ANNAPOLIS, Md. - Thomas Kelly of the Navy lightweight rowing team was awarded the United States Naval Academy's 2026 Trident Scholar Prize on Thursday. A walk-on, who competed all four years with the lightweight program, Kelly was honored for his research and efforts as a Trident Scholar during the academic year. 

An Aerospace Engineering major from the 26th Company, Kelly spent the 2025-26 year working with the Trident program on his project titled "Experimental Study of Degree of Polarization Invariance in Vectorial Structured Laser Light Propagating Through Underwater Optical Turbulence." He was advised by faculty mentors: Professor Svetlana Avramov-Zamurovic (Weapons, Robotics and Control Engineering), Professor Charles Nelson (Electrical and Computer Engineering), and Professor Robert Niewoehner (Aerospace Engineering). 

The Trident Prize is awarded to the best Trident Scholar project in a given year.  It is sponsored by the USNA Class of 1979, and presented at the Prizes and Awards Ceremony during Commissioning Week.

During his athletic career, Kelly competed in 21 varsity races with the majority of his action in the Navy lightweight third varsity eight crew. After walking onto the team during the 2022-23 season, he made himself an irreplaceable piece of the team's lineup in short order as he suited up in all of the Mids' regular season contests in each of the last three seasons. This spring, he had five starts with the 3V8 and one start with the 2V8. This past weekend at the Eastern Sprints, Kelly and Navy's 3V8 finished fourth overall in the conference.

Kelly and the Class of 2026 will now look forward to graduation on Friday, May 22 before he commissions into the United States Navy as a Naval Flight Officer.

The Navy lightweight rowing program will get back on the water one final time in 2026 with action at the IRA National Championship regatta next weekend at Lake Natoma in Northern California. The three-day event is scheduled to run from Friday, May 29 through Sunday, May 31.