Meet Jaylyn Umana

Jaylyn C. Umana, now a senior physics major at Columbia University in New York, was only a high school student when Jack W. Simonson with Farmingdale State College first introduced him to materials synthesis in his research lab.

Since then, Simonson has helped steer Umana's young physics career via continued participation in the National Mentoring Community, an APS program supported through philanthropic gifts from the physics community.

Umana compares the story of his young research career and the key mentorship relationships that have supported it to the sci-fi movie Back to the Future. The experience, Umana says, has been "a wacky and wild adventure like that."

At just 15 years old, Umana's interest in micrometeorites led him from the geosciences to physics as his potential path.

"I wanted to do something that I felt was going to make a significant difference," he says.

So he took a chance and reached out to Simonson, then an assistant professor of physics at Farmingdale State College in New York, and asked if he could intern in his research lab. Over the next two years, Simonson trained Umana in experimental techniques related to materials synthesis and supported Umana's budding interest in density functional theory (DFT).

"It was really important to me that I finally had someone I could consider a mentor," Umana says, acknowledging that Simonson was his first professional role model.

In 2019, Simonson formalized their collaboration through the Society's National Mentoring Community (NMC). With funding from the NMC, Umana was able to present his research with Simonson at that year's APS March Meeting. Then, in the fall, while adjusting to college life as a young physics major at Columbia University, the duo's work culminated in a first-author publication in Physical Review B.

"It is every professor's dream to work with students who are so passionate about physics," says Simonson.

The NMC, which was established to support diversity in physics, helped cover the expenses associated with Umana's participation in the conference. Because participation in the program is free for both mentors and mentees, the NMC depends, in part, on philanthropic support from the physics community.

When COVID-19 lockdowns disrupted Umana's first year of college, Simonson connected the young physicist with a new mentor, Simon Billinge, a Columbia faculty member with research interests in both the experimental and theoretical sides of applied physics. Learning of Umana's desire to help increase the accessibility of DFT to researchers around the world, Billinge then pointed Umana toward the Open Computing Facility project of the Joint Undertaking for an African Materials Institute (JUAMI-OCF).

As part of this collaboration, Umana is now leading an effort to develop a virtual platform that can support cloud-based DFT calculations. Still in his undergraduate years, Umana has given multiple presentations and workshops on DFT to graduate students and received a $60,000 grant from Google Research via the organization's Award for Inclusion Research Program.

By his junior year at Columbia, Umana was working four jobs—including mentoring youth interested in scientific research careers—to cover his bills. When a sudden and serious health condition arose, medical debt piled up. In need of help, Umana turned to the BEAM Fund (Bringing Emergency Aid to Mentees), a grant program of the NMC designed specifically to support mentees through challenging financial times to ensure they stay on a path to success.

Now, as a senior, Umana is ready for the next step: a doctorate in physics.

"I have some ideas of where I would like to go," he says.

While Umana plans to continue working to expand the accessibility of DFT as a tool for researchers the world over, he would also like to branch out into other areas of solid state physics, including pseudopotentials and exchange-correlation functionals.

Fortunately, Umana has two dedicated mentors to help guide him through these next steps. Reflecting on the impact that Simonson's mentorship through the NMC has had on his life trajectory, Umana says that above all else, "I aspire to inspire people like he does."

Simonson believes strongly that "we all have a responsibility as educators and scientists to provide equal opportunities to students and junior colleagues from historically underrepresented populations or from economically disadvantaged backgrounds." He is also appreciative of "the tools for a successful relationship" that the NMC provided him in order to better support Umana on his physics journey.

As a volunteer-driven organization, APS is grateful to members like you who know the value of investing in the advancement of science and physics in particular. Your support empowers APS to drive change in the physics community through diversity, equity and inclusion programs, such as the NMC.

Thank you so much for being an invaluable member of the APS family. Please feel free to contact me for more information about how you can support incredible students like Umana and the work of APS through your estate plan or a special gift.

With gratitude,
Kevin Kase
Director of Development