Class Acts

Senior Plans

As campus emptied after Commencement on May 14, new graduates from the Class of 2023 fanned out to jobs, graduate schools and other ventures across the U.S. and around the world. We asked some of them to share their plans and perhaps a thought about their time at Pomona.


Maddie AschMaddie Asch

International Relations
Associate Consultant
The Bridgespan Group
Boston

“My time at Pomona taught me that I want to work in a field where I’m constantly learning and can think critically about how to create positive social change. That’s why I’m so excited to work for a nonprofit consulting company whose clients are exclusively nonprofits and philanthropists.”


Vera BergerVera Berger

Mathematics and Physics
Master’s of Philosophy in Scientific Computing
University of Cambridge
Cambridge, England

“The physics behind stellar flares is interesting and somewhat mysterious. I’m hoping to focus my research at Cambridge on simulations of plasma or magnetic activity similar to what we might see in flaring stars.”


Isabel FajardoIsabel Fajardo

Psychological Science
Chicana/o-Latina/o Studies Minor
Teach for America
Washington, D.C.

“I think it’s probably the most important job in the world to uplift the most vulnerable, which are children.”


Jordan HoogstedenJordan Hoogsteden

Public Policy Analysis (Politics)
Harvard Law School
Cambridge, Massachusetts

“The Pomona community’s lively commitment to social justice helped me realize that I wanted to pursue a career in public interest. I hope to use my law degree to become a public defender.”


Alex KerAlex Ker

Computer Science
Math and Philosophy Minors
Master’s in Computer Science
New York

“Pomona’s liberal arts environment helped refine my interests and deepen my skills, from founding an organization like P-ai.org (artificial intelligence incubator for projects and ideas) to participating in the Randall Lewis Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship program at CMC and teaching writing to area youth once a week. I feel prepared for graduate school and to build a startup in the artificial intelligence/machine learning space.”


Louie KulberLouie Kulber

Classics and Molecular Biology
M.D.-Ph.D.
Columbia University
New York

“The Pomona science classes do a particularly good job at cultivating scientific inquiry and making you really curious. An M.D.-Ph.D. is all about being curious and creative and thinking about new ways to solve problems, and Pomona really sets you up to do that.”


Sean PerezSean Perez

Biology
Ph.D. in Genome Sciences
University of Washington
Seattle

“I will be attending graduate school in hope of earning my Ph.D. in genetics and bioinformatics with the long-term goal of returning to Pomona as a professor.”


Taylor VenencianoTaylor Venenciano

Physics Scientist
Areté Associates
Northridge, California

“The Physics/Astro Department at Pomona has helped me to become passionate about and confident in trying to solve difficult problems. I’m hoping to continue to solve difficult problems at my first job and throughout my career.”


John West Jr.John West Jr.

Africana Studies
Ph.D. in Criminology, Law and Justice
University of Illinois Chicago
Chicago

“I chose UIC Criminology, Law and Justice so that I can continue my work as an educator and activist within my home city, Chicago. Pomona allowed me to build relationships with educators like Professor J Finley interested in my personal and intellectual growth.”


Sabrina YuSabrina Yu

Economics
Investment Banking Analyst
Jefferies Financial Group
New York

“I came to Pomona because I knew I loved learning but had no idea what I wanted to study. Four years later, I’m heading into finance thanks to all the clubs I was given the opportunity to be part of that allowed me to hone in on my interests (through lots of trial and error!). I’m excited to start my career in a field that’ll let me continue to explore my intellectual curiosity—a trait that has developed so much at Pomona.”

Instagram Highlights

Leading up to commencement, Class of 2023 were showcased weekly in a series called Senior Spotlight:

marley evansMarley Evans

Evans, who is from Dallas, double majored in economic psychology and dance.

One of her proudest accomplishments was having the opportunity to design her own major. With tremendous support from her special major committee, Economics Professor Eleanor Brown, Assistant Economics Professor Malte Dold, and Psychological Science and Asian American Studies Professor Sharon Goto, Evans was able to combine her interests in economics, psychology, consumer behavior, product development and human-centered design into an economic psychology major and, ultimately, her senior thesis. She is deeply grateful to her professors for the unique opportunity to create an area of study she is truly passionate about.

