Fifteen Wesleyan Students Join Phi Beta Kappa
Representing 18 different majors, 15 members of the Class of 2026 were formally inducted into Phi Beta Kappa (PBK), the nation’s oldest and most prestigious academic honor society. These seniors were nominated by their respective departments after demonstrating exceptional academic achievement, intellectual breadth across the liberal arts curriculum, fulfillment of general education requirements, and a cumulative grade point average of 93 or higher.
“Being elected to Phi Beta Kappa is an honor, and recognition of the hard work and time each of you have put in,” Associate Provost for Budget and Personnel and Professor of Mathematics Mark Hovey said during his congratulatory speech at the event.
Honorees gathered with friends and family to celebrate their accomplishments at the induction ceremony on Dec. 3 in the McKelvey Room at the Office of Admission. With their election, the new members join a network of more than 500,000 PBK inductees nationwide. Founded in 1776 at the College of William & Mary, PBK now maintains chapters at over 290 leading colleges and universities; its alumni include 17 U.S. presidents, 42 Supreme Court justices, and more than 150 Nobel Prize recipients.
Associate Professor of Economics Damien Sheehan-Connor, president of Wesleyan’s PBK chapter, emphasized the rigor of the fall election process in particular. “Students elected in the fall have an especially exacting selection process,” he explained, “because admittance is based solely on a student’s academic performance at Wesleyan through their junior year.”
For Kaustubh Vasudevan ’26, a double major in economics and mathematics, early election to PBK was incredibly exciting and meaningful. Having entered Wesleyan with a passion for economics, Vasudevan credits his coursework with helping to shape the way he understands the world.
“The economics department is a really great program; especially taking a lot of the finance-centered classes, I’ve been introduced to a lot of really cool ideas and some great people,” Vasudevan said. “The mathematics major has also been a lot of fun—some of the things I learn are genuinely mind-boggling.”
Beyond the classroom, Vasudevan has been actively involved in campus life, particularly through co-leading Shakti, the campus South Asian student organization. “I’ve met a lot of my closest friends on campus through Shakti—I’ve had an opportunity to make a lot of core memories,” he said. “Over the years, I’ve been able to take on more leadership roles, and it’s been good to give back to the community that’s given me so much at Wesleyan.”
Vasudevan is currently working on a senior thesis examining stablecoin fragility, drawing on both his coursework and his time in a research lab with Professor Ryuichiro Izumi, where he studied the intersection of financial fragility and digital assets such as cryptocurrency. After graduation, he plans to pursue a career in banking and will be joining Capital One in Washington, D.C.
Isabelle “Ibby” Newland ’26 was surprised by her election to PBK, but said she felt honored to be named to the society. She is currently working on a poetry thesis in the College of Letters, where she has valued the program’s emphasis on building a close-knit learning community and its careful attention to developing students’ reading and writing skills. She has also been committed to community engagement through her volunteer work at Traverse Square Community Center, where she has served as a youth advisor and tutor for Middletown students since her first year on campus.
“My fellow youth advisors and I care really deeply about the kids who come to the center,” Newland said. “It’s super moving to watch them grow; seeing students who were just entering high school when I arrived now applying to colleges—that evolution is really exciting.”
Looking ahead, Newland plans to build on her experiences studying abroad and summer internship in Ecuador, which was made possible through a summer grant from the Gordon Career Center. While abroad, she lived in two different indigenous communities, where she helped bridge language barriers and supported students and professors transitioning into an Amazonian community while also learning about community efforts focused on cultural and ecological preservation and restoration.
“That exchange of stories, hopes, and dreams for the future made me realize that I want to keep working in environments where intercultural exchange is happening,” Newland said. “I’m not entirely sure what that will look like, but it’s something I want to keep doing, because it combines these ideas of storytelling, the stories we tell about ourselves and the world, and how those stories shape the future that we’re able to envision together.”
The new inductees include Catherine Bliss Auerbach ’26, Josephine Sara Dickman ’26, Sonya Sage Drake ’26, Ze Fan ’26, Julia Elizabeth Barstow Fedoruk ’26, Raya Haneul Goulding ’26, Lilia Gray Kasdon ’26, Christie Bomi Kim ’26, Chengyi Liu ’26, Maxwell Joseph Marinelli ’26, Maxwell Gray Maveus ’26, Isabelle Brooks Newland ’26, Phoebe Amara Papavasiliou ’26, Ronald Arthur Rauch ’26, and Kaustubh Swaminathan Vasudevan ’26.
