College of Arts & Sciences Celebrates 2026 Tropaia Exercises Award Winners

Georgetown University College of Arts & Sciences celebrated its 107th annual Tropaia Exercises in Gaston Hall on Friday, May 15. The Tropaia Exercises awards ceremony, which takes its name from the ancient Greek word for “trophy,” honors graduating seniors for their outstanding accomplishments in and out of the classroom.

This year’s honorees included college-wide award winners, Addison Basile (C’26), recipient of the Coakley Medal, Anna Burgess (C’26), who received the Katherine Kraft Medal; Cameron Daly (C’26), winner of the Louis McCahill Award; Simone Walker Guité (C’26), who received the Lambert H. Spronck Medal; and Emilio Cazares Borbon, recipient of the Loyola Medal presented to the member of the graduating class of the College who best exemplified Catholic and Jesuit ideals in their collegiate life.

Matthew Gardiner (C’26) delivered the Cohonguroton address, and Joseph Hartman (G’15), the Walter I. Giles Associate Professor of the Practice in Constitutional Law in the Department of Government, received the Edward B. Bunn, S.J. Award for Faculty Excellence.

“Your academic journeys at Georgetown have undoubtedly been filled with many high moments, but I suspect just about all of you now can recall a low moment — a grade that wasn’t as good as you expected, an experiment that produced disappointing results or a concert performance that didn’t go as well as the rehearsals had,” David Edelstein, the dean of the College of Arts & Sciences, told the audience at Gaston Hall. “But you’re all better for how you managed those lower moments and made your way to today, clearly a higher moment. So, always remember: the process is as valuable, if not more valuable, than the outcome.”

Get to know some of the students below and read the full list of award winners here.

Addison Basile (C’26), Coakley Medal

Basile, from Middletown, New Jersey, had not yet committed to attending Georgetown when she arrived at GAAP Weekend, but she left in a Georgetown sweatshirt excited to tell everyone about her decision.

“What ultimately sold me on Georgetown was that it seemed like a place where I could do a bit of everything, never sacrificing one interest for another,” she said. “All of the students here seemed so engaged in what they were doing, and I really wanted to be a part of that.”

At Georgetown, Basile, who received the Coakley medal, double majored in psychology and linguistics and minored in Italian. On campus, she was involved in ESCAPE, a 27-hour overnight retreat; Cornerstone, a weekly gathering with a small group of new students and an assigned mentor; Corp Catering, Women’s Club Ice Hockey and the College Academic Council.

But the cornerstone of Basile’s Georgetown experience has been her journey with the Italian language, she said. Seeking to reconnect with her father’s Sicilian heritage, Basile took a beginner Italian course to meet her language requirement during her freshman year. The summer following sophomore year, Basile traveled to Perugia, Italy for a six-week intensive Italian course with The Umbra Institute.

“When I got back from Perugia, I knew I wanted Italian to be part of the rest of my life,” Basile said.

She helped to translate her professor’s novel from Italian to English, completed internships and courses abroad, tutored in Italian at the Academic Resource Center and started an Instagram account, @ciaoitsaddy, which promotes Italian American heritage and the Italian language and has accumulated more than 17,000 followers. She capped off her Georgetown career with a linguistics thesis which studied Italian service employees and their attitudes towards Italian language learners. 

“In just three years, being Italian has gone from being a little known fact about me to being a defining part of my identity. It’s changed how I see myself and the world and how I relate to others,” Basile said. “This is all because of a core requirement and the incredible support I found in Georgetown’s Italian department.”

After graduating this spring, Basile will be going to Italy with the National Italian American Foundation, to New York City to be a guest on the Italian American Podcast and then to Ohio to work with the USA Hockey Player Development Camps. 

In October, Basile will be serving as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant at a high school in Southern Italy as a recipient of the Fulbright U.S. Student Program award. 

“I see this opportunity as the culmination of everything I learned about myself and the world at Georgetown and the perfect way to combine my long-time ambition to work in education with my love for Italian language and culture,” she said.

Since her freshman year, Basile has worked with Corp Catering at GAAP Weekends to try to share the love she found for Georgetown with other prospective students. These weekends would remind Basile of her own Georgetown journey.