Evans was a part of the dance programs at Pomona and Scripps. She performed in the Pomona and Scripps “In the Works” concert as her last college dance show. As she danced her final pieces with fellow cast members and took a final bow, Evans realized what a true gift from God this art has been for her throughout her life but especially throughout college. She also was in Claremont Christian Fellowship (CCF), a loving community she is proud to have been a part of.

Evans plans to pursue a future in the realm of product development, product marketing and product management. She also is exploring how she can use her skills in an entrepreneurial career as well as finding needs, solving problems and providing support in various industries where she can lend a hand.

“As cliche as it is, everything happens for a reason. Not only did I get to fall more in love with my passion for dance and create a perfectly fitted major for my interests, but Pomona was also the place where I truly found myself and my faith through times of trial and through times of great joy. I don’t believe it all could’ve happened anywhere else,” she says.


Michael Hwang

Hwang is a molecular biology major from Ann Arbor, Michigan. During his time at Pomona College, Hwang helped transition the Music Mentors Program from a 5C club to an official program at the Draper Center. Mentors connect students at The Claremont Colleges with youth from surrounding underserved communities to provide free music lessons.

Hwang also had the opportunity to coordinate this year’s Alternabreak trip to Washington, D.C. Alternabreak is a program that provides students with the opportunity to leave campus and engage with the broader community during spring break. Despite the challenges of reviving and reshaping the program after a three-year hiatus, the experience was incredibly rewarding and Hwang is proud to have been a part of the effort in preserving the program’s legacy.

He says he has had the privilege of finding mentors who have had a significant impact on his personal and academic growth. Among them are Associate Professor of Biology Sara Olson, Dylan Worcester at the Quantitative Skills Center and Rita Shaw at the Draper Center. These people have helped him celebrate triumphs as well as work through several setbacks during his time at Pomona. Although he will miss the support system they provided, he is grateful to have formed meaningful relationships with them.

“In retrospect, I realize that one of the most valuable aspects of attending Pomona has been the opportunity to connect with people from a wide range of backgrounds and experiences. Being able to see the world through so many different perspectives has been truly transformative and eye-opening,” he says.

After graduation, Hwang will be conducting clinical research in pediatric endocrinology through the 2023 NIDDK Distinguished Postbaccalaureate Scholars Program at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases in Bethesda, Maryland. He will work on clinical trials focused on treating diabetes, metabolic disorders and kidney diseases that disproportionately burden underserved communities.


Yutong NiuYutong Niu

A double major in economics and international relations, Niu will begin her career as an associate consultant for OC&C Strategy Consultants in New York.

“The strong alumni network that Pomona provides allowed me to learn about different fields and industries and build meaningful connections,” she says. “In the process of connecting with fellow alumni, I was truly humbled by their passion, achievements and dedication to helping current students succeed.”


Anvitha Reddy PentaparthyAnvitha Reddy Pentaparthy

Pentaparthy is a media studies major from Hyderabad, India. She chose Pomona for its liberal arts experience to explore different areas of interest, build one-on-one relationships with professors and students, and to belong to a tight-knit community that is both diverse and welcoming.

Apart from the friends and relationships she has made here, Pentaparthy says she will miss the beautiful campus the most—the views of the snow-covered mountains and sunsets on Marston Quad are her absolute favorite.

One of her most meaningful projects at Pomona was her senior thesis. Her project included a gallery installation that documented how international students in Claremont, specifically from South Asia, have found a home away from home through Shaila Andrabi, who is the coordinator of Muslim Life at The Claremont Colleges. Pentaparthy’s project delved into the concepts of identity, community and hybridity—themes that represent the immigrant experience.

She also interned at Sony Pictures Entertainment on its global team. Breaking into entertainment, she says, is already difficult without being an international student and that it had been a dream to be able to work at a studio that has produced some of her favorite content.

Beyond Pomona, Pentaparthy plans to go to graduate school this fall and is excited to continue her career in entertainment, specifically within global content.

“I’m grateful to Pomona for teaching me that I can weather adversity and emerge stronger for it. My time here has given me confidence in myself—I can uproot myself, travel across the world, and still find a sense of home, community, and belonging no matter where I go. Moreover, I think Pomona has given me the immensely useful tool of critical thinking that I believe will be handy no matter what direction my future takes,” she says.


Delmy RuizDelmy Ruiz

Ruiz is a public policy analysis major with a concentration in biology from Los Angeles. She chose Pomona because she wanted an institution conducive to her pursuit of a pre-med career path. In the last four years, she has participated in programs such as the Pomona Science Scholars and Prehealth Advising that have been integral in helping her find a community as she pursues a career in science.

