Fifteen students have been granted $20,000 to support their mentored research and projects for the next two years after the Lumen Advisory Committee announced Elon University’s 2026 Lumen Scholar winners. Director of the Lumen Prize Michael Carignan said the committee had to make very difficult decisions because there were many strong proposals submitted this year.

“It's hard on us to say no to good work being done,” Carignan said.

The application process began in early March when sophomores submitted their proposals about their research or project during their junior and senior years. The committee spent spring break reading all of the proposals, and after a few rounds of selection, 30 finalists were chosen to interview. After those interviews, which occurred this past week, the committee chooses the 15 winners. 

Carignan said the Lumen Prize helps find talent early and gives it a springboard by giving these students the funding.

“We think that it gives a great boost to talented students who have conceived, with their mentors, really great projects,” Carignan said.

Many of the Lumen Scholar winners go on to apply for national fellowships and do graduate work at other institutions, and their Lumen Scholar projects are used in the application process, Carignan said. Carignan said all 15 winners have tremendous potential, and said it gives them a head start into a life of research or the creative arts. 

“My greatest joy as the director of the Lumen Prize is to watch them unfold with all of the resources they have. They can do incredible things like go overseas or build robots, or have the resources to supply their lab so that they can do really deep research, and in many cases, achieve almost professional-level publications,” Carignan said.

2026 Lumen Scholars

Tajallah Amirkhil — Public Health & Biochemistry

Mentor: Molly Green

Project: Barriers and Resilience: Exploring Mental Health among Afghan Refugee Women in North Carolina

Emma Briceño— English (Creative Writing)

Mentors: Dan Burns & Tita Ramirez

Project: The Desert Lighthouse, a Novel: an exploration of Queerness and Safety through Body Horror, Immortality, and Genre Reinvention

Kelley Calvillo — Dance Performance and Choreography

Mentor: Renay Aumiller

Project: The Body Knows: Developing a Feminist Framework for Distributed Choreographic Authorship

Chloe Cone — Biochemistry

Mentors: Eryn Bernardy & Ahlam Armaly

Project: Solutions in the Soil: Unearthing Novel Antibacterial Compounds from Soil Microbes to Combat Antimicrobial Resistance

Sanai Crosby — Exercise Science & Dance Science

Mentors: Lauren Kearns & Matt Wittstein

Project: Dance and Neural Activity: Examining Neural Activity Across the Choreographic Process and Performance Environments 

Fleur Helmantel — Biomedical Engineering & Chinese Studies

Mentor: Scott Wolter

Project: Development of Tissue-Mimicking Phantoms for the Treatment of Breast Cancer

Anna Keller — Major Not Listed

Mentor: Scott Morrison

Project: Perceptions and Practices of Outdoor Literacy: a Two-Part Mixed-Methods Study

Nevaeh Kimmie — Psychology & Economics

Mentor: Katrina Jongman-Sereno

Project: To Code-Switch or Not to Code-Switch: Authenticity, Psychological Outcomes, and Social Judgement of Black College Students in Predominantly White Academic Spaces

Lisa Kranec — Biomedical Engineering & Applied Mathematics

Mentors: Hwayeon Ryu & Efrain Rivera-Serrano

Project: Mathematical Modeling of Excessive Collagen Production in Cardiac Fibrosis

Jordyne Lewis — Economic Consulting & Data Analytics

Mentor: Steve DeLoach

Project: Refugees, Emotional Wellbeing, and Financial Inclusion in Uganda

Kendall Lewis — Biochemistry & Mathematics

Mentor: Jen Uno

Project: Can the Microbiome Heal the Brain? Evaluating Butyrate’s Efficiency in Reducing Stroke Severity within the Context of Obesity

Ja’Mir Parham — Astrophysics

Mentor: Zack Hutchens

Project: RESOLVE, ECO, and eRASS: Probing Galaxy Growth through Cold and Hot Gas

Danny Stern — Chemistry

Mentor: Karl Sienerth

Project: From Backlog to Breakthrough: Use of Fluorescence Quenching for the Development of an Explosive Identification Database

Ainsley Thompson — Biochemistry

Mentor: Yuko Miyamoto

Project: Decreasing Platinum Chemotherapy Resistance by Downregulating STAT3 and Upregulating PTEN in the SKOV3 Cell Line

Scout Winter — Exercise Science

Mentor: Bill Evans

Project: Effects of a Whole-Food Plant-Based Diet on Insulin Resistance and Inflammation in Adults with Type 1 Diabetes