“Meeting parents over breakfast and being able to share even a fraction of the love I found here always left me feeling even more grateful for the opportunity to be here,” she said. “Georgetown has been everything to me.”

The Coakley Medal was established by Elizabeth Coakley in memory of her husband, Henry “Hank” Coakley, a class of 1941 Georgetown alumnus and U.S. Air Force pilot who died in World War II. The award is presented to a College of Arts & Sciences senior who has displayed qualities of loving service, honor and courage.

Anna Burgess (C’26), Katherine Kraft Medal

The sense of community and the spirit of cura personalis drew Burgess, recipient of the Katherine Kraft Medal, to Georgetown. It was a place where she saw herself “growing through service and critical thought” in addition to academics, she said. Burgess chose Georgetown because she envisioned it as a place where she could challenge herself and join an engaged community. 

Originally from Fairfield, Connecticut, Burgess transferred to Georgetown after completing her freshman year at the University of Miami. At Georgetown, she studied neurobiology with minors in disability studies and economics. 

On campus, Burgess met some of her closest friends through Corp Catering. She enjoyed running races throughout DC with her friends and having “family dinners” with her roommates. 

Burgess also pursued many different opportunities to get hands-on experience in neurobiology and disability research. She shadowed at the Developmental Evaluation Clinic, where she assisted in the evaluation of post-NICU toddlers. She worked at the Thrive Center for Children, Families, and Communities as a peer mentor and research assistant. There, Burgess developed a research project about a curriculum for entrepreneurs with intellectual and developmental disabilities. She also volunteered with Professor Chandan Vaidya’s Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory, which taught her how to analyze neuroimaging data.

After graduation, Burgess will be working as a research assistant with Dr. Adriana Di Martino, an autism researcher, in the Autism Center at the Child Mind Institute in New York City. Eventually, she plans to attend a clinical psychology program.

“Georgetown has helped me come into myself as a person, student and future clinician,” Burgess said. “I’ve not only gained extensive knowledge in my academic interests, but also gained a broader perspective through the core curriculum and my research, shadowing and mentorship. As I continue my education and experience in psychology, I know that I’ll be more empathetic and have a holistic approach due to what I have learned while at Georgetown.”

Cornelia Kraft McKee established the Kraft Medal in memory of her mother, Katherine Kraft, and the award is given to the student who best manifests a spirit of humility, cooperation and commitment as a person for others.

Cameron Daly (C’26), Louis McCahill Award

At Georgetown, Daly, recipient of the Louis McCahill Award, found a place with no limits. “I never once heard anyone at Georgetown say, ‘I can’t,’” he said.

Daly did not take a traditional path to the Hilltop. After graduating from high school in Missoula, Montana, he struggled with drugs and alcohol, and fell into addiction. In 2017, he moved from Montana to Portland, Oregon, where he went through treatment and moved into sober living. 

In Portland, he got a job working at a grocery store and had no plans to attend college. “I didn’t think it was meant for me,” he said. When he decided to take classes at Portland Community College, he enrolled in fifth-grade math because of the long gap since he had been in school.

Daly did well in his classes, taking a few at a time while working at Whole Foods, and he began to consider transferring. “I really wanted to go somewhere that would let me do work that felt meaningful, but I did not ever think it was in the cards,” he said. But when he got into Georgetown, he felt that this dream could become reality. 

In DC, Daly has been able to pursue his dream of building “technology that drives real innovation and has a lasting impact on my community.” He double majored in computer science and economics. 

Daly conducted research with Micah Sherr, the Callahan Family Professor of Computer Science, in the Georgetown Security Lab about censorship resistance, anonymity, privacy and security. He worked on three Hackathons with HoyaHacks. He joined Hoya Developers, a student-run software development club. Through that experience, he met Andrés Garcia (G’25), an entrepreneur and graduate of Georgetown’s Executive MBA program, and has worked at Garcia’s startup company, GoodOnBaby.

Daly also joined Hoyas for Recovery, which shares overdose and harm reduction awareness to students. The club has been a defining piece of Daly’s time at Georgetown.