During her time at Pomona, Ruiz has been a Draper Center Student Coordinator, a resident advisor for three years, a RAISE (Remote Alternative Independent Summer Experience) scholar, a Hispanic Scholarship Fund Scholar, a Fulbright Fellow, and an NIH (National Institutes of Health) Research Fellow. One of Ruiz’s most meaningful experiences at Pomona College was being a volunteer with the Draper Center, which allowed her to give back to the surrounding community in efforts to promote health equity. As a volunteer, she interacts with and supports uninsured and underinsured patients who otherwise would have found it difficult to navigate the healthcare system on their own.

After graduating, Ruiz plans to move to the Washington, D.C., area for nine months to take a position in a lab focused on studying the immunopathogenesis of HIV. Afterward, she will be taking on a Fulbright fellowship in Brazil, where she will be researching healthcare innovations in northern and southern states. After two gap years, she hopes to matriculate in an M.D. program. She says she has been fortunate to have created a strong support system at Pomona.

“I am going to miss the people and the professors. I have met some of the most motivated students and some of my most inspiring mentors here,” she says.


Joshua SuhJoshua David Suh

Suh is a mathematics major and music minor from Cypress, California. He chose Pomona College because of its intimate community and environment. He says he will miss the faculty on campus the most: “They really offered me such a wealth of information. I felt like with certain faculty I made such a genuine connection, and I’m definitely going to miss seeing them in my day-to-day life.”

Pomona taught him to explore what life has to offer and not be afraid to try new things, Suh says. Outside the classroom, he has tried ballroom dancing, mahjong, clarinet and classical voice, and was part of Pomona’s jazz, West African, and Afro-Cuban music ensembles. Suh also was part of the Mood Swing a cappella group and has taken voice lessons with Ursula Kleinceke, a lecturer in the Music Department, since his first year of college. Before Pomona, he had never sung before but learning from Kleinecke has given him confidence, the necessary technique and a genuine joy for performing.

Suh also has been awarded the art prize for Tabula Rasa, the 5C philosophy journal, for a piece he recorded called “Cat and Mouse,” an improvisational composition of piano and saxophone based on a paper written by Derek Li titled “Problems for a Platonic Idea of Logic.”

In addition, Suh was selected as a participant in a PreLaw Undergraduate Scholars (PLUS) Program with Boston University associated with the Law School Admissions Council. He plans to attend law school.

“I think Pomona College really made me a Renaissance man and instilled in me a desire to keep continually learning and exploring what this world has to offer,” he says. “Pomona definitely allowed me to blossom into the person that I feel I am and has given me the strength and confidence to tackle whatever life’s challenges come my way.”


Kristin WaltersKristin Walters

A mathematics major from Coral Springs, Florida, Walters came to Pomona College as a Miami Posse Scholar.

She was involved in student government, serving as ASPC vice president of student affairs. Walters says she was passionate about working on student issues and cultivating traditions and values at Pomona. She also was a coordinator for the Draper Center, working with Sista-2-Sista and the Pomona College Academy for Youth Success (PAYS).

Walters says the most meaningful experience she had at Pomona was the very first summer she worked with the PAYS program: “It was the best summer ever and I learned a lot about who I am that summer.”

She also learned how to play the oboe and piano and worked with Spotlight Musical Theatre, a 5C student-run musical theatre organization, as a sound designer.

In the future, Walters wants to become a sound designer for animated superhero movies and plans to work with nonprofit organizations to continue giving back to her community.

She says the interdisciplinary experience at Pomona College taught her to think outside of the box. Most importantly, she learned that “just because something is hard does not mean it cannot be done.”


Luke WilliamsLuke Williams

Williams, originally from San Diego, transferred to Pomona his sophomore year because he saw how “active and engaged” students were here. “Pomona has so many resources,” he says. “As a transfer, I was especially grateful for these resources and was able to take advantage of many of them.”

Earlier this month, at the Undergraduate Conference on the European Union, he presented a paper he wrote for his Social Comparative Policy class titled “A Comparative Look at Spain and Italy’s paternity leave policies.”

“I’m really grateful to Pomona College because it’s provided me with a ton of research experience,” he says. “I was able to build connections with faculty as a student, a research assistant and as a teaching assistant. Professors helped me set up internships volunteering at local schools and encouraged me to continue research and apply to conferences.”

