Jedidah Isler visited Syracuse, and she reached out to me to have lunch. I wasn't doing well—I had failed my quals—but the fact that this prestigious… - Jessica Esquivel

Many of us who are underrepresented in STEM have taken on the responsibility of spearheading institutional change toward more just, equitable, and inclusive working environments as a form of survival, I'm putting in more work on top of the research I do because I recognize that I do better research if I feel supported and if I feel like I can bring my whole self to my job. My hope is that one day Black and brown women and gender-queer folks interested in science can pursue just that and not have to fight for their right to be a scientist or defend that they are worthy of doing science.

Once I got to college and took my first college-level course, I knew that physics was what I wanted to study. I learned about quantum superposition and Schrodinger's cat. It blew my mind, and as they say, the rest is history!

The secrets of our universe don't discriminate, these secrets can and should be unraveled by all those who wish to embark on that journey, and my aim is to clear as many barriers and leave these physics spaces better than I entered them.