Student Profiles
Sydney Hunt
2021 WAVE Fellow
Undergraduate Institution: Duke University
Hometown: Cornwall, NY
Currently: Studying abroad in Copenhagen, Denmark!
Interests & Hobbies: Hiking, trying new foods, STEM retention/diversity, mental health awareness (certified in Mental Health First Aid!)
Favorite part of your WAVE Summer: I unexpectedly found myself not having Imposter Syndrome! Being surrounded by a like-minded, resourceful, and supportive community (both inside and outside the Andersen Lab) allowed me to get out of my comfort zone more easily. I am very grateful for WAVE, as it helped to increase my confidence and exposed me to a research area that I now want to study in graduate school!
CLICK HERE TO CONTACT SYDNEY
David Cagan
2018 WAVE Fellow
Undergraduate Institution: California State University, Los Angeles
Hometown: Los Angeles, CA
Current work: Graduate School Research at Caltech
Interests & Hobbies: Reading, drawing (art), cooking, hiking
Favorite part of your WAVE Summer: High level research in a supportive environment with excellent mentoring.
CLICK HERE TO CONTACT DAVID
Elizabeth Nelson
2021 WAVE Fellow
Undergraduate Institution: Boston University
Hometown: Frederick, MD
Currently: I'm currently finishing my senior year at Boston University. I'm working in the Heaphy Lab at Boston University Medical Center studying Alternative Lengthening of Telomeres (ALT) in pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor cells. I also work at the BU Chemistry Department as a front desk associate. Upon graduating, I plan to take 1-2 gap years to work before pursuing graduate school. I'm currently applying to both academic and industry research associate positions.
Interests & Hobbies: Some of my interests and hobbies include listening to music, hanging out with my friends, doing puzzles, and going thrift shopping. I'm also involved with various volunteer organizations in Boston and love spending my free time volunteering.
Favorite part of your WAVE Summer: My favorite part of my WAVE Summer was making new connections and living in a brand-new environment. Prior to my WAVE summer, I'd never been off of the east coast. Every day was an adventure! I also was able to connect with people from a variety of professional levels and make strong connections with them as well as my peers in the program whom I'm still in contact with!
Milenia Rojas
2021 WAVE Fellow
Undergraduate Institution: University of Rochester
Hometown: Falls Church, VA
Currently: A research assistant at Mueller lab
Interests & Hobbies: Dancing, hiking, soccer, and traveling
Favorite part of your WAVE Summer: Having the opportunity to meet an amazing cohort of people.
CLICK HERE TO CONTACT MILENIA
Bhushan Patel
2021 WAVE Fellow
Undergraduate Institution: Harvard University
Hometown: Aston, PA
Currently: Enrolled in classes full-time, while doing a part-time job creating a calculator to accurately estimate the lifetime emissions from buildings with various HVAC systems.
Interests & Hobbies: Pool, Poker, Tennis
Favorite part of your WAVE Summer: Meeting students from all colleges all over the country. It provided a unique perspective on the diversity of people that want to pursue academia.
CLICK HERE TO CONTACT BHUSHAN
Pedro Guicardi
2021 WAVE Fellow
Undergraduate Institution: Cornell University
Hometown: Summit, NJ
Currently: I currently still do research with my mentor from Caltech as well as a Senior Thesis in my home institution. We began thinking about another interesting project that arose as a result of the work we did over the summer, so I am still very much happy and fortunate to be working on that.
Interests & Hobbies: My interests lie in Theoretical and Mathematical Physics and specifically High Energy Theory, which concerns itself with Particle Physics, Quantum Gravity, String Theory, etc. My hobbies fluctuate, but they have consisted of reading, learning Japanese, playing my ukulele, and I love going to the gym.
Favorite part of your WAVE Summer: My favorite part of WAVE was, without a doubt, meeting and working with my mentor. Every day, I woke up ecstatic to work on my problems for the week, which only further solidified my decision to pursue a Ph.D. My mentor was so supportive of the ideas I wanted to try, and she taught me so much about this field and many other areas of Mathematics/ Physics I never encountered before. Furthermore, the friends I made at WAVE are now some of the closest people in my life. I surmise it is very rare to find such a density of highly driven, passionate people, whom I spent countless hours with discussing my love for math as well as learning so much from other fields, such as neuroscience and robotics. WAVE was easily the best summer of my life.