“As a student in long-term recovery, they helped me navigate staying sober while giving Georgetown my whole self,” he said. A highlight of Daly’s Georgetown experience was representing Hoyas for Recovery in the Mr. Georgetown competition, an experience Daly said was “so far outside of my comfort zone.”

After graduating, Daly will be working as a software engineer in the defense and national security sector. He will also continue to work with GoodOnBaby and finish up research projects at Georgetown. Daly added that he is looking forward to settling down with his partner and starting a family.

At Georgetown, he had the opportunity to start again and believes he is a completely different person now compared to when he first arrived at the Hilltop. “When I first got sober, I used to dream about what it would look like to do something meaningful with my life,” Daly said. Now that he’s graduating, he feels that this dream has become a reality. 

“I can say with complete confidence that coming to Georgetown has completely changed the trajectory of my life,” Daly said. “I cannot wait to see where that goes.”

The Louis McCahill Award was established in 1960 by Eugene McCahill and Francis McCahill in memory of their brother, Louis, who died in service during the First World War. It is given to the student who has shown perseverance and determination of a high order in pursuing educational objectives at Georgetown.

Simone Guité (C’26), Lambert H. Spronck Medal

Guité’s education at Georgetown has changed the way she thinks about the world. Growing up in Portland, Oregon, Guité, winner of the Lambert H. Spronck Medal, was passionate about law and politics. Because of its access to politics in DC, Georgetown was her dream school.

Visiting the campus for the first time during GAAP Weekend felt like “a warm embrace,” said Guité. “I chose Georgetown for the opportunities to be connected with politics and for the amazing community of students and professors that make the school so special.”

Guité is a double major in American studies and government with a minor in women and gender studies. Recently, she completed her thesis, “Thread of Memory: Midwestern Farm Women’s Narration of Sewing, Homemaking, and Hardship,” in which Guité explored a series of oral histories with homemakers who had raised families on Midwestern farms in the mid-20th century.

In American Studies classes, including the Global American Studies Exchange, Guité had the opportunity to not only learn about American history, but to analyze how and why we tell history in certain ways. 

“My Georgetown education has changed how I think about the world around me,” Guité said. “We challenge mainstream narratives by examining whose perspectives are included in those stories, and why other viewpoints are left out.”

On the Hilltop, Guité found opportunity and community. Early on in her college career, she served as GAAP Oregon State Chair and was involved in the Circle of Indigenous Students’ Alliance (Guité is a member of the Chinook Nation), which helped her find comfort while living far from home. Playing trumpet with Pep Band, and eventually serving as president, she found a group of people that felt like a family. And joining the Georgetown University College Democrats gave her the opportunity to advocate for issues she cared about and to meet her closest friends. 

While attending Georgetown, Guité interned for the National Democratic Redistricting Committee and Representative Maxine Dexter, inspiring her to pursue a career in politics and giving her the opportunity to give back to her community. 

After graduating, she will be working as a field organizer for the Iowa Democratic Party ahead of the midterm elections. 

“When I leave Georgetown, I will take with me the ability to think critically about the world around me, and how I can use my skills to make it a better place.”

The Lambert H. Spronck Medal was founded in 1963 by the students of the College in memory of Lambert H. Spronck (C’63). It is awarded to that student who has, throughout their college career, combined good scholarship with significant contributions to extracurricular activities, and who has manifested a spirit of giving completely to whatever Georgetown project or activity they are engaged in.

Matthew Gardiner (C’26), Cohonguroton Address

Gardiner, a double major in history and biology, was selected to give the Cohonguroton address.

“Cohonguroton” is an Algonquin word for the Potomac River that roughly translates to “river of swans.” The address is considered a symbolic “swan song” delivered by a member of the graduating class.

Joseph Hartman (G’15), Edward B. Bunn, S.J. Award for Faculty Excellence

Hartman, the Walter I. Giles Associate Professor of the Practice in Constitutional Law in the Department of Government, received the Edward B. Bunn, S.J. Award for Faculty Excellence, which is determined by a direct vote from the senior class. 

The award was established in 1967 to honor Rev. Edward B. Bunn, S.J., for his years of devotion and service to Georgetown University as president and chancellor.

(All photos by Dave Asche for Georgetown University)