Speakers

Medar de la Cruz

Medar de la Cruz is a Dominican-American cartoonist and illustrator born in Miami, Florida, and currently residing in Brooklyn, New York. He graduated with a degree in illustration from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, and has worked as a freelance illustrator for The New York Times and The New Yorker. Beyond the drawing board, Medar contributes part-time to the Outreach Department at the Brooklyn Public Library, where he provides book cart services to incarcerated individuals on Rikers Island. This experience has motivated him to explore the role of journalism in his autobiographical comics. Currently, Medar is working on a graphic novel about his experiences on Rikers to offer insights into spaces that are otherwise inaccessible to the public. In addition to drawing comics, he serves as an educator, sharing his passion for visual communication through community workshops across the city.

Pulitzer Prizes: 2024 Winners List - The New York Times | New Yorker Article

Arshnoor Kaur

Arshnoor is a rising senior at Yale University studying Neuroscience and Spanish. Outside of her schoolwork, she conducts research on Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and Schizophrenia in a medical laboratory, works as a research assistant on an Alzheimer's project in a hospital Emergency Department, runs an anonymous peer counseling service with a mental health hotline on campus, and directs the HAVEN Free Clinic. Arshnoor has also had the opportunity to learn about healthcare needs across different communities through her role as an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT), volunteering both in Connecticut and Mahwah, NJ. After graduation,  Arshnoor will be applying to medical school, where she hopes to study public health alongside medicine through a joint MD-MPH program. 

Elise Tao

Elise is a writer, thinker, entrepreneur, and advocate for change. Elise is the founder of Synthesis Publications, a multimedia digital platform for teen artists and writers all around the world to use their voice and harness their creativity. Synthesis is more than 70 staff members strong and has accrued over 500k+ impressions across social media platforms and the Internet. Elise is also a National Training Team member of Everytown for Gun Safety’s Students Demand Action coalition, where she advocates for anti-gun violence and other intersecting issues across the nation through monthly meetings, training sessions, media involvement, outreach, voter registration, legislation, and more. Elise has been named the 2024 Distinguished Young Woman of New Jersey and has been recognized by Good Morning America, ABC News, The Walt Disney Company, the Coca-Cola Scholars Foundation, the Anthony Quinn Foundation, YoungArts, Hollins University, Bennington College, Rider University, Susquehanna University, and The Adroit Journal. Elise's creative and journalistic work is forthcoming or has previously been published in Poetry Online, Assembly by The Malala Fund, The Apprentice Writer, The Interlochen Review, and Sole Magazine. Elise is also passionate about women’s rights, gun safety, Asian American issues, collecting vinyl records, and reviewing popular culture. Elise will enter Harvard College as a freshman this fall.

Rodrigo Córdova Rosado

Rodrigo E. L. Córdova Rosado (Osage Nation) is a final year PhD candidate in the Astrophysical Sciences Department at Princeton University. He studies how to probe fundamental physics and the properties of black holes with observations of galaxies in conjunction with light from the earliest emission in the universe shortly after the Big Bang. He was born and raised in Puerto Rico, living there until he graduated from high school. He did his undergraduate degrees in Astrophysics and Physics at Harvard University and did an MPhil in Archaeology of the Americas with a focus in Archaeoastronomy at Cambridge University as a Gates Cambridge Scholar. As part of his archaeological work, he is interested in monumental architecture and the ways it may encode the way ancestral communities saw the cosmos. He is a passionate hiker, climber, camper, photographer, and cares deeply for the preservation of the natural environment.

Kanna Pichappan

Kanna is an enthusiast for discovering how to lead a meaningful, fulfilling, and healthy life through her roles as a student of life and student of neuroscience and anthropology at MIT. She has served as a neuroscience of mindfulness researcher, EMT, neurosurgery and trauma surgery hospital chaplain, data analyst for health and education nonprofits, and is a dedicated Harry Potter aficionado. 

Gagan Khandate

Gagan is a final year PhD student in the Department of Computer Science at Columbia University and works in the Robotic Manipulation & Mobility Lab.  His research primarily focuses on the question of "How can we get our robots to be as dexterous as humans in the real world?" and spans a variety of methods for achieving robot learning such as model-based planning, reinforcement learning, and imitation learning. Additionally, TIME Magazine recognized his work as one of the "Best Inventions of 2023". After graduating from his PhD, Gagan will join Boston Dynamics as a Research Scientist working on the new Atlas humanoid robot.