- May 15, 2026
- By John Tucker
Noora Ghahremani ’26 arrived at the University of Maryland determined to push beyond the conventions of writing, and in the years since, she has done exactly that: founding one literary magazine, editing another, and establishing herself as an award-winning poet.
The English literature and psychology dual-degree student did much more during her time on campus—from reenergizing the Spanish Club to completing three minors—saying she takes to heart Thoreau’s goal to “suck out all the marrow of life.”
“I have never had a student as brilliant and modest; as collegial with classmates; as perceptive a learner; and as hardworking as Noora,” said Professor of English Michael Olmert, calling her a “close observer of humankind.”
That sums up her recognition as university medalist, the highest honor bestowed on a graduating senior each academic year, based on academic distinction, exemplary character and service to the campus or broader community.
The native of Ellicott City, Md., applied her talents impactfully beyond the classroom. Last year as president of the UMD chapter of Sigma Tau Delta, an international English honor society, she founded, staffed and edited Quillpower, a literary arts magazine. She also was editor-in-chief of Impressions, the literary magazine for UMD’s Honors Humanities program.
Ghahremani pursued psychology to support her legal aspirations by studying human behavior—“to inform how I approach future clients, families and businesses, and also to understand myself,” she said.
As Spanish Club president, she helped increase membership from 30 to 300 by boosting recruitment, departmental partnerships and fundraising. As philanthropy chair for UMD’s Iranian Student Foundation, she helped secure thousands of dollars for charity. She completed minors in law and society, Spanish language, and creative writing and served as an undergraduate teaching assistant for the departments of English and Psychology and Honors Humanities.
Ghahremani received this year’s Phi Beta Kappa Senior Award, bestowed by UMD’s chapter of the honor society for her commitment to the liberal arts and sciences, freedom of inquiry and expression, intellectual integrity and the love of knowledge for its own sake. She was also one of two winners of the Seidel Keystone Prize for Achievement, the highest academic distinction in UMD’s Honors Humanities program, for her collection of ekphrastic poems—vivid descriptions of visual arts that she grounded in rigorous literary and art historical scholarship.
She said her studies of divergent viewpoints and teachings in literary texts will serve her in law school, where she will pursue a career in mediation and conflict resolution. Before that, she’ll spend a year completing an accelerated master’s program in the Robert H. Smith School of Business.
“As technology increasingly mediates decision-making, the human capacity to listen, understand competing perspectives and reimagine solutions will become even more critical,” she said.
Read on for more about the four finalists for university medalist:
Anirud Aggarwal
Anirud Aggarwal’s undergraduate research accomplishments read like a standout doctoral student’s: In Rio de Janeiro this year, the dual-degree scholar in computer science and mathematics presented a paper on artificial intelligence (AI) image generation at the International Conference on Learning Representations (ICLR). Next month he will present a paper on scaling vision systems at the IEEE/Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition—a study that earned him a Computing Research Association’s Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Award honorable mention.
But it was during Aggarwal’s semester abroad at Kyoto University in Japan when his passions bloomed. By establishing a philosophy and ethics reading group that discussed Japanese and English texts, he developed a space for cross-cultural expression. He called Kyoto and UMD places “where curiosity sparks discovery, kindling the next generation of researchers.”
More recently, Aggarwal joined a San Francisco-based startup as their founding research engineer to advance computer vision and generative AI. His research impact has also rippled through his community; through his work with Computer Engineers of the Next Generation, he developed curricula and taught computer science to thousands of students and trained numerous instructors.
Aggarwal “represents the very best of what the University of Maryland strives to cultivate in its students: exceptional intellectual ability, meaningful contributions to research, and a deep commitment to service and mentorship,” said Associate Professor of computer science Abhinav Shrivastava.
Nishkal Hundia
Nishkal Hundia arrived at UMD from India as an international student struggling to find his place. He’s graduating as one who helped classmates find theirs, believing that “hard work is not rewarded equally when access is unequal,” said the double-major in computer science and mathematics.
In his freshman year Hundia co-founded UMD’s AI/ML Club, recruiting students without experience so they could find mentors, opportunities and a sense of belonging. He grew it to more than 800 members, many of whom partnered with startup companies or used the experience to land jobs.