Outside of classes, he played for the varsity and club tennis teams, served as a college advisor for Pomona College Academy for Youth Success (PAYS) and was a member of the Bridge Club at The Claremont Colleges, earning second place at the national collegiate bowl.

A politics major and psychology minor, he discovered a passion for working with children while he was a TA for a child development class. After graduating, he is headed to the University of Washington for a combined masters and Ph.D. program in school psychology.


Grace FanGrace Fan

Fan, who is from Irvine, California, majored in public policy analysis major and anthropology. During her time at Pomona, she had great opportunities through internships to learn more about federal and state legislatures at our nation’s and state’s capitols. Through Pomona’s Summer Undergraduate Research Program (SURP), she also conducted research with Politics Professor Sara Sadhwani on Asian American political representation.

Fan had the chance to interview established political players and write a piece that was published by ABC-CLIO, a publishing company for academic reference works and periodicals, primarily on topics such as history and social sciences. A student athlete at Pomona, she played volleyball for Pomona-Pitzer for four years.

Fan says she initially chose Pomona because of the classic appeal of a “small, liberal arts college in sunny SoCal.”

“But in retrospect, Pomona has been so much more—to find a community where everyone has a genuine love of learning at a school that celebrates cross-functional and interdisciplinary thinking is so rare,” she says. “I’ve actually never taken classes in my four years here that I didn’t enjoy—and that is definitely an extremely unique experience.”

Beyond Pomona, Fan plans to join a boutique consulting firm focused on corporate sustainability and ESG (Environmental Social and Governance) policies. In the longer term, she is considering pursuing a master’s of public policy or a J.D., and aims to do impactful policy-adjacent work at the federal level.

“Even though it was only 2.75 years in person, I’m infinitely grateful to have spent my college years here,” she says.

How To Teach a Robot

Anthony Clark, assistant professor of computer science with soldering iron
Kenneth Gonzalez ’24, Simon Heck ’22 and Liz Johnson ’24 work with Anthony Clark, assistant professor of computer science.

Kenneth Gonzalez ’24, Simon Heck ’22 and Liz Johnson ’24 work with Anthony Clark, assistant professor of computer science.

Someday, when a storm downs trees and power lines on campus or elsewhere, emergency workers may turn to autonomous robots for help with immediate surveillance.

 “Maybe you want a robot to roam around campus, because it’s safer for them than for a human,” says Anthony Clark, assistant professor of computer science. “Maybe you have 10 robots that can take pictures and report back, ‘Hey, there’s a tree down here, a limb fallen there, this looks like a power line that’s down,’” he says, and technicians can be dispatched immediately to the correct location.

That day may not be too far off, thanks to research being conducted by Clark and three Pomona computer science majors. Right now they are working on computer simulations, exploring how to train autonomous robots to navigate the campus using machine learning. By spring, they hope to test their methods in actual robots, prototypes of which are already under construction elsewhere in Clark’s lab.

The group scoured the campus last summer to find a building with an interior that would present challenges to the autonomous robots. They settled on the Oldenborg Center because it “was potentially confusing enough for a robot trying to drive around,” with one hallway, for instance, leading to stairs in one direction and a ramp in the other.

Machine learning, Clark explains, is a subset of artificial intelligence. “It is basically an automated system that makes some decisions, and those automated decisions are based on a bunch of training data.” 

To generate the data, the team created an exquisitely detailed schematic of the Oldenborg interior, down to a water fountain in a hallway. Kenneth Gonzalez ’24 took 2,000 photos and used photogrammetry software to determine how many images the robot would need for correct decision-making. Liz Johnson ’24 created another model with the flexibility to change various elements—from carpet to wood or even grass on the floors, for example, or rocks on the ceiling. Simon Heck ’22 worked on the back-end coding.

“The reason why we want to modify the environment, like having different lighting and changing textures, is so the robot is able to generalize,” says Clark. “The dataset will have larger amounts of diverse environments. We don’t want it to get confused if it’s going down a hallway and all of a sudden there’s a new painting on the wall.”

Clark says that once the group has models that work in virtual environments and transfer well to the physical world, the team will make the tasks more challenging. One idea is to create autonomous robots that fly rather than roll. “It’s pretty much the same process,” Clark says, “but it’s a lot more complicated.”

