Announcing the Winners of the 2025 Chessable Research Awards
This post is written by Chessable Research Awards Coordinator, Dr. Alexey Root.
All applications have been reviewed, and the winners have been chosen for the 2025 Chessable Research Awards! From the applications, Chessable selected two winners in the graduate student category and two winners in the undergraduate student category.
For each awards cycle, Chessable Research Awards go to graduate and undergraduate students conducting ongoing or new chess research. Each student must have a faculty research sponsor. For more information, and to read blog posts by past winners, please visit this link.
For the 2025 winners, each graduate student will receive $1,000 and each undergraduate student will get $500. Each faculty research sponsor receives $500. Winning students will write Chessable blog posts, to be submitted by December 15, 2025, describing their progress on their research.
Let’s meet the graduate student category winners:
Sara Cavaglià, Graduate Student
Project: Synchronicity in Gaze Patterns, Pupil Dilation and Heart Rate Patterns During Blitz Chess
The faculty research sponsor for Sara Cavaglià’s research is Dr. Massimiliano Canzi.
Sara Cavaglià is a Ph.D. candidate in Linguistics at the University of Verona, Italy. She completed her bachelor’s degree in Humanities at the University of Torino and her master’s in Linguistics and Cognitive Studies at the University of Siena. During her Ph.D. studies, Sara has been a visiting student at the University of Konstanz, Germany.
Sara’s research project will investigate physiological responses (gaze dynamics and pupil dilation) to high-pressure situations typically found in blitz chess games. Specifically, measures for behavioural, cognitive, and physiological responses will be collected via eye-tracking technology in relation to time pressure, imbalanced positions, and blunders. Considering Sara’s strong interest in experimental approaches, which she consistently applies in her academic research, this project will give her the chance to deepen her knowledge on eye-tracking techniques for data collection, and on decision patterns based on physiological reactions.
Jim Yang, Graduate Student
Project: Rating Your Moves
The faculty research sponsor for Jim Yang’s research is Dr. Siddhartha Dalal.
Jim is a graduate student at Columbia University studying Statistics, and he completed his Bachelor of Arts in Economics at National Taiwan University. He is an avid follower of chess and plays chess casually.
Jim’s research investigates the relationship of moves played in a game to a player’s skill level. His model maps each move to a set of human-interpretable questions, such as whether the move creates tension, is a retreating move, or is a check. By analyzing full games across rating levels and styles, the research aims to identify the stylistic differences among players of different ratings, what types of decisions or moves signal player strength, and potentially, guessing your Elo, or rating your moves.
And here are the undergraduate student category winners:
Gerrit Hourigan, Undergraduate Student
Project: The Role of Self-Control and Deliberate Practice in Chess Skill Development
The faculty research sponsor for Gerrit Hourigan’s research is Prof. Dr. Alexander Freund.
Gerrit is an undergraduate student in Psychology at Leuphana University Lüneburg and a passionate chess player holding the FIDE Master title. Gerrit worked as a research assistant in a neuroscience laboratory and is currently completing an internship in data science. He is also a frequent visitor at the St. Pauli Chess Club, where he enjoys engaging with the local chess community. Outside of academics and chess, Gerrit stays active through running, soccer, and other sports.
Gerrit’s study explores how self-control, practice habits, and self-perceived intelligence relate to chess skill. He investigates whether players with higher self-control tend to perform better, even when accounting for how intelligent they consider themselves to be. The study also examines whether this effect is explained by more structured and deliberate practice, and whether the benefits of practice vary depending on a player’s self-rated intelligence. Finally, Gerrit looks at whether practicing mainly with a coach leads to greater improvements. These findings aim to shed light on what truly drives chess expertise — beyond just natural ability.
Kevin Yang, Undergraduate Student
Project: Model of Human-AI Collaboration Applied to Hand-and-Brain Chess
The faculty research sponsor for Kevin Yang’s research is Dr. Misha Sra.
Kevin is a senior at UC Santa Barbara (UCSB), where he studies Biopsychology. He is currently the president of UCSB’s Chess Club. He is also the president of Floating Doctors at UCSB, an organization that allows undergraduates the opportunity to head to Panama every summer to help with healthcare in low-resource, underserved communities. Kevin started playing chess when he was eight and is currently a US Chess National Master who teaches chess part-time. In 2015, he represented Team USA at the World Youth Chess Championship.
Kevin’s research studies the role of human-AI collaboration in a hand-and-brain-like format to explore how and when humans prefer to collaborate with AI throughout the course of a chess game. When collaborating with AI, people must factor in how much they trust the AI to make moves that either align with their plan or do not align with what they might have intended. By studying how people decide when to lead or follow, AI systems can be designed to anticipate these transitions, helping to quantify which contextual factors influence guidance-delegation preferences. Kevin’s research captures the fluidity of real-world collaboration that extends beyond decision-making in chess games.
Thanks to all the students who submitted applications for the 2025 Chessable Research Awards. We look forward to applications for our 2026 cycle of the Chessable Research Awards. Applications will open on January 15, 2026. For more information, please visit this link.
