The Data Science Institute is incredibly proud of our students’ accomplishments and the positive impact they have made at Brown and beyond. We commend their hard work and look forward to seeing all that they will achieve in the future.
Data Science Institute's Public Service in Data Science Award:
Emily Hong, ’26.5, Computer Science and Sociology
This award recognizes Emily’s integral leadership within the Center for Technological Responsibility, Re-imagination, and Redesign (CNTR), specifically her roles in coordinating the mentorship program and co-leading the Legislation Lab to analyze critical technology bills. Her dedication to the societal impacts of technology—demonstrated through co-organizing the Technology and Science Policy Symposium and using NLP for her senior thesis on AI legislation—exemplifies the highest standards of public service in data science.
Data Science Institute's Excellence in Data Science Research Award:
Asher Labovich ‘26, Applied Math & International and Public Affairs
This award recognizes Asher’s remarkable technical contributions to the field, including his single-author publication in Transactions on Machine Learning Research regarding algorithmic improvements for gradient-boosted decision trees. His honors thesis on the stability and generalization of looped transformers further demonstrates a level of theoretical and empirical sophistication that far exceeds undergraduate expectations, marking him as a truly exceptional researcher.
Outstanding Service to DSI and Brown University Award:
Joseph Oduro ‘26, Mathematical Finance & Computer Science
This award recognizes how, in the face of incredible adversity, Joseph accomplished so much and contributed so greatly to the faculty and students in DSI and beyond. It is an impressive record building upon his success as a data science fellow in fall 2025. Serving as a teaching assistant in DATA 0250 during the winter term built on his own success in the same course, and his feedback and attention to student needs was evident in his day to day work. This spring, as a Research Assistant, Joseph made contributions to the scholarly inquiry of interdisciplinary teaching in data science, along with helping develop data science curricula for future courses.
—