The goal, Clark says, “is a better way to make machine learning models transfer to a real-world device. To me, that means it’s less likely to bump into walls, and it’s a lot safer and more energy efficient.” 

What keeps him up at night is training a machine and then, for example, a person taller than those in the dataset enters the field. The robot mischaracterizes what they are and runs into them. “I’m hoping the big takeaway from this work is how do you automatically find things that you weren’t necessarily looking for?”

Geology Department Turns 100

Founded in 1922 by A.O. Woodford, a 1913 graduate of the College better known as Woody, the Geology Department has marked its centennial year. So did Woodford, a one-man department for 30 years who died in 1990 at the age of 100. A great-nephew of Pomona co-founder Rev. James Harwood, Woodford majored in chemistry before earning a Ph.D. studying soil science at UC Berkeley. In addition to his research, Woodford was known for developing scientists. Among them was Roger Revelle ’29, an early predictor of global warming. UC San Diego’s Revelle College bears his name.

Artifact: The Last Champs

The object below is a game program from the crucial contest of Pomona’s 1955 season, the most recent time the Sagehens were part of a SCIAC football championship season.

1955 Homecoming Game Program: Whittier College vs Pomona-Claremont

Pitzer College, Pomona’s current partner in athletics, had not yet been founded. Pomona and what was then Claremont Men’s College—now rivals as Pomona-Pitzer and Claremont-Mudd-Scripps—played together on a combined team known as Pomona-Claremont that claimed the third of three titles in a row.

The title-clinching win was a dramatic 14-13 victory over Whittier College in the Poets’ homecoming game, where this program sold for 20 cents. The two met late in the season as the only SCIAC teams that remained undefeated in conference play.

The recently completed 2022 season marked a poignant milestone for Whittier. The college dropped its football program after 115 years, along with men’s lacrosse and men’s and women’s golf. The decision was primarily for financial reasons. Whittier had not won a game since the pandemic canceled the 2020 season, going 0-18 over the last two seasons.

Whittier’s coach in 1955 was George Allen, who went on to coach the Los Angeles Rams and Washington Redskins. Pomona-Claremont was coached by Earl “Fuzz” Merritt ’25, for whom Pomona-Pitzer’s home field is named.

The Pomona-Claremont roster included end Bill Schultz ’56, tackle Ken Wedel ’56, halfback Herb Meyer ’57, guard/tackle Hugh Martin ’57, and halfback/quarterback Jim Lindblad ’58, all later inducted into the Pomona-Pitzer Athletics Hall of Fame. The name of a certain 165-pound sophomore end might also ring a bell.

Pomona-Claremont’s final game of the 1955 season was a 29-13 victory over rival Occidental in front of 6,000 fans in Claremont. Oxy’s standouts included quarterback Jack Kemp, who went on to play professional football and serve nine terms as a U.S. congressman. In 2020, Occidental announced it would discontinue its football program, ending the rivalry. Six remaining teams will compete for the 2023 SCIAC football title: Cal Lutheran, Chapman, CMS, La Verne, Pomona-Pitzer and Redlands.

Scholars and Fellows

Each year, Pomona graduates and undergraduates are awarded prestigious scholarships and fellowships for study in various places around the world. Downing Scholars and Gates Cambridge Scholars head to the University of Cambridge in England for graduate work. Fulbright Scholars and Watson Fellows travel to an array of international locations. Rangel Fellows train for careers in the U.S. Foreign Service. Knight-Hennessy Scholars pursue graduate studies at Stanford University. Goldwater Scholarships are awarded to undergraduates studying sciences, mathematics and engineering. Beckman Scholars earn mentored undergraduate research experiences in chemistry, biological sciences and related areas.

Beckman Scholars

Louie Kulber ‘23
Daniela Pierro ‘23

Downing Scholars

Kate Aris ’22
Jacinta Chen ’21
Calla Li ’22
Paul McKinley ’22

Fulbright Scholars

Kristine Chow ’22
Kelly Ho ’22
Brady Huang ’22
Steven Osorio ’22
Sayde Perry ’22
Nathan Shankar ’22
Ruby Simon ’22

Gates Cambridge Scholar

Sofia Dartnell ’22

Goldwater Scholars

Hannah Caris ’23
Jonathan Elisabeth ’23

Knight-Hennessy Scholar

Isaac Cui ’20

Rangel Fellow

Salamata Bah ’20

Watson Fellows

Xiao Jiang ’22
Mark Diaz ’22

2022 Wig Awards

Close relationships with professors are one of the special qualities of a Pomona College education. Each year, juniors and seniors vote for the Wig Awards, the highest honor bestowed on Pomona faculty, in recognition of exceptional teaching, concern for students and service to the College and community. This year, as in-person learning returned after more than a year of Zoom, seven professors were selected and confirmed by a committee of trustees, faculty and students.

