Rower-engineer awarded Pyne Prize, Princeton’s top undergraduate honor
Braeden Carroll is a recipient of the 2026 Moses Taylor Pyne Honor Prize, the highest general distinction conferred on an undergraduate. The prize, established in 1921, is awarded to seniors who have manifested excellent scholarship, strength of character, and effective leadership.
Carroll, from Kinnelon, New Jersey, is majoring in civil and environmental engineering. He is a recipient of the Shapiro Prize for Academic Excellence, a two-time winner of the George B. Wood Legacy Prize, and an early inductee into the Phi Beta Kappa Society. Carroll also rows for the men’s varsity lightweight rowing team.
Carroll’s academic pursuits have bridged engineering, the humanities, social sciences, and policy studies, including extensive interdisciplinary fieldwork. His senior thesis, an analysis of walls in historic timber barns, combines his major in civil engineering and his interest in sustainability. The work has implications for understanding the structural behavior of historic timber barns and for developing preservation methods.
Carroll plans to combine the analytical and quantitative skills gained at Princeton to contribute to work in clean technology and sustainable energy.
The Engineering Student Athlete
Engineering student athletes train and compete at a high level while also designing robots, building computer algorithms, and planning for climate resilience.
A commitment to connect
For rugby player Malinka Kwemo, taking a breadth of classes reveals new ways of thinking about engineering and how it intersects with other fields.
Rower-engineer awarded Pyne Prize, Princeton’s top undergraduate honor
Braeden Carroll’s academic pursuits have bridged engineering, the humanities, social sciences, and policy studies, including extensive interdisciplinary fieldwork.
From hurdles to heat mapping: Bringing it all together
Growing up pursuing a sport that requires mastery of sprints, hurdles, shot put and high jump, Julia Jongejeugd knows how to do more than one thing well. And not just in sports.
Algorithms for swimming, and life
For Conor McKenna, success, whether in the pool or in computer science, has been about creating efficient sets of steps to achieve a desired output.
Contagious energy
Lacrosse player Tyler Harris was drawn to the hands-on approach and collaborative style of mechanical and aerospace engineering.
Princeton engineers coach middle schoolers in rowing and robotics
The STEM to Stern afterschool program brings local students to the University’s boathouse and to engineering teaching labs, where they build and program robots for tasks like stacking blocks.
Wrestling dumb: A life in balance
Sebastian Garibaldi has a job lined up developing a robot that does housework. Engineering problems activate his analytical mind, while wrestling activates something almost purely physical. “Brutish,” he said.