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

Throughout their career, Gabriel remained committed to breaking down barriers for FLi students while balancing their neuroscience training. First, as a program coordinator for Brown University’s Science Center, where they led a mentoring initiative to help minoritized students acclimate to STEM majors. They later joined the Opportunity Network as a Graduate Intern, where they designed and launched the Summer Science Research Program (SSRP) in response to the COVID-19 pandemic’s elimination of in-person programming. Then, as an Education Pioneers Fellow, Gabriel worked at Achievement Network, leading a data science project that analyzed student performance metrics to inform evidence-based instructional strategies for schools. This led to a brief tenure as a research analyst for the National Math and Science Initiative before formally launching and expanding FLi Sci.

Born in Albuquerque, NM to Mexican immigrants and a TRIO Upward Bound alumni, Gabriel became the first in their family to pursue college and the first from their high school to become a QuestBridge and Gates Millennium Scholar. They earned an Sc.B. in Cognitive Neuroscience from Brown University and an M.S. in Neuroscience and Education from Columbia University, where they conducted research on the cognitive and neural effects of financial stress on learning and memory. In May, Gabriel will complete a Ph.D. at Stanford University in Developmental and Psychological Sciences as a Knight-Hennessy Scholar and Quad Fellow. Their doctoral research focuses on the role of poverty on children and adolescents cognitive and behavioral wellbeing.

As a first-generation college student and the daughter of immigrants, Monisha has seen how structural inequities shape educational opportunities and health across the life course. These experiences inspired her to pursue a career dedicated to advancing health equity through research, mentorship, and service.

Monisha earned her bachelor's degree in Psychology and her Master of Public Health from Cornell University before beginning her PhD in Community Health and Health Behavior at the University at Buffalo. As an NIH T32 trainee, Schomburg Fellow, and Gates Millennium Scholar, her research focuses on how structural racism and intersecting systems of oppression influence mental health and educational outcomes among Black adolescents. Her goal is to generate rigorous evidence that informs policies and interventions to reduce inequities.

As the FLi Sci STEM Graduate Fellow, Monisha is passionate about supporting students from historically underrepresented backgrounds as they pursue careers in science. She believes that talent is universal, but opportunity is not, and she hopes to help create pathways that make research careers more accessible and inclusive for future generations.

As the son of two teachers for whom apples apparently don’t fall far from the tree, he began his career teaching middle and high school history. He’s always loved the energy of the academic environment and today appreciates being able to lean into education and service well beyond the classroom.

Christiaan is a graduate of Yale and MIT, a joyfully married father of two, and an enthusiastic consumer and creator of plant-based food — especially anything with peanut butter.

Meg received her MBA from Duke’s Fuqua School of Business, where she co-chaired the CASE Impact Investing Initiative and led a project for a community development bank focused on expanding growth capital investments in BIPOC-led small businesses in the southeast. She has a bachelor’s degree in History from Grinnell College.

Prior to joining Bridgespan, Giovanni spent 4+ years at Teach for America, as a data analyst. While there, he developed reports and data analyses to accelerate fundraising efforts across the organization. Prior to this role, Giovanni started his career as a systems engineer at General Mills, supporting efforts to improve the reliability of cereal packaging equipment.

Giovanni holds an MBA from the Yale School of Management, where he was a Consortium for Graduate Study in Management Fellow, and a BS in Industrial Engineering from the University of Puerto Rico.

A Chicago native, Professor Okafor held leadership roles spanning both the private and public sectors before becoming a law professor. Within the private sector, he worked as a management consultant with McKinsey & Company and as a corporate attorney in the London office of Skadden. Within public service and social impact, he founded Todaydream® to support K-12 students, developed and led local gun violence prevention efforts with the Chicago Public Schools— the same school district where he was educated from elementary through high school— advanced national economic and environmental policy as an Economics & Legal Fellow with the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), and promoted international human rights with the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum's Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide.

Professor Okafor earned his PhD and MA in economics from Harvard University, his JD from Yale Law School, and his BA from Stanford University.