2022 Wig Award recipients, from left; Assistant Professor of Media Studies Ryan Engley, Associate Professor of Politics Amanda Hollis-Brusky, H. Russell Smith Professor of International Relations and Professor of Politics Pierre Englebert, Professor of Computer Science Tzu-Yi Chen, Willard George Halstead Zoology Professor of Biology Nina Karnovsky, Assistant Professor of Economics Malte Dold and Associate Professor of English Jordan Kirk

Prof. Jorge Moreno Leads Research Into Galaxies Lacking Dark Matter

 

The discovery of galaxies with little or no dark matter is perplexing to scientists and challenges existing notions of how galaxies form. In a paper published in Nature Astronomy in February, a team of researchers led by Jorge Moreno, assistant professor of physics and astronomy, shared evidence they have found that may explain this baffling observation. Scientific American featured Moreno in a podcast about the work in April.

“For 40 years, astrophysicists have believed that all galaxies have dark matter,” Moreno explains in a campus interview.

That hypothesis was challenged in 2018, when Shany Danieli at Princeton University, who is the second author of the new paper, and Pieter van Dokkum of Yale published their finding of a galaxy in the real universe that lacked dark matter. A second such galaxy was reported in 2019. Astronomers use the term “real universe” to differentiate between what is seen in physical observation and what is found through computer simulation.

“Their discovery posed a huge challenge to the dark matter model of galaxies,” Moreno continues. “Many astrophysicists were suggesting that maybe we need to get rid of the idea of dark matter. Maybe we even need to modify the laws of gravity.”

Moreno took a sabbatical leave in 2020-21 to dig deeper into the challenge posed by these galaxies that lacked dark matter. He drew on his expertise in creating galaxy simulations and using supercomputers to model galaxy formation. Joining in the worldwide effort were astrophysicists from Princeton, UC Irvine, Caltech, the University of Zurich and other institutions.

The simulation modeled evolution over billions of years in a swath of the universe that was 60 million light years across. In it, the researchers identified seven galaxies lacking dark matter.

Researchers employed a cosmological simulation (FIREbox) to re-create numerical analogues (and explain the existence) of the two observed dark-matter deficient galaxies.

Researchers employed a cosmological simulation (FIREbox) to re-create numerical analogues (and explain the existence) of the two observed dark-matter deficient galaxies.

“What we found is that these galaxies initially had a lot of dark matter, and they had a lot of gas,” says Moreno. “But they fell into bigger systems. What we discover is that to become a galaxy without dark matter, it must interact with a galaxy that is a thousand times bigger than it is.”

Moreno drew on his identification with Indigenous peoples to name the galaxies found in the simulation. With the help of Doug Ingram, a Cherokee who teaches in physics and astronomy at Texas Christian University, Moreno obtained the permission of Cherokee leaders to give the galaxies the names of seven Cherokee clans: Bird, Blue, Deer, Long Hair, Paint, Wild Potato and Wolf.

“I’ve identified with these galaxies,” Moreno says. “These galaxies are not supposed to exist. They were supposed to be destroyed as they battled with massive galaxies, but they survived.”

Moreno finds a parallel in his Indigenous ancestry. Growing up in Mexico and the United States with a blossoming interest in mathematics, he didn’t see many scientists of color with whom he could identify, and navigating the power structures of academia was often challenging.

Sometimes Moreno felt excluded, and more than once he was mistaken for a janitor rather than a physicist. But, he says, “I had many mentors who believed in me. Sometimes they were warm, and sometimes they were harsh. But both were helpful in my growth to be the best version of myself, not to give up.”

As a theoretical astrophysicist and professor, Moreno honors his roots by investing in the success of the next generation of scientists of color. “I don’t want them to learn science,” Moreno says. “I want them to become scientists.”

