#  ELSCE Undergraduate Fellows Lena Ashooh and Maddie Dowd Win 2025 Hoopes Prize 

 





May 08, 2025

 

 

     ![Lena Ashooh and Maddie Dowd Win 2025 Hoopes Prize](/sites/g/files/omnuum9911/files/styles/hwp_16_9__480x270/public/2025-05/Website%20News%20Thumbnail-3_0.png?itok=_1uxkp1P) 

 



 

 ![Lena Ashooh and Maddie Dowd Win 2025 Hoopes Prize](/sites/g/files/omnuum9911/files/2025-05/Website%20News%20Thumbnail-3_1.png)

 

The Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Ethics is proud to announce that two of our current Undergraduate Fellows, Lena Ashooh and Maddie Dowd, have been awarded the [2025 Thomas Temple Hoopes Prize](https://prizes.fas.harvard.edu/sites/projects.iq.harvard.edu/files/prize-office/files/2024-2025_hoopes_winners.pdf) which honors exceptional senior thesis work at Harvard College.

[Lena Ashooh](https://www.ethics.harvard.edu/people/lena-ashooh) was recognized for her thesis, *“Respect: The Moral Stakes of the Animal Issue,"* supervised and nominated by Dr. Seth Robertson. She designed a major in animal studies, combining insights from philosophy, psychology, biology, and political science to explore the ethical dimensions of human-animal relationships. Ashooh has also been [named a Rhodes Scholar for 2025](https://www.ethics.harvard.edu/news/elsce-undergraduate-fellow-named-rhodes-scholar).

[Maddie Dowd](https://www.ethics.harvard.edu/people/maddie-dowd) received the Hoopes Prize for her thesis, “*Imagining Other Minds: A Smithian Empathy for Animal Ethics,"* advised by Professor Samantha Matherne. Concentrating in Philosophy with a secondary in Human Evolutionary Biology, her intellectual interests include animal ethics, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of biology. Dowd also earned a [Benefactors' Scholarship](https://www.joh.cam.ac.uk/benefactors-scholarships) this year.

We congratulate Lena and Maddie for their remarkable achievements and their contributions to ethical scholarship.