FUTURE 2024
September 5 & 6, 2024
FUTURE 2024 will be held on the Caltech campus on Thursday and Friday, September 5-6, 2024. This year’s conference will provide an in-depth look into life as a Physics graduate student through a series of presentations, discussion panels, mini-workshops and informal socials with Caltech faculty and students. Topics will include choosing a research direction, building community, challenges facing gender minorities, the application process and more.
Thank You
We are extremely grateful to the Heising-Simons Foundation for supporting this event, and for their leadership in promoting gender equality in physics and astronomy more broadly.
Welcome
From the Co-Chairs
Dear FUTURE Participants,
We are thrilled to welcome you to Caltech for the FUTURE workshop. We know that the decision to pursue graduate studies in physics is a difficult one to make and that there are many questions that need to be considered: What research topics are most exciting to me? What is life like as a graduate student? How do I get into graduate school? Over the next 2 days, we will help you navigate these questions through a series of presentations and interactive sessions. We urge you to take full advantage of the program and to feel comfortable asking questions, sharing experiences, and establishing new connections.
We recognize that you are part of a new generation that has the power to shape the future of the sciences. We believe that diversity, equity, and inclusion are essential to the long-term health and success of any scientific pursuit. We hope to empower you to persist in your physics journey, despite the unique challenges that the current lack of representation and inclusion present.
We are excited to be a small part of your journey in physics and we hope that this workshop will provide you with some of the tools needed to succeed despite those challenges. You are an incredible group of people, and we hope you enjoy meeting each other over the next few days. We are certainly excited to meet you all.
Dave Hsieh & Sara Vanovac
FUTURE Co-chairs
2024 Agenda
Wednesday, September 4
2024 Attendees
Below you will find the names, contact info, and undergraduate institutions of the 2024 FUTURE cohort.
| Alanis Rodriguez-Diaz | University of Puerto Rico – Mayaguez Campus | alanis.rodriguez14@upr.edu | Junior |
| Alexandra Wells | Ohio University | aw771620@ohio.edu | Senior |
| Alison Weber | University of California, Santa Cruz | alnweber@ucsc.edu | Junior |
| Allison Blum | State University of New York Brockport | ablum2@brockport.edu | Senior |
| Amy Kaniper | Harvard University | amykaniper@college.harvard.edu | Junior |
| Ana Lam | CUNY Graduate Center | anakristinalam@gmail.com | Other |
| Drew Gibson | University of New Mexico | agibson02@unm.edu | Senior |
| Anya Johnson | Spelman College | anyajohnson@spelman.edu | Junior |
| Arvin Kushwaha | North Carolina State University | askushwa@ncsu.edu | Senior |
| Atlantis Moses | New Mexico State University | atlantismoses@gmail.com | Other |
| Ava Bailey | Duke University | ava.bailey@duke.edu | Senior |
| Ayanna Mann | Howard University | Ayannamann1@gmail.com | Senior |
| Bianca Lott | Carleton College | lottb@carleton.edu | Junior |
| Devayani Ravuri | University of Colorado, Boulder | devayani.ravuri@colorado.edu | Senior |
| Devin Wiggins | Spelman College | devinwiggins@spelman.edu | Junior |
| Eleanor Richard | Cornell University | emr239@cornell.edu | Senior |
| Elsa Matilda Eriksson | Caifornia Polytechnic State University, SLO | meerikss@calpoly.edu | Senior |
| Emma Davis | Smith College | emmadavis818@gmail.com | Senior |
| Emma Moran | University of Pittsburgh | erm160@pitt.edu | Senior |
| Anžej Margeta-Cacace | Texas Tech University | anzejmc@gmail.com | Junior |
| Jasleen Kaur | Harvard University | jasleenkaur@college.harvard.edu | Senior |
| Kersy-Angela Abongwa | University of Chicago | angelaabongwa@uchicago.edu | Senior |
| Logan White | North Carolina State University | lawhite5@ncsu.edu | Senior |
| Lucy Nathwani | Harvard University | lsnathwani@college.harvard.edu | Junior |
| Maria Ziu | Virginia Tech | mtziu@vt.edu | Senior |
| Megan Schoenzeit | University of Minnesota, Twin Cities | scho0951@umn.edu | Senior |
| Michelle Dong | University of California, Berkeley | mid@berkeley.edu | Senior |
| Michelle Hu | University of Chicago | michellehuyy@uchicago.edu | Senior |
| Nadia Talbi | University of Wisconsin-Madison | talbi@wisc.edu | Senior |
| Mick Mayer | Haverford College | nmayer@haverford.edu | Senior |
| Nora Hicks | North Carolina State University | nnhicks@ncsu.edu | Junior |
| Othello Gomes | University of Maryland, College Park | ogomes1@terpmail.umd.edu | Senior |
| Paige Delsa | University of Richmond | paige.delsa@richmond.edu | Senior |
| Piramon Kumnurdmanee | University of California, Santa Cruz | pkumnurd@ucsc.edu | Senior |
| Sarah Estupinan Jimenez | Montclair State Universiity | estupinanjis1@montclair.edu | Senior |
| Sharleen Espinoza | University of New Mexico | snespinoza@unm.edu | Senior |
| Sophia Davis | University of Michigan | sophiacd@umich.edu | Senior |
| Stephanie Montoya | Montclair State University | montoya.stephanie0915@gmail.com | Senior |
| Xuanhui Mao | University of Chicago | xuanhui@uchicago.edu | Senior |