Princeton Research Day celebrated its 10^th anniversary early this month, showcasing the vital pipeline of scholarly and creative talent at Princeton and its ability to provide solutions to society’s challenges for decades to come.

Princeton Research Day (PRD) is the University’s marquee, campus-wide event for early-career researchers and creators to present their work — in the sciences, engineering, social sciences, the arts and the humanities — through three-minute online videos viewed by a vast lay audience and in presentations in a research showcase.

This year, more than 130 video entries were submitted on subjects ranging from T-cell aging and the immune system to the real-time impact of global financial crises on families to an original musical play exploring adolescent mental health.

Live PRD programming at Frist Campus Center on May 8 also included a poster session, a reception. and an awards ceremony for 23 winners in a variety of categories.

Christopher L. Eisgruber commended the early-career scholars for amplifying the University's commitment to curiosity-driven research and scholarly excellence.

Photo by

Tori Repp/Fotobuddy

Opening the awards ceremony, President Christopher L. Eisgruber lauded the University’s “talent pipeline,” reminding the early-career scholars gathered that their communications skills have a new and urgent necessity.

“I went online and I watched a few of your videos — and, wow, you are doing such impressive work,” said Eisgruber, noting that he had recently visited policymakers in Washington, D.C., to underscore the importance of Princeton’s research enterprise.

“In distilling your research into accessible three-minute videos and engaging in conversations with members of the campus community, you’ve amplified our commitment to curiosity-driven research and scholarly excellence.”

Award winners were called onstage by Dean of the College Michael D. Gordin — who reminded students that many of them were in middle school when PRD held its first event in 2016 — and Dean for Research Peter Schiffer. Both engaged awardees in short conversations about their work.

“What’s especially exciting is both the abundance and the breadth of projects on display at Princeton Research Day,” Schiffer said, reflecting on the event. “Scores of researchers across all disciplines used different methodologies to explore a huge range of topics. Whether conducting ethnographic field work to better understand biodynamic agriculture, or using advanced imaging and analytical techniques to develop more sustainable batteries, these researchers brought passion, energy and creativity to their projects. Year after year, Princeton Research Day showcases the vibrancy of the University’s research community.”

Awards for the researchers’ presentations included prizes for general excellence and for work in specific areas, including newly introduced categories for the arts and humanities, sustainability and international research. Many of the winners focused on research that aims to help solve problems, in service to the nation and the world.

Orange and Black Awards, for presentations with the highest overall scores in the videos and the showcase, combined, went to molecular biology graduate student Talia Akoh-Arrey, for “Biological Timekeeping: Circadian Regulation of Gut Immunity”; ecology and evolutionary biology (EEB) student Jessica Wang, Class of 2026, for “Predator Alert: Alarm Calls and Social Signaling in a Tropical Bird (Crotophaga major)”; computer science student Maggie Wang, Class of 2026, for “Evaluating Infringement Propensity in Text-to-Image Models”; and EEB graduate student Henry Gage for “Hot, Hungry, and Scared: How do Africa’s Large Herbivores Coexist?”

A full list of winners is available here.

AI energy use, the middle-class impact of the 2008 financial crisis

Undergraduates Vitus Larrieu, Trace Zhang, and Nora Graves of the Class of 2026 won the Sustainability Research Award from Princeton’s Office of Sustainability for work addressing the environmental footprint of AI large language models.  

“We designed our system with the goal of reducing ChatGPT usage for queries that could be handled by an equivalent web search, which uses 10 times less energy,” Larrieu said.

Karina Li, Class of 2026, won the FitzRandolph Gate Showcase Award, considered to be the “fan favorite” of the voting community, for her video, “The Impact of the 2008 Global Financial Crisis on Private Health Insurance Enrollment for Middle-Income and High-Income Families.”

Princeton junior Karina Li, an economics major, won the "fan favorite" FitzRandolph Gate Showcase Award. "My work reinforces that economic downturns like the 2008 global financial crisis have a disproportionately destabilizing effect on middle-class families," she said.

Photo by

Tori Repp/Fotobuddy

“My work reinforces that economic downturns like the 2008 global financial crisis have a disproportionately destabilizing effect on middle-class families, especially when it comes to private health insurance,” said Li. “The key takeaway for policymakers is the recognition that the middle class is underprotected during crises, and this calls for stronger safety nets in economic downturns to protect overall long-term economic and public health resilience.

“Participating in Princeton Research Day has helped me recognize the importance of stepping back from the technical details of my research and seeing it through a broader lens. Rather than focusing on tables or graphs, this was an opportunity to ask myself what I wanted my key takeaways to be, and allowed me to emphasize the human impact, broader trends and real-world implications of my research.”

Princeton Research Day is a collaborative initiative between the offices of the Dean of the College, the Dean of the Graduate School, the Dean for Research and the Vice President for Campus Life, with support from the Office of the Dean of the Faculty and the Office of the Provost. The PRD website features all video entries for the 2025 event.