Saluting the 2024 Valedictorians and Salutatorians

Engineering sciences major and salutatorian Anna Hugney '24 pictured farthest left, front row. (Photo by Robert Gill)

To be named a valedictorian, students must earn a cumulative 4.0 grade point average during their Dartmouth academic career. Salutatorians each earned at least a 3.99 grade point average.

Ethan Chen '24, Valedictorian

Incline Village, Nev.

Computer science major modified with engineering sciences; music minor

Chen, whose academic interests include software architecture, algorithms, and music arrangement and composition, interned last summer with San Mateo, Calif.-based online game platform Roblox, and plans to join the company full-time as a software engineer.

At Dartmouth, he was an eight-time teaching assistant for Computer Science 10: Problem Solving via Object-Oriented Programming. He was a member of Zeta Psi fraternity, played solo and chamber piano, interned at MathWorks, and participated in an engineering exchange term at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Anna Hugney '24, Salutatorian

East Longmeadow, Mass.

Engineering sciences major; earth sciences minor

Post-graduation, Hugney will be joining the carbon-capture startup Heirloom Carbon in San Francisco, and ultimately plans to apply to graduate school and pursue a career in climate technology, energy efficiency, and decarbonization.

At Dartmouth, she participated in the earth sciences off-campus program The Stretch and was project manager of a Dartmouth Humanitarian Engineering project to bring solar energy to school kitchens in Uganda. She was a research assistant for Associate Professor of Engineering Hélène Seroussi, studying melting at the base of the Antarctic ice sheet, and for Professor of Engineering Benoit Cushman-Roisin, studying the energy-efficiency of bird-like drones.

She also completed an internship at Remora Carbon, a startup that is developing a device to capture semi-truck carbon emissions directly from the tailpipe.

Wending Wu '23, Salutatorian

Hudson, Ohio

Computer science and engineering sciences double major

Among his Dartmouth activities, Wu—whose academic interests include computer science, engineering, mathematics, philosophy, and music—played piano in the Dartmouth Symphony Orchestra and was lead mechanic for Dartmouth Bikes, a program run through the Sustainability Office.

An advocate and activist for active transportation and sustainable urban planning, Wu also served as a nonvoting member of the Hanover Bike Walk Committee, which advises the town about walk and bike accessibility, safety, and street design.

He participated in an engineering exchange program at The Chinese University of Hong Kong and twice interned in software engineering at Amazon, where he plans to return post-graduation as a full-time software development engineer in Arlington, Va.