market and non-market values provided by forests, with a particular emphasis on biodiversity conservation. It will also account for fire risks in forest management, a factor often inconsistently addressed in existing valuation models.

鈥淚鈥檓 especially excited to work with an interdisciplinary team and involve Mudd students in complex economic research with meaningful policy implications,鈥� Long says. 鈥淥ne of my key responsibilities is developing a large-scale survey targeting California, Washington and Oregon to measure the social value of biodiversity dependent on forests. Designing this type of survey is a significant task, as it鈥檚 crucial to make the environmental goods we鈥檙e evaluating relevant and salient to participants. I鈥檒l be collaborating with a professional illustrator to explore creative ways to convey biodiversity and forest composition through illustrations, which is something I鈥檓 personally excited about.鈥�

The FNCAP model will be estimated using comprehensive economic and ecological data from forest land on the West Coast. By improving the valuation of forests, this research could help inform future forest management policies and support economic decision-making and sustainable practices, paving the way for a greener future. 

According to Long, the team鈥檚 goal is to develop a flexible, generalizable approach to valuing forest natural capital, one that can inform future policies and provide a foundation for future studies. Additionally, the project can provide Harvey Mudd students with opportunities to engage in valuable hands-on economic research with real-world impact and policy significance.