The College recognized outstanding students, faculty and staff during its annual Leadership Awards event, coordinated by the Division of Student Affairs. Community members gathered for lunch and a ceremony to celebrate awardees for their contributions on campus and beyond. A committee of staff and faculty reviewed nominations from the campus community and made selections for 10 awards, including Outstanding Mudder, Distinguished Emerging Leader and Staff Impact.
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The College will host its 56th annual Projects Day, Tuesday, May 5. Forty-three projects will be presented to members of the HMC community by students from computer science, engineering, mathematics, physics and Global Clinic teams. Parents are welcome to attend.
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As the May 17 Commencement approaches, we congratulate the Class of 2026 and their families on this meaningful milestone! To honor your graduate’s journey and the transformative impact of their Harvey Mudd education, we invite you to make a commemorative gift. Your support strengthens our extraordinary community and ensures future generations of Mudders have the resources to excel and flourish.
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Student Health Insurance Plan (SHIP) Waiver Process |
All enrolled students are required to have health insurance coverage, either through personal/family insurance or through The Claremont Colleges. Every student is automatically enrolled in The Claremont Colleges’ Student Health Insurance Plan (SHIP) at the beginning of each academic year. Students who do not intend to be insured through SHIP and who have comparable coverage through their personal/family insurance must submit a waiver by Sept. 11 or the student will be enrolled in SHIP and their student account will be charged for the premium amount.
Students who do not intend to be insured through SHIP and who have comparable coverage through their personal/family insurance must submit a waiver by Sept. 11, or the student will be enrolled in SHIP and their student account will be charged for the premium amount (annual policy costs $3,312; coverage is effective Aug. 1, 2026–July 31, 2027). Students will receive an email from Gallagher Student Health with instructions to access the portal and submit a waiver request. The SHIP waiver portal is open now. Contact the Division of Student Affairs at 909.621.8125 or dean_of_students@g.hmc.edu for more information.
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Professor of humanities David Wilson has been awarded a research grant from the National Central Library of Taiwan. This summer, Wilson will travel to Taiwan to research the role of music and media in shaping national identity. His work will culminate in a fall course, in which students will collaborate virtually and in-person with students at National Taiwan University.
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A team of multidisciplinary faculty at The Claremont Colleges will host a national conference on AI and higher education May 21–22 on campus. “(Re)Imagining Liberal Arts & STEM Education in the Age of GenAI” will bring together faculty, academic administrators, industry leaders and students to move beyond the “academic integrity” debate toward a new paradigm for teaching.
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Leilani Elkaslasy ’26 and Miski Nopo ’26 have joined the 58th class of Watson Fellows. Elkaslasy will travel to Argentina, Brazil, Kenya, Egypt and Thailand to explore how adaptive design and assistive technologies can foster global inclusion for people with disabilities. Nopo will examine cultural and spiritual connections to mountain landscapes in China, Bhutan, Japan, Morocco and New Zealand.
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Johnson Ho ’27, Cole Plepel ’27 and Elio Thadhani ’27 have been awarded the Barry Goldwater Scholarship, the premier national award for undergraduate STEM researchers. Their diverse research spans green chemistry, cryptographic vulnerabilities in quantum position verification and the stability of exoplanet systems.
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The College has received the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge’s Highly Established Action Plan Seal for 2026. This honor recognizes HMC’s nonpartisan strategies to increase student voter participation and civic learning. Led by the Office of Civic and Community Engagement, these efforts include voter registration drives and dialogue-based programming, resulting in student voting rates that consistently exceed the national average.
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Max Schernikau ’27 received an Outstanding Student Poster Award from the American Chemical Society’s Division of Physical Chemistry. His research focuses on carbon dioxide reduction using carbones to create sustainable chemical products. Presented at the 2026 ACS Spring Meeting, the award highlights Schernikau’s scientific rigor and the high caliber of research being performed at the College.
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Yuan Garcia ’27 won second place at the ACM SIGCSE Technical Symposium for research, investigating how large language models affect introductory computer science education. Analyzing over 1,000 student projects, Garcia’s team found that AI tools often lead to more concise code but a narrower use of course concepts. The study helps educators understand the evolving role of AI in the classroom and curriculum.
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In June 1959, the College held its first commencement ceremony graduating Stuart Black and Peter Loeb, who both transferred to Harvey Mudd during their junior years. Because of the diminutive size of the graduating class, the ceremony drew national attention and was televised and covered in an article in TIME magazine. Both graduates later became university professors.
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Correction: In the March Mudd Matter of Fact, we misattributed three honors to Kerry Karukstis, professor of chemistry emerita. While she did not receive the Royal Society of Chemistry Fellowship, the Van Hecke Prize or an Outstanding Alumna Award, she has received many awards, including the Henry T. Mudd Prize, the ACS Award for Research at an Undergraduate Institution and the Alumni Association Lifetime Recognition Award. She is also an ACS Fellow, a CUR Fellow and an HMC Honorary Alumna.
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On April 1, Earthlings watching NASA’s feed of the Artemis II mission launch heard veteran astronaut and lead NASA capsule communicator for the mission Stan Love ’87 communicating with the team in space. In the April Mudd Minute, President Harriet Nembhard talks about the role Love played in the mission and the ways alumni who contributed to Artemis II exemplify how Mudders are shaping our world.
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Several Mudd alumni were involved in the Artemis II mission, including Max Maleno ’20, who helped design and build the Orion spacecraft at Lockheed Martin Space, and Corinne Cho ’10, who worked on Orion’s parachute system at Airborne Systems. Cho shares that “it’s especially gratifying to follow Artemis II and finally see decades of work in action.” Photo credit: NASA
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In this HMC Bee Lab post, Aabhas Senapati ’27 explores the Bernard Field Station to observe fiddlenecks (Amsinckia). Inspired by the plant’s Fibonacci spiral shape, Senapati reflects on broader evolutionary theories regarding survival, communication and collective biological behavior. Photo credit: Aabhas Senapati ’27
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On May 6, students will present their projects from the Game of Democracy course. Using Taryn Simon’s work as a metaphor, this course examined how STEM and aesthetics shape democratic life. Student projects explore historical precedents and speculative futures, engaging with guest experts in engineering, design and political science.
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Online and in-person, three- and six-week courses are taught by HMC faculty and run May 26–July 24. Visiting scholars and lifelong learners are welcome.
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ASPIRE (Advanced STEAM Pre-collegiate Immersion for Research and Exploration), a new, two-week summer program, will bring rising 10th, 11th and 12th graders to campus for a deep dive into hands-on research, collaborative design and humanistic inquiry.
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Naomi Horiguchi ’26 was enamored with the makerspace from the moment she entered it on a tour of the College. After starting at HMC, she worked her way up to become the Bill ’62 and Karen ’77 Hartman Makerspace Head Steward and has spent her senior year leading events and the social media team. She’s also nurtured the makerspace culture of creativity and collaboration that drew her to it in the first place. Read Horiguchi’s story in the fall/winter issue of Mudd Magazine.
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 Mudd in the Media
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 Alums in the Media
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 Selected Events
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No. 10 Best National Liberal Arts College –U.S. News & World Report Best Colleges 2026 | No. 2 Best Undergraduate Engineering Program –U.S. News & World Report Best Colleges 2026 | No. 13 Most Innovative Schools –U.S. News & World Report Best Colleges 2026 | No. 20 Best Liberal Arts College –Washington Monthly College Guide and Rankings 2025 | No. 4 Highest Mid-Career Salaries –PayScale’s College Salary Report | No. 1 Best Schools for Return on Investment –PayScale’s College ROI Report
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