Reigna Hels '26 and Luke Dalzell '26 received this year’s Nils Hasselmo Award for Academic Pursuit.
Hasselmo Award creates opportunities for Hels, Dalzell
Augustana juniors Reigna Hels and Luke Dalzell have received this year’s Nils Hasselmo Award for Academic Pursuit.
The Hasselmo Award, established in 2011 by Dr. Nils Hasselmo ’57, supports Augustana students pursuing careers in research or higher education teaching. Inspired by the impact of his own Augustana experience, Hasselmo created the award to help students access professional opportunities.
“To be nominated for this award by my professors was already an honor, but to receive it was beyond my expectations."
The $5,500 award is divided evenly between the two recipients. The funds can be used to purchase books or resources, as well as support travel to conferences, professional meetings, special collections, laboratories or graduate schools.
Hels, a psychology major from Plainfield, Ill., plans to use her award to fund a summer-long internship in a clinical setting, such as a family recovery center, to confirm that family counseling is the best path for her.
She credits her teachers and mentors at Augustana for helping her reconnect with her love for teaching and showing her the possibility of serving her community through teaching college students and working as a marriage and family counselor.
"To be nominated for this award by my professors was already an honor, but to receive it was beyond my expectations,” Hels said. “I am the product of a tenfold of educators who came before me, instilling me with a passion for education and caring for our communities through psychology. I hope that the experiences I will gain from this award will better prepare me to fulfill such roles in the future.”
Hels was nominated for the award by Dr. Megan Lorenz, assistant professor of psychology and neuroscience, on behalf of the psychology department.
“Reigna was highly deserving of this award because she is an exceptionally bright student who feels deeply called to mentor her peers and to serve the community as a future clinician,” said Dr. Lorenz. “This award will give her an incredible opportunity to pursue a summer internship that will serve as a stepping stone toward graduate school and ultimately a career teaching and mentoring future generations of students on the importance of empowering themselves and their communities.”
Luke Dalzell is a physics and applied mathematics double major from Crystal Lake, Ill. His award will support his graduate school search.
Dr. Nathan Frank, professor of physics, nominated Dalzell for the award because of his communication and problem-solving skills, aptitude for understanding difficult concepts and ownership of his learning.
“Based on his overall academic ability, I rank him in the top 3% of roughly 250 physics, engineering and astronomy majors I know from my time as a professor,” Dr. Frank said.
Dalzell has contributed to nuclear physics research with Dr. Frank. He worked on the development of a Next Generation Neutron Detector prototype as part of a team at the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams at Michigan State University.
He helped assemble detector prototypes, incorporating Silicon Photo-multipliers, and participated in simulations comparing the prototype’s performance with data from Triangle Universities Nuclear Laboratory. He presented his findings at the Prairie Section of the American Physical Society last February.
Dalzell is grateful for the opportunities the Hasselmo Award will provide.
“This scholarship opens a lot of doors for me,” he said. “This scholarship allows me to go and visit graduate schools that I would never be able to afford to visit otherwise.”
By Genevieve Ryan '26