From Outdoors to Whiteboards: Kenan Wood ’25 Awarded Churchill Scholarship
January 30, 2025
- Author
- Mary Elizabeth DeAngelis
When Kenan Wood ’25 has complex problems to solve, he finds inspiration by taking a break from his whiteboard and laptop to hit a hiking trail.
Wood grew up on a farm in the western North Carolina mountains, balancing his love for the outdoors with a talent for tackling the mathematical and computer science puzzles that shape everything from our financial transactions to our voting systems.
His research — which he often ponders on Davidson College’s cross-country trails — recently sent him to Italy for an international conference where he received the award for best student paper. It was his first trip abroad; he’ll take his second after graduation when he heads to the United Kingdom as a Churchill Scholar.
Wood is one of 16 students this year and the first from Davidson to receive the Churchill Scholarship, a premier award for top students in STEM fields. This year’s competitive pool of 127 candidates is tied for the largest number of applicants since the program’s beginning. Along with the Fulbright, and the Marshall, Rhodes and Gates Cambridge Scholarships, the Churchill is considered among the most prestigious and competitive awards for U.S. students pursuing post-graduate study in the U.K. It offers full funding to pursue a master’s degree at the University of Cambridge’s Churchill College.
The annual scholarship, first awarded in 1963, was founded to honor Sir Winston Churchill by bringing talented American students to the college bearing his name. Its purpose: To advance technology and maintain strong international relations through research collaborations between U.K. and U.S. scholars.
Wood, who double majors in mathematics and computer science, has won numerous accolades, awards and scholarships. Last year, he received the Goldwater Scholarship, another prestigious honor for undergraduate students in STEM disciplines.
Professors who know him well encouraged him to apply for the Churchill award.
“I didn’t think I would get it, but I knew it was an incredible opportunity,” Wood said. “It’s just unreal.”
Kenan Wood and Jonad Pulaj, assistant professor of mathematics and computer science, at an international conference in Italy.
Supportive Mentors
Wood credits his Davidson professors with helping him grow as a researcher and expand his future possibilities. He’s developed close relationships with professors who’ve guided, mentored and entrusted him with important research.
That began with Jonad Pulaj, assistant professor of mathematics and computer science at Davidson, who first met Wood during his freshman year and supported him with research funding that summer.
In fall of his sophomore year, Pulaj brought Wood into an ongoing collaboration with Hammurabi Mendes, associate professor of mathematics and computer science, and Maurice Herlihy, a computer science professor at Brown University.
Their research involved Automated Market Makers (AMMs), a digital assets trading exchange. Wood wrote the mathematical proofs for a paper submitted for publication. He and his professors have several other research papers in the publication process.
“It is quite rare to come across undergraduate students who have both the mathematical maturity and the computing talent to successfully tackle research problems in this area the way Kenan has,” Pulaj said. “He already operates at the level of an advanced graduate student and has been remarkably independent, prolific and energetic.
“I expect that Kenan will be deeply involved in more exciting projects at the very forefront of computing and that his contributions will be significant and impactful.”
Pulaj and Mendes say they have great respect for the skills and attributes Wood brings to their shared research.
“Kenan is very strong technically, has a strong work ethic, and is very humble and polite,” Mendes said. “Kenan, Jonad and I have spent at least 100 hours together brainstorming ideas back and forth on whiteboards across campus. Working on these projects together was fun because of the qualities he possesses.”
Kenan Wood presents a paper at an international conference in Lucca, Italy.
A Life-changing Opportunity
Mathematics Professor Carl Yerger, a former Churchill Scholar, said Wood excelled in his senior-level graph theory course as a freshman and continues to impress him with his intellect, diligence and research. Wood, Pulaj and Yerger are currently working on graph theory projects as part of Wood’s mathematics honors thesis. Wood, with Pulaj and Mendes as co-advisors, is also writing a separate honors computer science thesis.
Yerger says Wood’s scholarship is richly deserved and offers exciting opportunities.
“I had a really good experience at Cambridge,” Yerger said. “It was the first time I traveled internationally. I learned a great deal about myself and some interesting mathematics before I began my Ph.D. program at Georgia Tech.”
Yerger’s highlights include playing tennis at Wimbledon for the Cambridge men's second tennis team and playing korfball (a Dutch game with some similarities to basketball) for the university’s team.
“The scholarship is special for many reasons,” Yerger said. “Cambridge can open a lot of doors internationally, both academically and otherwise. Winning an award like this is a validation of the work and success Kenan has accomplished in his career so far.”
Many top mathematics and computer science students in the U.S. tend to cluster at a few institutions, such as MIT. In the Churchill program’s history, only a handful of liberal arts colleges have been represented, with Davidson now added to the list. Wood’s success shows the strength of Davidson’s program, his professors said.
“Kenan’s accomplishment will encourage very strong students who might not want to attend a place like MIT — it shows that there are research opportunities and mentors available in other settings where they can also be competitive at the highest level for graduate school and external fellowships,” Yerger said. “Not everyone wants to live in a big city like Boston.”
New Mountains to Climb
Wood, the oldest of five children in a close family, came to Davidson on a Golden LEAF Scholarship, which supports students from underrepresented areas of North Carolina. He has never lived further than the two-and-a-half-hour drive from his home to Davidson.
While he’ll miss seeing his family, he’s excited about the chance to explore another side of the world. He had his first taste of international travel last semester.
In December, he, Pulaj and Mendes attended the 2024 International Conference on Principles of Distributed Systems (OPODIS) conference in Lucca, Italy. Wood presented two papers, “Optimal Multilevel Slashing for Blockchains” and “Distributed Agreement in the Arrovian Framework.” The latter won the conference’s best student paper award —a n honor typically given to students in Ph.D. programs, not undergraduates.
Wood took extra time to travel and hike, with stops in Venice and Riva Del Garda in northern Italy. In Riva Del Garda, he fulfilled a childhood dream of hiking in the Alps.
“The Alps were special to me because there is nothing like it in the U.S.,” he said. “They are astonishingly dramatic and beautiful.”
He’s looking forward to climbing more mountains — of both the academic and natural variety — during the next phase of his journey. That combination has served him well, when he’s stuck on a research problem, he often finds answers outdoors.
“I love being out in nature, especially in mountains,” he said. “My best insights come when I’m out hiking or walking. I enjoy that balance quite a lot.”
The Churchill Scholarship competition is administered at Davidson College through the Office of Fellowships. For more information about the Office of Fellowships or applying for the Churchill Scholarship, visit davidson.edu/fellowships.
