Producing more diverse scientists from first-generation and low-income backgrounds.

FLi Sci was founded by Gabriel Reyes in June 2020, during the most disruptive months of the COVID-19 pandemic. The need was not new — but its visibility suddenly was. As a graduate student at Teachers College and an intern with The Opportunity Network, Gabriel designed a virtual summer research program for students whose in-person pathways into science had just disappeared.

The program worked. And in its success, something became impossible to ignore: not only were there too few scientists who had grown up in financially scarce environments — there were also almost no resources dedicated to changing that. In places where access to research, mentorship, and scientific community is scarce or nonexistent, the gap is a closed door.

FLi Sci exists to build that door open. We serve high school students from low-income backgrounds, or who are the first in their families to attend college, and we create the bridges — cohorts, mentorship, research, community — that make a scientific career feel possible, then real.