On Monday, the University named Erik Medina ’25 as valedictorian and Rosie Eden ’25 as salutatorian of the Class of 2025. The Daily Princetonian interviewed Medina and Eden on the achievement and learned more about their Princeton experience.
Though Medina and Eden were informed that they were in the running about a week and a half in advance, Medina was still shocked when Dean Michael Gordin told him the news.
“Obviously I’ve worked very hard throughout the years, and it’s something that I would have liked to have entertained as a possibility,” Medina said in an interview with the ‘Prince,’ “but … I definitely was not expecting it at all.”
Eden, a Classics major from Scottsdale, Az., said her reaction to being selected as salutatorian was similar. “I didn’t really believe it was real. [There was] just a lot of shock … I immediately called my mom, and I think we were both just in disbelief, like crying on the phone,” she told the ‘Prince.’
Medina, a Chemistry major from Miami, Fla., earned a cumulative GPA of 3.97, achieving 13 A+ grades. His thesis, “Burning Rubber Duckies with Flashlights: Applications of Photothermal Conversion to PVC Chemical Upcycling,” was co-authored with graduate student Hanning Jiang and published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS).
The paper successfully identified a new method of transforming post-consumer products — from Styrofoam to rubber duckies — into useful chemicals without creating dangerous byproducts.
According to Medina, his interest in the physical sciences began at a young age. “Growing up, I always wanted to be a particle physicist, but then I discovered I was not quite good enough at math to do that,” he told the ‘Prince.’ “As I grew up, I really ended up falling in love with chemistry, just because I think it strikes a nice balance between physics [and] biology … you get to cover a lot of different ground.”
Medina said that the friendships and connections he forged within the Chemistry department were a high point of his time at Princeton. “The other chemistry undergrads are wonderful [and] I have nothing but amazing things to say about all of them,” he said. “It’s a small major, and especially through our core lab, we got to know each other pretty well.”
He also noted his research advisor Erin Stache, faculty advisor Michael Kelly, and Organic Chemistry lecturer Erik Sorensen as figures who all played integral roles in his experience within the Chemistry department.
Eden’s passion for Classics, like Medina’s interest in chemistry, began before Princeton. However, it was taking the Western Humanities (HUM) Sequence in her first year that solidified her decision to pursue Classics as her major.
“It was reading [Greek and Latin] texts in the HUM sequence that gave me the strong desire to be able to read these texts in their original language,” she said. The salutatorian address at graduation is traditionally given in Latin.
After finishing the HUM sequence, Eden took Plato in Paris, a summer study-abroad program led by philosophy professor Benjamin Morison. Together, these experiences also informed her decision to minor in Philosophy, and inspired increasing interest in classical philosophy and literature. Morison became her thesis advisor.
Medina felt that keeping a healthy work-life balance during his time at Princeton had its difficult moments, saying, “I think that if I were to go back in time and do it all over again, I’d probably cut myself more slack.”
Meanwhile, Eden said that a combination of love for her work and a concerted effort to carve out time for her extracurricular activities, such as the cycling team, prevented her from becoming overly concerned with work. “I think what really helps it come together for me is that I’m doing the classes and the extracurriculars that I’m passionate about.”
When asked about what advice she would give to the next class of Princeton first years, Eden recommended that they “take advantage of all of the wonderful opportunities that Princeton can give you. That is something I think I started to learn as I went through my time here … Being able to go to Greece multiple times, or taking a class in Paris, those kinds of opportunities are so so special. And you have to get on top of them, because it goes by so fast.”
Medina said that he would tell the Class of 2029 to “take one step in front of the other and make sure that you enjoy the time as you go.”
“Enjoy going to lecture with your friends at, you know, eight in the morning, as awful as it’ll be … Enjoy going to practice with your teammates, enjoy doing all those sort of little mundane things. I definitely wish I would have done more of that in retrospect because it goes by so fast and time just speeds up,” Medina said.
Leela Hensler is a staff News writer and Sports contributor for the ‘Prince’ from Berkeley, Calif.
Please send any corrections to corrections[at]dailyprincetonian.com.
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