The Alstadt Workshop
Judy Alstadt and Harry Gray
The Alstadt Workshop Fund focuses on providing support to CCE’s participation in the Future Ignited program, an annual online event, organized by Caltech’s Student-Faculty Programs. The Fund also supports CCE faculty members and/or students to attend and host booths at national conferences that focus on educationally and/or financially disadvantage student communities, and geographically underrepresented students.
The gift recognizes the accomplishments of Prof. Harry B Gray, Arnold O. Beckman, Professor of Chemistry and the Founding Director of Beckman Institute.
Events Supported by the Alstadt Workshop in AY2024-2025
FUTURE Ignited
FUTURE Ignited, an annual online event hosted by Student-Faculty Programs, is a series of events designed to support and encourage aspiring graduate students by providing the opportunity to learn more about graduate programs at Caltech and, more broadly, the graduate school admissions process.
FUTURE Ignited is for students who are interested in pursuing a PhD in the next 1-2 years. This includes rising junior or senior undergraduates and post-baccalaureate students. Students should have an interest in one of the graduate school options at Caltech.
In AY2024 -2025, Prof. Theodor Agapie opened the CCE segment of the program with an introduction, which was followed by a panel discussion featuring CCE faculty members – Profs Theo Agapie, Garnet Chan, Lu Wei and Dan Semlow. Graduate students, Camila Suarez (Chemistry, Stoltz Group) and Jacob Parres-Gold (Biochemistry & Molecular Biophysics, Elowitz Group), then presented a set of pre-selected questions to guide the conversation.
Campus Tours Hosted By BOND
BOND hosted two laboratory tour events in AY 2024-2025. The tours were given by graduate student and postdoc members of BOND, and other CCE graduate students.
The main purpose of the event is to showcase multiple types of research being done at Caltech to students from various universities and community colleges in the area. This year, participating students had the choice of focus for lab tours: chemistry, nanotechnology, and biology/biochemistry. They were also introduced to Caltech’s summer research programs that they can apply to for future summers.
In AY2024-2025, two schools participated for the first time – 47 students from California State Polytechnic University, Pomona (October 25, 2024) and 40 students from Cerritos College (December 6, 2024). Pasadena City College participated for the fourth time with 15 student participants (December 6, 2024).
BOND hopes to continue giving lab tours to area universities and community colleges in the future.
Students touring Cushing lab
Students touring See lab
Students touring Caltech Archives
Cerritos College students by Gene Pool
ABRCMS Conference
ABRCMS is the American Society for Microbiology's (ASM) conference in support of multidisciplinary science and workforce development. At ABRCMS, scientists from all communities come together to share research positioned to meet today’s challenges and shape tomorrow’s future. That shared purpose depends on emerging scientists from every background showing up with passion and purpose.
The 2024 ABCRMS Conference was held November 13 – 16 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Angel Hernandez-Mejias, graduate student from Reisman Group, participated in the outreach effort at the Caltech booth representing CCE.
Rising Tide
Rising Tide is a research techniques training program directed at increasing the participation of students from historically underrepresented backgrounds in science and engineering Ph.D. programs.
It is a 6‑week summer program where students take part in six one‑week rotations in CCE and BBE. Each week is capped off with a Weekly Recap session where Rising Tide fellows review what they learned for the week with their mentors. This program also features workshops, panel discussions, and a celebration lunch on the last day of the program. Rising Tide fellows also receive a Certificate of Completion at the end of the program.
During this year’s program, the workshop covered key professional development topics, including strategies for crafting an effective CV/resume, approaches to networking within STEM fields, and guidance from Carol Casey, Associate Director of Student-Faculty Programs (SFP) on how students can apply for research programs in future summers. The panel discussion, entitled “Why PhD?,” was chaired by Vicent Ton (Program Manager, SFP) and facilitated by graduate students, Camila Suarez (CCE) and Isaryhia Rodriquez (BBE).
Rising Tide fellows had opportunities to network with other STEM undergraduate students through BOND WAVE Amgen Summer Socials, funded by the Community Programs Committee.
2025 Rising Tide Fellows (all from Pasadena City College):
· Isabelle Adamczewski
· Aileen Diaz
· Daniel Rojas
· Connor Sakae
· Lam Voong
· Emily Wang
2025 Rising Tide Mentors (Alphabetic Order):
· Jonathan Aalto (Hadt Group)
· Jean Badroos (Parker Group)
· Stephen DiLuzio (Hadt Group)
· Nathan Friede (Reisman Group)
· Amy Lin (Cushing Group)
· Yen-Ju Lu (Fianu Group)
· Anjali Mirmira (Fianu Group)
· Evan Miu (Manthiram Group)
· Chris Neimeth (Ismagilov Group)
· Ojas Pradhan (Ismagilov Group)
· Matt Ratanapanichkich (Ismagilov Group)
· Jake Rothbaum (Hadt Group)
· Omar Santiago Reyes (Reisman Group)
· Clara Seo (Manthiram Group)
· Hayley Smihula (Parker Group)
· Nathan Spear (Cushing Group)
· Zhuoyan Wang (Fu Group)
· Natalie Wu-Woods (Ismagilov Group)
· Kay Xia (Hadt Group)
The Rising Tide program was financially supported by the Alstadt Workshop Fund, Prof. Ryan Hadt’s NSF Career Award, and BBE Division’s Community Programs Committee. The program also received administrative support from the Student Faculty Programs.