Outstanding students from Class of 2023 recognised for their achievements

Three outstanding students from the Class of 2023 were recognised for their academic and overall achievements through various National University of Singapore (NUS) awards, from being top scorers in their cohort to having exemplary capstone research projects and making impactful contributions to the student community.

The Lee Kuan Yew Gold Medal is awarded to the best performing graduates throughout their course of study. Stefan-Cristian Roata (Class of 2023), a Mathematical, Computational, and Statistical Sciences (MCS) major, received the award for his achievement throughout his Bachelor of Science with Honours degree.

“Winning such a prestigious award was truly an honour, and I felt a great sense of gratitude towards the faculty, staff, and mentors who had supported me along my academic journey,” Stefan said. “The Lee Kuan Yew Gold medal is named after a visionary leader who made significant contributions to Singapore and the world, and being associated with his name carries tremendous weight,” he added.

From an early age, Stefan had an unwavering passion for mathematics and computer science. His capstone, titled “Landscape Modification Meets Deep Learning: Visualising the Loss Landscape of Neural Networks”, explored a niche area of computer vision and deep learning. “The research I did for my capstone could potentially allow AI researchers to decide between which models to train and which optimisers to choose to minimise convergence time and maximise accuracy,” he explained.

Though he was an MCS major, Stefan found Modern Social Thought, a social theory course in the Common Curriculum, to be the most unforgettable. “The knowledge and perspectives I gained from exploring the formation and functioning of modern society through these intellectual lenses were truly transformative,” he said. He still holds onto the books from the course as a cherished memory of Yale-NUS College.

Shortly after graduation, Stefan was appointed as a Junior Data Scientist at RIMM Sustainability, one of the leading start-ups in the environmental technology sphere and a pioneer towards the democratisation of sustainability across all industrial sectors.

Joshua Vargas (Class of 2023) was awarded the Lee Kuan Yew Gold Medal for being the best performing graduate pursuing a Bachelor of Arts with Honours degree at Yale-NUS. He also won the NUS Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Prize for his capstone project on urban inequality and the business process outsourcing (BPO) industry in the Philippines.

The NUS Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Prize also included a grant to support him in presenting his work to a global academic audience. He will be attending and presenting his work at the Urban Studies Foundation’s Overlooked Cities seminar conference in Bandung, Indonesia in September this year. “I hope to network with other academics studying the cities and continue to develop my independent research work,” he shared. Global South countries refer to nations which are regarded as having a relatively low level of economic and industrial development and are typically located to the south of more industrialised nations.

Hailing from the Mindanao region of the Philippines, Joshua wanted to make the most out of the resources that Yale-NUS offered to make an impact and represent his community. “I want to use the privilege and platform I have as a graduate of Yale-NUS to make things better for people like me in high school, who have that love for community but are held back by unfair barriers to opportunity,” he shared. “I believe that youths in the Global South deserve to have options for self-actualisation that are not limited to hustling for survival or leaving their country for better opportunities,” he added.

He is also grateful for the support given by his peers, College faculty and staff throughout his entire academic journey. “All individual achievements are made possible by the power of one’s community. I could not have become the best version of myself without those who believed in me and who helped me,” he emphasised.

Currently, Joshua is working as a Research Assistant at Future Cities Laboratory Global, an urban science research group founded by ETH Zurich and the Singapore National Research Foundation. “I assist in the development and deployment of geospatial planning support tools. I’m also part of a project that is working with local governments in three cities in India to help build capacity in urban data management,” he shared. In the future, he also plans on pursuing a master’s degree in urban planning and spatial data science.

Ayyappan Madhumitha (Madhu) (Class of 2023) received both the National University of Singapore Society (NUSS) Medal for Outstanding Achievement and the Kamala Club, Singapore Medal. The former is awarded to one graduating student from each faculty who achieved academic excellence and made significant extra-curricular contributions while the latter is given to the best performing graduating female Indian undergraduate across all NUS faculties. Madhu was the first Yale-NUS student to receive the Kamala Club, Singapore Medal.

“This recognition from the Kamala Club medal is deeply encouraging for women like me who come from minority backgrounds in Singapore because we don’t always get to see women who look like us or talk like us in politics, within C-suites, or at leadership tables,” Madhu shared. “I consider the medal as an affirmation of my achievements thus far and a timely motivation for me to keep working hard to break the glass ceiling and achieve my dreams,” she added.

Though she came from a math and science specialised high school with limited exposure to the humanities, she was enthralled by the field of Anthropology. “Looking back, I am really glad I chose to do Anthropology,” she said. Madhu also spent her summer breaks pursuing her academic interests at other prestigious institutions. Through the support of the Centre for International and Professional Experience (CIPE) and the Summer Academic Scholarship, she worked on a global surgery research project at SingHealth Duke-NUS Global Health Institute and took classes at the Harvard Department of Global Health and Social Medicine.

For three years, Madhu was also a part of the Yale-NUS Student Government, most recently serving as the Vice-President of Student Affairs. Most notably, she was involved in the founding of the Inter University Network (IUN), a collaborative platform for the Student Governments of the five autonomous universities of Singapore to come together and advocate for the issues of concern to undergraduate youths. “I am especially proud that IUN’s first advocacy project, UCare, on undergraduate mental health was led by the Yale-NUS Student Government,” she shared.

As a student on the liberal arts and medicine pathway, she’s heading to Duke-NUS Medical School for her Doctor of Medicine degree to fulfil her ambition of becoming a physician.