The School of Art’s annual awards honor the bold ideas, technical skill, and creative growth that define our community. Keep reading to see all of this year’s winners!
Each spring, the School of Art comes together to recognize the outstanding work and vision of our students through the annual Art Awards. Selected by a faculty jury, these honors celebrate projects that exemplify conceptual depth, technical mastery, creative growth, and meaningful engagement with the world around us. Awards span every level of study — from the Samuel Rosenberg First-Year, Sophomore, Junior, and Senior Awards, named after the influential American painter, to specialized prizes like the Interdisciplinary Award, the Dara Birnbaum Award for new media practices, and the Marjory Glassburn Francis Award supporting professional development in painting, printmaking, graphic design, or sculpture. Congratulations to all of this year’s winners! See the full list of 2025 School of Art Award recipients below.
First Year Awards
Leeloo Boublil, Noam Di Giulio, Joana Liu, Ebba Shim
Leeloo Boublil
Sophomore Awards
Jolie Booth, Devin Gaichas, Fraser Kim, Xiao Yuan
Jolie Booth
Junior Awards
Luca Budofsky, Emma (Ruoyi) Deng, Zsofi Markus, Vincent Wolfe
Luca Budofsky
Senior Awards
Finnian Brooke, Sophie Chao, Clarine Lee, Santiago Salazar
Finnian Brooke
Marjory Glassburn Francis Awards
Anastasia Jungle-Wagner (BFA ’26), Malayah Reynolds (BFA ’25)
Anastasia Jungle-Wagner
Dara Birnbaum Award
Kaitong Zhang
Interdisciplinary Awards
Karny (BFA ’25)
Carina Zheng (BFA ’28), Sonya Hamid (BFA ’28), and Mano Rajesh (BFA ’28)
C.G. Douglas “Wrong-Way” Corrigan Travel Fellowship
Bulumko Mbete (MFA ’26)
About the School of Art Awards
The First Year, Sophomore, Junior, and Senior Awards honor Samuel Rosenberg, who was a committed and passionate painter who continually reinvented himself. He is known for portraits in the 1920s, social protests in the 1930s, existential allegories in the 1940s, abstract expressionist works in the 1950s, and elemental light compositions throughout the 1960s. He reflected on the particularities of his own times over five decades, painting turbulent American expansion that included two world wars, the Holocaust, economic booms and superpower status. Throughout his artistic career, he created enduring works that speak just as poignantly to our own era.
The Marjory Glassburn Francis Award was established by Dr. David B. Francis in honor of his mother, Marjory Glassburn Francis, who was a 1934 art alumna. The award is to be given to a Senior woman “whose excellence in painting, printmaking, graphic design or sculpture merits recognition” and is to be used toward a project that will further the winner’s professional development.
The Interdisciplinary Award was established to encourage and facilitate interdisciplinary research and creative projects.
The Dara Birnbaum Award honors Dara Birnbaum, who graduated from the School of Architecture in 1969 and is a renowned feminist artist whose work exists at the cusp of media and technology. The Birnbaum Award was established by Patti Askwith Kenner (MM 1966) in Dara’s honor in 2017 and is presented annually to a graduating senior whose work exemplifies new artmaking.
The C.G. Douglas “Wrong Way” Award was established in 2008, when Courtney Dow and Leslie McAhren established the C.G. Douglas “Wrong Way” Corrigan Travel Fellowship in honor of the transatlantic pilot Doug Corrigan. This fellowship is an opportunity for students to pursue unique or otherwise unconventional travel projects. The self-directed scholar will embark on a journey over the course of this summer and will return in the fall with a presentation recounting his or her findings.