A teaching assistant for discrete mathematics, Hundia has helped his peers not just academically but also financially. In 2024 he launched a “hackathon” awareness initiative and secured more than $5,000 in travel funding for UMD students who otherwise could not afford to compete.
Hundia’s paper on modern AI models was presented last year at an ICLR workshop in Singapore. Also last year he presented a paper on deep learning and historical storm data at the International Conference on Structural Safety and Reliability. The recipient of a $45,000 Open Philanthropy grant to study AI reasoning, Hundia also earned both the Andrew Reisse Endowed Memorial Scholarship and John D. Gannon Scholarship from the Department of Computer Science.
“Nishkal is extremely bright and has personally shattered my expectations of what undergraduate students are capable of and how quickly they can become strong researchers,” said Assistant Professor of computer science Sarah Wiegreffe.
Hundia this fall will enroll at Boston University as a Ph.D. student in computing and data science.
Lucian Jessel
Lucian Jessel came to UMD with a B.F.A. in apparel design from the Rhode Island School of Design before switching career aspirations to local politics. On Wednesday he will secure three more bachelor’s degrees—in international business, international relations and German studies.
He volunteered as a student ambassador with TerpsVote, a nonpartisan group promoting civic engagement, giving classroom presentations across campus during the 2024 election season and helping more than 1,500 students register to vote and locate their polling station. He also collaborated with UMD’s Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement to strengthen the university’s relationship with the boards of elections for the city of College Park and Prince George’s County to improve voting accessibility for students.
Currently a community liaison for County Council member Jolene Ivey, he is helping launch a resource center for residents with vision impairments, as well as an autism coalition. Prior to that, he interned with U.S. Rep. Glenn Ivey of Maryland, helping run a job fair for laid-off federal workers, among other initiatives.
“Lucian is smart, inquisitive and engaged—the kind of student you always hope shows up in your classroom, and the one you end up talking to in the hallway after class even when you don’t have time,” said Hester Baer, professor of German and cinema and media studies.
Following graduation Jessel intends to stay in Prince George’s politics, either on the government or nonprofit level. “I love development work, and love helping connect people with the solutions they need to improve their lives,” he said.
Raina Saraiya
Raina Saraiya has spent her UMD career fighting for healthcare accessibility through research and advocacy, aspiring to become a pediatric physician and policy expert who “serves patients at the bedside and advocates for them in the boardroom,” she said.
In 2023 the neuroscience major founded PERIOD.@UMD, a nonprofit dedicated to eradicating “period poverty”—the inability to afford and access menstrual products—and countering stigma. Now 70 members strong, the team has distributed thousands of hygiene products to local shelters and run workshops on and off campus to promote menstrual health.
Saraiya’s time at UMD took her from the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore, where as a research fellow she engineered a system directing T-cells to key tissue cites, to the UMD College of Education’s Autism, Family, Culture and Communication Education Lab, where she researched culturally responsive interventions for autism care within immigrant families.
At the Association of American Minority Physicians annual conference in 2024, she presented an abstract on cellular immunotherapies. For three years as a medical assistant for Med-Ped Healthcare, a College Park community clinic, she served low-income and immigrant patients. Her volunteer work includes tutoring K-12 students across Maryland and serving a New Jersey hospice.
Saraiya “is a scholar, a dedicated global citizen and a highly intelligent, empathetic and tireless warrior for justice,” said Stacy Kosko, associate research professor of government and politics and director of College Park Scholars International Studies.
In her spare time Saraiya performs as a member of UMD's EntouRaas dance team practicing Raas and Garba, a form of Indian classical dance. This fall she will enroll in the Rutgers University Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.
The University of Maryland will celebrate its newest graduates at commencement exercises across campus May 19-22. Maryland Today is celebrating too with stories on the following:
Wednesday, May 13: Your guide to commencement cords and medals
Thursday, May 14: Student marshals
Friday, May 15: Medalist and finalists
Monday, May 18: The Orthodox nun earning a degree
Tuesday, May 19: Terps’ advice to new grads
Wednesday, May 20: Student speaker
Thursday, May 21: Main commencement ceremony coverage
For information about tickets, ceremony locations, parking and more, visit commencement.umd.edu.