Awards
Departmental Awards
David Cowperthwaite was a member of the Colorado College class of 1960 and his wife, Karen, was enrolled as a member of the class of 1962 when they were killed by lightning during a mountain expedition in 1960. The David and Karen Smith Cowperthwaite Award for Excellence in Physics was instituted by their parents in their memory in 1962, the year Karen would have graduated.
Award Winners
- 2024 Liam Keeley and Wanyan Yuan
- 2023 Annika Zettl
- 2022 Cole Thumann
- 2021 Marta Nowotka
- 2020 Kate Herman and James Zeng
- 2019 Zoe Krauss, Jackson Schrott, and Sohair Abdullah
- 2018 Maddy Lucy
This award was established in memory of Professor Wilbur Wright, a student at Colorado College in 1938 and a member of the faculty from 1956 to 1984, for his contributions to the Physics Department, his many Colorado College students, and the college community. This award is for a graduating physics major or majors who exemplify Wright's standards and interests in physics and in academic work outside the department. That is, the award winner or winners should show enthusiasm for the study of physics through hard work and achievement, though they need not have the highest GPA. Similar efforts in a discipline outside physics should show an understanding of the importance of the liberal arts for a science student.
Award winners
- 2023 Eli Asarch
- 2022 Jess Lyons
- 2021 Benjamin Brandt
- 2020 Walter Brose and Pan Tan
- 2019 Changzhe Xu and Nathan Agarwal
- 2018 Ben Pitta and Victor Torres
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Non-Departmental Awards
This prize is given to a woman student in the natural sciences who exemplifies Barbara Whitten’s model of achieving personal scientific excellence while helping others do the same. Personal scientific excellence is a combination of an excellent academic record in the natural sciences, and/or exceptional research in a scientific field. The recipient should also demonstrate a significant commitment to the advancement of women or underrepresented groups in the sciences through scholarly, community, pedagogical, or other work.
Award winners
- 2024 Zoe Zizzo (Biochemistry)
- 2023 Eugenie Blake Haring (Geology)
- 2022 Anni Zettl (Physics)
- 2021 Allie Kreitman (Molecular Biology)
- 2020 Haley Colgate (Math)
- 2019 Darryl Filmore (Computer Science)
- 2018 Alana Aamodt (Physics)
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