2025 Chester Gillis Award Recipients Serve Their Communities Through Teaching and Cancer Research
This past spring, the College of Arts & Sciences celebrated Naveen Shah (C’25) and Harry Sun (C’26) as the recipients of the 2025 Chester Gillis Award.
Established by the College Academic Council in honor of Chester Gillis, the dean of the College from 2008 to 2017, the annual award recognizes and celebrates up to two students who embody the values of a liberal arts education rooted in the Jesuit tradition.
“Our students are extraordinary, and this award is an opportunity to highlight two who exemplify the values at the heart of a Georgetown education,” said advising dean Kelly Cole. “Their service and commitment to the community here on campus is a jumping off point for the change they will go on to make in the wider world, as people for others.”
This summer, Shah moved to Hawaii to begin his training as a teacher with Teach for America, and Sun is conducting research in the Neag Comprehensive Cancer Center at UConn Health.
Naveen Shah (C’25)
Shah graduated from the College of Arts & Sciences in May of 2025. (Courtesy of Naveen Shah)
A week after Shah graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in government and computer science in May, he hopped on a one-way flight to O’ahu, Hawaii. Once he arrived, he spent several weeks training to be a middle school math and science teacher with Teach for America and has been using his free time to explore O’ahu before the school year begins.
When Shah thinks of teaching, he recalls his favorite Georgetown motto: cura personalis, or care of the whole person.
“There is a great deal of research on the importance of social-emotional learning, or a more holistic approach to instruction which aims to strengthen students’ capabilities to manage their own emotions, relationships and develop confidence in their own decision-making abilities,” Shah said. “My goal is to grow students in this dimension while maintaining rigor with academics, in the spirit of cura personalis.”
At Georgetown, Shah was involved in several extracurricular activities. He started working with the nonprofit Hatch Tutors the fall of his first year and is still contributing to the tutoring organization. Shah is currently re-designing the backend software that helps match students with tutors.
Shah also joined the College Academic Council, which he served for four years, and Georgetown University Club Tennis as a first-year student.
During the spring semester of his first year, he traveled with the team to the national championships at the United States Tennis Association National Campus in Orlando, Florida. There, he met two representatives from ACEing Autism, a nonprofit organization providing sports related intervention for children with autism. It inspired Shah to start an ACEing Autism program at Georgetown.
As a junior, Shah spent five months as a teaching assistant for the data structures course in the Department of Computer Science.
“I appreciate the Chester Gillis Award as a recognition of the impact work I have done during my time at Georgetown,” Shah said.
Harry Sun (C’26)
Sun presenting his research at the 2025 Georgetown Undergraduate Research Conference. (Tiffany Pham)
This summer, Sun, a biology major and philosophy minor, is researching immune cell interactions and their implications on tumor immunity at the Neag Comprehensive Cancer Center at UConn Health.
The research is extremely personal for Sun. He recently lost his mother to cancer.
“I am still emotionally processing everything, along with my siblings and relatives overseas,” he said.
Sun takes pride in the breadth and depth of his research and hopes to carry it forward for others. He said that receiving the Chester Gillis Award has allowed him time to reflect on the Jesuit values that encourage intellectual curiosity, justice and a commitment to others.
“The Jesuit values of cura personalis and ‘People for Others’ has taken me to diverse realms as a lab researcher and nursing home volunteer, the latter of which I’ve spent summer weekends teaching word games and playing piano for residents,” Sun said. “Cura personalis has also informed my role as a caregiver for my recently passed mom, teaching me to reconcile moments at the hospital with her with emotional conversations at home.”
Sun’s academic program in the College of Arts & Sciences has largely framed the research he does. His biology major has informed his love for immunology and his philosophy minor challenges him to take other perspectives, predict counterarguments and consider the underlying ethics of future therapies, he said.
At Georgetown, Sun volunteers as a first responder with Georgetown Emergency Response Medical Service. He has also held leadership roles in The Corp, working as the head of purchasing and connecting with distributors and local minority-owned businesses to expand campus offerings.
The summer after Sun’s first year, he began working in a lab at UConn Health, and that fall, he joined the lab of Dr. Anton Wellstein, a professor of oncology and pharmacology at Georgetown’s School of Medicine and a member of the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center. Sun currently studies cancer immunology at Wellstein’s lab and neuroimmunology at the Jin Lab in the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which is a part of the National Institutes of Health.
Sun’s goal is to ultimately build novel treatments for cancer patients like his mom, he said.
After graduating from Georgetown, Sun plans to enroll in an MD/Ph.D.program. He is also interested in exploring research opportunities abroad to further his understanding of tumor immunology and cancer immunotherapy.
“To me, the Jesuit tradition is like a veil through which the world unravels, shedding light on the goals I feel inspired towards and how I can best pursue them,” Sun said.
(Top photo of Harry Sun by Tiffany Pham)