#SoCaltech: Maria Jose Sanchez Rincon

“Coming from a small town, I had to hop on a bus at 7 in the morning to commute to school every day, even though school started an hour and a half later. That was a big part of what made me learn how to be organized and have better time management skills.

“I’m from a town called Tipton. It’s in California, and I always say it’s right in between Bakersfield and Fresno because those are the cities most people know. It’s an agricultural town—all around us, there are fields, there are cows, dairy workers, all of that. I love this town, but there isn’t much here to help me learn what I want to learn.

“I really love space; I have since I was a child. I remember getting my first telescope when I was in third grade. I was so excited, and my mom thought it was just a phase; like all kids have their dinosaur phase or astronaut phase. But I really stuck with it all these years, and I still am pursuing becoming some sort of astrophysicist, whether it’s working at a research facility or working as a professor. I’d love to study black holes. Sometimes, they make my head just spin because of how complicated they are.”

Maria Jose “MJ” Sanchez Rincon joins Caltech this fall as a first-year undergraduate studying astrophysics, in part because of outreach efforts by the STARS (Small Town and Rural Student) College Network. Caltech was one of the 16 inaugural members of STARS when it launched in 2023. STARS recently doubled its membership to include 32 of the most prominent institutions in the nation, all dedicated to helping students from small-town and rural America attend and graduate from the undergraduate program of their choice.

#SoCaltech is an occasional series celebrating the diverse individuals who give Caltech its spirit of excellence, ambition, and ingenuity. Know someone we should profile? Send nominations to magazine@caltech.edu.