While Moreno challenges all of his students to grow academically, he is invested in helping them find more than answers to questions in physics. He aims to help them discover, as he has, their place in the world of science. “For me, the scientific endeavor has been one of the most joyful things,” he says. “The message I want to send to my students is one of hope: ‘You belong.’”

How To Become a Scientific Illustrator

A May graduate with a degree in biology—and one of Pomona’s Commencement speakers as senior class president—Andreah Pierre ’22 has been interested in marine science and conservation for as long as she can remember. After earning a Posse Foundation scholarship followed by a prestigious summer fellowship, she will combine her STEM background with a rediscovered love of art to pursue a career as a scientific illustrator.

  1. Make your entrance near the ocean. Born in Miami, Pierre had an early affinity for the nearby Atlantic. “The best part was swimming with my sister,” she remembers. “Fish would pass by us, and we were like, ‘What are they?’”
  2. Stay curious. Nurture an interest in coral reefs, sea turtles and the effects of pollution as a student at South Broward High School, a marine science magnet school in Hollywood, Florida.
  3. Take an Advanced Placement art class and learn to paint. “The funny thing is, after sophomore year I never picked up another paint brush,” Pierre says. “My whole life was very much, you’ve got to do science, you’ve got to get a good job, and art did not seem like an option to me in terms of getting a good job.”
  4. Find your posse. Learn about the Posse Foundation, a program that selects talented students from the same city to attend an elite out-of-state college together on full-tuition scholarships, acting as each other’s support systems. Earn a Miami STEM Posse scholarship to Pomona, where biology students go whale watching on the Pacific.
  5. Apply for the prestigious Doris Duke Conservation Scholars program at the University of Washington, which provides two summers of experiential learning in the Pacific Northwest. For your second-year summer internship, join The Whale Museum staff in Washington’s San Juan Islands.
  6. Tasked with entering data on whale sightings reported to the museum, follow a mentor’s suggestion to develop an illustrated field guide to whales and other marine mammals to help the public tell a gray whale from a humpback. In the process, rediscover your love of art.
  7.  Download a $10 app. After starting with a free paintbrush program, discover more sophisticated computer graphic tools that help you produce detailed images pointing out key features such as fins, flukes and surface behaviors. “What makes my field guide different from any other book you grab about whales is that the book will tell you all about the whale, versus my image is literally meant to only point out the things that you’d see if you were on the water,” Pierre says.
  8. Turn your summer project into your senior thesis, testing whether your field guides help people correctly identify types of whales and other marine mammals with the tips and images you provide. (The answer is yes.)
  9. Learn about Cal State Monterey Bay’s post-baccalaureate program in scientific illustration. Apply and get accepted for a one-year graduate certificate that starts in September, with courses such as botanical illustration, zoological illustration and professional practices for science illustrators, followed by a 10-week internship.
  10. Stop to watch the elephant seals at Año Nuevo State Park on a trip along the California coast and realize that state and national park signage needs science illustrations too. “A lot of them are old, the paint’s chipped and there is new information from the last 10 or 20 years that should be on there,” Pierre says. Build your portfolio as you look to follow other graduates of the Monterey Bay program, whose work can be found in such places as the Smithsonian Institution, the American Museum of Natural History, National Geographic and Scientific American magazines, and at zoos, aquariums and botanical gardens across the country.

A Namesake Fossil for Geology Prof. Robert Gaines

Titanokorys Reconstruction

After years of uncovering fossils and discovering species from millions of years ago, Pomona College Dean and Geology Professor Robert Gaines now has one named after him.

It’s a doozy.

Geology Prof. Robert GainesAn ancestor of arthropods such as crustaceans and insects, the long-extinct animal’s name is Titanokorys gainesi, meaning “Gaines’s titanic helmet.” It lived during the Cambrian Period about 500 million years ago, when animal life was brand new and had not yet crawled out of Earth’s oceans and onto land.

Described as one of the largest animals of its time, Titanokorys gainesi was about two feet long with large, multifaceted compound eyes, a pineapple-slice shaped mouth, a pair of spiny claws at the front of the head to capture prey, and a body with a series of flaps for swimming.

“It feels tremendous to be honored in this way with a fossil that is so special in terms of its size and its ecology,” Gaines says. “As a child, I noticed that many fossils are named after people and I often marveled at the contributions that those individuals made to science. I think this is really moving and I feel so fortunate to be a part of this project.”

