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Each year, the Hajim School awards well-rounded students with the Robert L. Wells Prize. Meet the Class of 2024 recipients.

The is recognizing three undergraduate students with the Robert L. Wells Prize, awarded annually to high-achieving seniors who also excel in a humanities field, as determined by the highest GPAs at the end of their junior year.

This year鈥檚 Wells Prize winners are:

• Adam Cummings, a major who is minoring in and
• Qiyuan 鈥淵vonna鈥� Feng, a double major in and who is minoring in and
• Riley Prewett, a major and minor

The award is named after Robert L. Wells 鈥�39, a mechanical engineering alumnus who became a top executive at Westinghouse and felt strongly that engineers 鈥渘eed the balance of the humanities鈥� to be competent in their field.

French and ASL minors help Cummings expand his cultural connections

Adam Cummings has always been a tinkerer and, as a result, experimented with his major before finding his niche. After initially majoring in , he sought a more 鈥渉ands-on鈥� field and switched to mechanical engineering.

鈥淚鈥檝e always loved deconstructing things and figuring out how they work, and I was heavily involved with FIRST Robotics in high school,鈥� says Cummings. 鈥淪o mechanical engineering seemed like a natural progression.鈥�

During his sophomore year, he had an open spot in his schedule and decided an American Sign Language (ASL) class could be interesting. He did not have plans to study it further until meeting a Deaf coworker that summer.

鈥淲e became really close friends and I realized that there are Deaf people everywhere. By not learning their language and culture, you can miss out on a lot of great opportunities for connection,鈥� says Cummings.

Cummings says he loves how the upper-level coursework in his minors鈥擜SL and French鈥攆ocus on culture, which has helped him reflect on aspects of American and hearing cultures that many take for granted. Outside the classroom, he stays busy as a member of the , serving as the business manager for the , and occasionally jamming in unofficial music groups.

After graduation, he hopes to spend a year teaching English in France or spend time in the Appalachian Mountains before seeking a job in industry.

Applying design skills allows Feng to keep her mind balanced

Qiyan 鈥淵vonna鈥� Feng began her time at Rochester as a brain and cognitive sciences (BCS) student who was curious about how the human brain interacts with the world around it. During her first year, an internship at an artificial intelligence and bioinformatics company called Galixir showed her how computer science could be a powerful tool to further explore the mind.

鈥淚 decided to double major in computer science to really push my limits,鈥� says Feng. 鈥淎s it turns out, the combination of computer science and BCS has enabled me to tackle cognitive science research problems in a more theoretical domain.鈥�

To help provide balance, Feng got involved with the and served as chair of the design committee, an experience she says helped her improve her design skills and connect with other students with a shared cultural background. Her dual minors in digital media studies and psychology help further round out her curricular and cocurricular life at Rochester.

鈥淒igital media studies lets me explore my love for design and art in a flexible way,鈥� says Feng. 鈥淚t gives me technical skills while allowing me to dive into many aspects of digital art and culture. Psychology, on the other hand, complements my BCS major by giving me a more comprehensive understanding of the world on a societal level.鈥�

After graduation, Feng hopes to continue to graduate school for cognitive science or neuroscience. She aims to become a researcher who studies visual perception and how it ties in with high-level cognition.

Prewett complements engineering skills with service and international experiences

In high school, Riley Prewett was initially unsure what field he wanted to pursue. He enjoyed chemistry and math, so chemical engineering seemed like the best of both worlds. He quickly found he chose the right major.

鈥淢y first semester here, I took Introduction to Sustainable Energy as a requirement for ChemE and that really sparked my interest in renewables,鈥� says Prewett. 鈥淥ver this past summer, I had an internship with Loureiro Engineering Associates working on energy audits for a variety of manufacturing facilities and constructing models based on data collected on site and from energy efficiency calculations. Now, looking at my future, I am exploring jobs in renewables.鈥�

But from the start, Prewett also knew he personally needed to complement his STEM major with studies in the humanities. He had studied Spanish since the 7th grade and was 鈥渆cstatic鈥� to continue studying the Romance language at the University.

鈥淚 have met some fantastic professors in the Spanish department and have grown my skills, especially in writing,鈥� says Prewett. 鈥淟ast semester, as the last class to finish my minor, I took 鈥楤u帽uel, Dal铆, Lorca: Surrealism in Spain and Beyond鈥� with and it is 100 percent one of my favorite classes I have taken at U of R so far.鈥�
Prewett extended himself even further outside the classroom once the pandemic restrictions eased. During his sophomore year, he started volunteering with the , a community service organization focused on exposing local Rochester grade school students to different STEM fields, and now serves as vice president. Also during his sophomore year, he became chair of the , a campus tradition that dates back to 1934.
Last fall, he went on an exchange program to the University of Melbourne in Australia, an experience he says introduced him to amazing people and created great memories. Now, he serves as an ambassador for the Center for Education Abroad to help other engineering students experience similar perspective-changing opportunities.

Upon graduation, he hopes to spend the summer traveling Europe before launching his professional career in the fall.

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