Academic Administrator Andrea Wirth and GSL professor Catherine Clark presented the first two awards.

The Award for Excellence Distinguished Student prize was presented to Carmela Lao for her study of Japanese, Chinese, and Korean. One faculty member, Shigeru Miyagawa, had this to say about Carmela: “Carmela is an extraordinary student, one of the best undergraduate students I’ve had in the 24 years that I have taught at MIT.”

The Award for Excellence Prize was presented to Tiffany Amariuta for her work in French and Russian. Her endorsers gave her great labels, such as “Vociferous Learner,” “True Linguist,” and “Language Super-Star!”

AC Kemp presented the the 5th annual Isabelle de Courtivron Prize for Expository and Creative Writing.

The first prize winner was awarded to Vivian Tran, whose memoir “In the Ticks and Talks,” beautifully weaves together narratives of different generations. It is a well-told story framed by the common threads of time and an heirloom watch, which Tran describes as “the world squashed into a cake pan, the volume of time squeezed down.” Memorable and moving, “In the Ticks and Talks” is about culture—both lost and found.

The second prize was presented to Caleb Lin. Caleb’s poem, “From Beijing to Beijing,” draws the reader in as the narrator gradually enters the inner circles of the city. Using informal language and pop culture references to create a rich visual sense of place, from Beijing to Beijing was described by one judge as “vibrant, intriguing and evocative.”