Geology Prof. Robert GainesThe newly discovered species comes from the Burgess Shale, a rock formation found high in the Canadian Rockies that preserves fossils of soft-bodied creatures, such as jellyfish and worms that decompose rapidly and don’t normally fossilize. It was discovered more than a century ago and became a watershed for understanding the origins of complex life on Earth. Gaines and a small team of researchers began working there in 2008, with the support of Parks Canada.

In pursuit of new discoveries, Gaines and the team began exploring outside the original discovery site and eventually settled about 30 miles southeast in Marble Canyon in 2012.

“We were not expecting to find what we had found in 2012. We were actually expecting to see strata that were very different, but the maps that had been made a generation ago were incomplete, and so the geology was confusing. Then, all of a sudden, like ‘boom,’ things snapped into place and we started to find new fossil forms hand over fist,” Gaines adds.

Gaines says the team began to find fossils of organisms that were completely new to science. With subsequent years of work and exploration in the region, that list of dozens of new species would grow to include what would become known as Titanokorys gainesi, discovered in 2018 during an excavation that included three geology students from The Claremont Colleges. These fossils can help scientists answer many questions about the origins of animals and the fundamental structure of the animal family tree.

“The questions are about the origin of complex life on the planet,” Gaines says. “The interesting thing about the era that we work on is that the origin of animals didn’t happen slowly or gradually as Darwin would have predicted, but instead our fossil record is really clear that there’s sparks of diversification that happened incredibly rapidly, almost instantaneously from a geologic point of view.”

Titanokorys gainesi

Gaines also works on similar fossil deposits around the world, including in China, where he was part of a team that announced a major discovery of new fossils in 2019.

Gaines hopes to continue his research in Canada in the summer of 2022.

How to Become Pomona’s CIO

How to Become Pomona’s CIO

Chief Information Officer is a C-suite job that didn’t exist until the 1980s, when the term was coined by business experts in recognition of the extraordinary growth of the role of computer technology. That means there wasn’t much of an established career path until more recently—and José C. Rodriguez, Pomona’s new vice president and CIO, took the scenic route in a journey that embraces the liberal arts.

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José C. Rodriguez1. Grow up in New York City and develop an unexpected appreciation of bugs—and not the computer programming type. “Even as a child, I just loved being outside. I loved turning over rocks,” says Rodriguez, who has a deep affection not only for insects but also for animals and the outdoors.

2. Earn a bachelor’s degree in entomology from the University of Georgia and move cross-country for a master’s at Washington State. Get to know Western bugs like the bombardier beetle, which shoots a noxious spray from its lower abdomen when disturbed.

3. Take a job in a molecular biology lab at Emory University, working on mosquito transmission of malaria. Encouraged by a principal investigator with large amounts of data to analyze, take courses in database management and data programming. Launch your new tech career as an IT support specialist and manager at the university.

4. Learn Arabic on the side during a 10-year role as director of technology for Emory’s new language center as it transforms traditional teaching methods with a multimedia approach. Travel to Italy with a professor to film cultural scenes, art and architecture for new digital learning content.

5. Move to Emory’s Candler School of Theology and become a very early adopter of Zoom, around 2015. Introduce streaming weekly chapel services and co-develop an online program that lets pastors work toward doctor of ministry degrees while still serving their congregations.

6. Begin to see technology with new eyes. “I really started to think more broadly about what an institution does and what it needs from technology, not just support of technology,” Rodriguez says.

7. Move to Memphis in 2018 to become CIO at Rhodes College, joining an institution’s top leadership group for the first time. Help shape the pandemic response and lead the pivot to online learning.

8. Continue to embrace online communication for its less obvious benefits. “We take in-person for granted. There’s a group of society that can’t be in person or doesn’t function easily that way,” Rodriguez says. “I think it’s important to remind ourselves that this is about accessibility as well as about an emergency response.”

9. Join Pomona and the 7CIOs, a rare community of campus technology leaders with opportunities to innovate together. “I would love to just express how happy I am to be here as part of the Pomona and Claremont Colleges community and I want to do everything in my power to improve on the teaching and learning of the schools. I’m very approachable. If people want to reach out, I am available to chat.”

10. Back to the bugs. There’s one insect common in the South that Rodriguez won’t miss. “Mosquitoes,” he says. “Someone was telling me you won’t have a lot of mosquitoes in California. I said, ‘Well that is fine with me.’”

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