The Lumen Advisory Committee has announced Elon University’s 2024 Lumen Scholar winners. Lumen Prize winners are granted $20,000 to support their mentored research and creative projects over the next two years.

“The competitive level was extraordinary this year and these winners deserve admiration for the creativity, thoroughness, and potential impact their proposals represent,” Mike Carigan, director of the Lumen Prize, wrote.

There are 15 prize winners for the 2024 Lumen Scholarship:


Lillian Argabrite - Biology

Mentors: Tonya Train and Eryn Bernardy

Studying: The Impact of the Cystic Fibrosis Microenvironment on Pathogenic Bacterial Interactions.


Jo Bogart - Creative Writing and Classical Studies

Mentors: Margaret Chapman and Kristina Meinking

Studying: Dux Femina Facti: Feminist Translation and Re-Vision of Vergil’s Aeneid.


Rony Dahdal - Computer Science

Mentor: Ryan Mattfeld

Studying: Contactless and Diagnostic Multi-Target Vital Sign Detection Using LiDAR and Deep Learning.


Kelly Donovan - Applied Mathematics 

Mentor: Nicholas Bussberg

Studying: Novel Deep-Sea Coral Imputation Methods: Mathematically Filling in Missing Data to Further Coral Conservation.


Mira Fitch - Political Science

Mentor: Jessica Carew

Studying: Judicial Partisan Influence on Juvenile Transfer: A County-Level Analysis in North Carolina.


Kelsey Golden - Art History and History

Mentors: Evan Gatti and Lynn Huber

Studying: New Crusaders, Old Problems: Interrogating the Use of Medieval Imagery in Contemporary Contexts.


Madeline Hewgley - Political Science

Mentor: Dillon Bono-Lunn

Studying: An Exploration of the Pattern of Policy Diffusion and Subsequent Proliferation of Second Amendment Preservation Acts at the State Level.


Jacob Karty - Engineering

Mentor: Jonathan Su

Studying: Lensfree Holographic Imaging and Machine Learning to Protect Freshwater Resources.


Niara Legette - Public Health

Mentors: Yanica Faustin

Studying: Shades of Health; Colorism, Albinism and Maternal Health Inequities.


Rebecca Lovasco - Psychology

Mentor: Kristina Krasich

Studying: Unraveling Neurocognitive Biases in Depression and Anxiety: An EEG Study on Reinforcement Learning and Conscious Visual Perception.


Mallory Otten - Public Health

Mentor: Rena Zito

Studying: When Gender Matters: The Impact of Attractiveness and Sexual Orientation on Perceptions of Male and Female Intimate Partner Violence Perpetrators.


Natalie Peeples - Psychology

Mentor: Maureen Vandermaas-Peeler

Studying: Early Childhood Well-Being as it is Expressed through Outdoor Play: A Cultural Comparison between Denmark and the U.S.


Grace Rasmussen - Public Health

Mentor: Scott Morrison

Studying: Reviving Dewey, Froebel and Montessori: Two National Studies on Progressive Education and School Gardens.


Lila Snodgrass - Dance Performance and Choreography

Mentor: Nancy Scherich

Studying: Knot Theory and Parallel Process in Mathematics and Dance.


Athena Vizuete - History

Mentor: Amanda Kleintop

Studying: Enslaved Labor to Black Free Wage Labor in Postbellum North Carolina.