The Student Government Association — consisting of the Undergraduate Council of Students, the Undergraduate Finance Board and the Class Coordinating Board — announced the results of its first-year elections Thursday night on the steps of the Stephen Robert ’62 Campus Center.
Tommy Medlin ’27 and Kyle Kavully ’27 were elected UCS first-year representatives. Hamza Shahzad ’27 and Daniel Zhao ’27 were elected UFB first-year representatives. Ava Stamatakis ’27 will serve as CCB first-year president and Bryson Boone ’27 will serve as CCB first-year vice president.
Medlin received 30.9% of the initial first-choice votes for UCS first-year representative, while Kavully received 25.7% of the initial first-choice votes for the same position. Shahzad received 46.7% of the initial first-choice votes for UFB first-year representative, and Zhao received 38.8% of the first-choice votes for the same position.
Katie Marie Pham ’27 was also elected CCB first-year secretary and Soniya Chawla ’27 CCB first-year treasurer. Irene Kim ’27 will serve as CCB first-year public relations officer and Alexander Lim ’27 as CCB first-year community outreach officer.
The elections utilized ranked-choice voting, which counts both first-choice votes as well as ranked-choice resulting votes, according to Eli Sporn ’24, SGA elections chair. This system played a decisive role in the election of Stamatakis over Mia Page-Tretta ’27 in the race for CCB first-year presidency. Though Stamatakis received 25.5% of the initial first-choice votes — compared to Tretta’s 27.9% — Stamatakis received more ranked choice votes, Sporn wrote in an email to The Herald.
According to a Sept. 28 SGA email to first-year students, 580 students — approximately 33.5% of the class — voted in the elections. This represented a lower turnout than last year, which had 772 students, or 42% of the class, voting in the class of 2026 first-year elections, Sporn wrote.
“I would argue that part of that is probably the lack of postering or physical campaigning,” he wrote. “We didn’t emphasize against the gratuitous postering that normally happens with the elections any more than usual, but candidates tended to campaign over social media rather than in a physical form.”
Candidates’ “creativity and effort put into campaigning seemed bigger” this year, wrote UCS President Mina Sarmas ’24 in an email to The Herald.
According to Boone, he was inspired to create an “Elle Woods–themed TikTok talking about why (he) hoped to be the Class of 2027’s next CCB vice president.”
Zhao told The Herald that he tried to incorporate his “sense of humor” as well, while creating campaign videos, drawing inspiration from his TikTok “For You” page.
Sporn added that although the number of total candidates this year was similar to last year, distribution across different branches of SGA has shifted. The number of candidates running for UFB first-year representative decreased from eight to four this year, “most likely (due to) the end to the surplus,” he wrote.
The petition — which every candidate had to submit in order for their candidacy to be approved — required 50 handwritten signatures as opposed to digital ones, with accommodations made for some specific cases, Sporn wrote. Handwritten signatures “probably will be the exclusive petitioning method going forward for first-years.”
Candidates had varied experiences balancing campaigning with adjusting to life at Brown. According to Zhao, it made the adjustment more “stressful.”
“It delayed the first-year experience I could’ve had,” Medlin said, adding that “while other people were looking (at) courses on Courses@Brown, I was campaigning.”
Still, the elections provided an opportunity for candidates to connect with other students and learn about their concerns.
According to Medlin, most of the campaign was “talking to people.” Stamatakis described the process as “making connections with countless freshmen” in an email to The Herald. Boone wrote that his “adjustment to Brown fit very well into (his) campaign.”
“I now have an excuse to walk up to people and say, ‘Hey, what's your name and what change do you want to see?’” Medlin said.
“The first-year class in general seems tight-knit,” Sporn wrote.
