Five graduating seniors — Serena Liu ’14, Jonathan Pedde ’14, Ethan Portnoy ’14, Natalie Salmanowitz ’14 and Ezra Toback ’14 — have been named valedictorians this year. Each has achieved a perfect 4.0 GPA at the College.
Julia Berkowitz ’14, Laura Cressman ’14, Charles Dong ’13, Miriam Kilimo ’14 and Jake Leichtling ’14 were named salutatorians, each earning a 3.99 GPA. Dong received the honor after taking a gap year.
All five valedictorians acknowledged the significant time commitment required for their academic success but also stressed the importance of balancing work and other interests. Despite keeping academics a top priority, most of the students said they did not feel like they had to sacrifice too much for their grades.
Although multiple valedictorians have spoken at Commencement in past years, Salmanowitz will be the only speaker on Sunday. She said the valedictorians this year were informed that this change was made because of the increasing number of recipients per year.
Salmanowitz, from the San Francisco bay area, studied neuroscience and theater at the College and will pursue a master’s degree at Duke University in bioethics and science policy next year. She said she hopes to become an expert in neurolaw, a field at the intersection of neuroscience and the criminal justice system.
Her study habits helped her land a job in Sherman Art Library, she said.
“I absolutely love Sherman, so I sit at the exact same spot at the exact same table,” she said. “Finally one day the boss walks by, and he’s like, ‘You’re always here — I’m going to pay you to be here.’”
At Dartmouth, Salmanowitz played club soccer, served as a Dean’s Office student consultant and tutored with Let’s Get Ready. She said that psychological and brain sciences professor Margaret Funnell and theater professor Carol Dunne greatly influenced her academic pursuits at the College.
Liu, of Bellevue, Washington, studied biology and economics. After graduating, she hopes to pursue a Ph.D. in genome sciences at the University of Washington.
Liu said that as a result of her academic endeavors, sleep was a “pretty rare commodity.”
Although she was not able to spend as much time with her friends as she would have liked, she said her friends have been major influences on her time at Dartmouth.
Outside of class, Liu sang for the Handel Society, worked as a teaching assistant in the Claflin Jewelry Studio and researched plant developmental genetics in biology professor Thomas Jack’s lab.
“Professor Thomas Jack, who’s been my major and thesis advisor, has been a fantastic mentor and a huge part of my Dartmouth experience,” she said.
Pedde, from Regina, Saskatchewan, completed a double major in economics and mathematics and a minor in engineering sciences. Named a Canadian Rhodes Scholar this winter, he will pursue a master of philosophy in economics at the University of Oxford.
Pedde is a former member of The Dartmouth senior staff. He joined the opinion section his freshman fall, and became section editor during his junior winter, a position he held through senior fall. Pedde also played with the men’s Ultimate Frisbee B team, Discomfort Trolley.
He credited his academic success to engaging with faculty members, collaborating with peers and maintaining a strong work ethic.
“There are a lot of people here at Dartmouth who are smarter than I am,” Pedde said. “I just think those three things that I mentioned I had in my favor.”
Portnoy, of Chappaqua, New York, studied economics and Spanish. Next year, he will work for Bain Capital’s private equity practice.
At the College, Portnoy is co-president of the Dartmouth Investment Club, a member of Psi Upsilon fraternity, a Bar Mitzvah tutor at the Roth Center and co-president of Philanthropic All American Rush, an organization that raised over $100,000 in the past two years through Greek houses.
Portnoy said he is humbled to share the valedictorian honor with four other “incredibly talented” Dartmouth students.
Toback, also from Chappaqua, New York, majored in Asian and Middle Eastern Studies and Asian and Middle Eastern Languages, with a focus on Japanese language. He attended Horace Greeley High School with Portnoy, where they shared honors as co-salutatorians. The pair played little league baseball together.
While on campus, he sang with the Brovertones a cappella group, taught as a Japanese drill instructor and was a member of Alpha Theta fraternity.
Toback said he was genuinely interested in his work and will continue to study his major fields next year at the Inter-University Center for Japanese Language Studies. He said he hopes to attend graduate school for a Ph.D. program in East Asian studies. Toback had entered the College as a prospective physics major.
“Anyone who’s coming into college, even if they’re convinced that they know what they want to do, should take a smorgasbord of classes,” he said.
At last year’s Commencement, seven Dartmouth students — five valedictorians and two salutatorians — were recognized for their academic achievements. Last year’s valedictorians earned a perfect 4.0 GPA, while majoring in fields including history, biology and classics.
In the past two decades, the College has crowned more and more valedictorians. In 1997, two students shared the title for the first time. Three students earned the honor for the first time in 2008. In 2010 and 2013, the College had four and five valedictorians, respectively.
Daniel Webster’s nephew, C. B. Haddock delivered the first valedictory address in 1816.
