Pomona College alumna Sal Wanying Fu ’19 has received a Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans, a $90,000 merit-based grant for outstanding immigrants and children of immigrants who are pursuing graduate school in the United States. A current astrophysics doctoral student at University of California, Berkeley, Fu is among 30 students selected from a pool of more than 2,000 applicants. She is the fourth Pomona graduate to join the Paul & Daisy Soros Fellows.
Born in China, Fu and her parents came to the U.S. when she was 1 year old. Growing up in the Bay Area, Fu learned early about the importance of giving back to the immigrant communities that sustained her as child. Fu watched her parents run the local Chinese school on weekends to provide educational enrichment programs and a gathering space for the community of recent Chinese immigrants.
Growing up with a love of libraries, Fu was unsure if she would major in English or physics when she first entered Pomona. However, mentors such as Physics Professors Jorge Moreno, Philip Choi and Janice Hudgings, as well as students in the Physics Department helped her feel like she belonged when she initially felt out of place.
A physics major at Pomona, Fu completed multiple near-field cosmology research projects at the Carnegie Observatories in nearby Pasadena. Her research culminated in two first-author publications, multiple presentations at national conferences, the Barry Goldwater scholarship and the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship.
“For me, stories have always been important in informing how I exist in relation to the world, and subsequently, my responsibilities to those around me,” says Fu. “What drew me to astronomy and continues to fuel my passion are big-picture questions in my field that aim to piece together our cosmic history. I also love that the process of astrophysical inquiry engages a dynamic set of skills, from understanding many different aspects of physics, to learning computing techniques, to working with collaborators both locally and around the world.”
At Berkeley, Fu continues to work on multinational research collaborations to investigate the physics of the very first stars, the formation of the very first galaxies and the nature of the dark matter particle.
Her advice to students applying for graduate school: “Please don't be afraid to ask for help in the application process, whether it's to simply brainstorm or ask for polishing remarks on your essays,” Fu says. “My parents didn't know much about pursuing a career in academia, so I was fortunate to have been supported in my graduate applications by my mentors at Pomona College and the Carnegie Observatories. If you don't have immediate sources of support, a lot of academics do take to social media to crowdsource resources that demystify the process of applying to graduate school.”