Alyssa Smith who successfully defended her PhD thesis on March 16, 2026 was honored with Northeastern University's Laurel and Scroll 100 Award.

The Laurel and Scroll 100 recognizes exceptional graduate and professional students across Northeastern's global university system. Alyssa was honored for her extraordinary research productivity — including seven peer-reviewed publications, an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, and an invited talk at Oxford's St. John's College Networks Seminar — alongside her leadership founding a cross-disciplinary mentorship program and building open-science infrastructure that advances her field. Her co-advisors noted that her rare combination of research excellence, community leadership, and generosity of spirit makes her exactly the kind of graduate this award was created to recognize.