UMass Boston

The road to becoming a scientist can be an isolating one, but Sachin Gupta has built a thriving, cooperative community of graduate students.

Gupta’s selection as the 2026 graduate commencement speaker is a recognition of his empathy, his skill as a researcher, and his drive to help his peers forge authentic human connections with one another. His PhD is in applied physics, but many of his fellow students know him as the founder and president of the Physics Graduate Club, a role he has held since 2022.

When Gupta arrived at UMass Boston in 2021, after transferring from UMass Lowell when his first PhD advisor moved overseas, he found that his fellow physics students sometimes struggled with a lack of mentorship and community. As a lifelong organizer and a leader, founding the club was Gupta’s solution. “I’ve always had this thing where I don’t wait for opportunities to be created,” he said. “I do not wait for the road to be laid. I make my own roads.”

The club hosts a wide array of activities, from research talks by grad students, to asking professors to share their research journey, to helping students navigate the academic world. They also collaborate with other organizations for larger events: The club’s partnership with UMass Boston’s Graduate Student Government led to the Beacon Scholar Stage, an annual forum for graduate students from any discipline to present their research. The Graduate Physics Club’s success has earned it the Best Graduate Club award for two consecutive years.

“Physics club has become a central point for all the grad students to come together and share not only their physics, but all kinds of things,” said Gupta. With barbecues and potlucks, the club also helps students feel at ease and support each other through both their personal and academic challenges.

Gupta’s engagement with the physics community reaches far beyond the club. As professor Rahul Kulkarni, chair of the physics department, wrote in his nomination letter, “At the college level, Sachin has served as the sole graduate student representative of multiple committees, including the college of Science and Mathematics Senate, the Discipline and Grievance Committee, and the Strategic Planning Committee, where he has thoughtfully advocated for graduate student interests and contributed to institutional decision-making.”

Gupta is also an experienced teacher: After earning his master’s degree in India, he taught for two years at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Several of his students have since gone on to earn PhDs themselves. At UMass Boston, in addition to teaching several undergraduate classes, Gupta has also taught three semesters of OLLI continuing education courses for older adults, using items purchased at a dollar store to demonstrate the concepts in his lessons.

The concepts in Gupta’s PhD research, of course, are significantly more complex. Growing up in Moradabad, India, Gupta was initially fascinated by pure mathematics, but later became enthralled with how tangible physics was, and how it allowed him to explore the reality of the universe through mathematics. By choosing to study theoretical physics, he has been able to explore both fields at once.

As a member of Christopher Fuchs’ QBism quantum research group, Gupta’s work lives at the intersection of physics, mathematics, and philosophy. Specifically, he has focused on understanding quantum theory by making it a subjective, agent-centric guide for navigating the world, rather than an objective description of it.

“We’re working on quantum foundations, which is an attempt to understand quantum theory at a very fundamental level,” Gupta said. In time, this work could contribute to the development of more efficient quantum computers, greatly expanding up their computational potential.

As he prepares for the next stage of his career, Gupta hopes that his commencement speech will inspire his fellow students to build real human connections, and not to be afraid to show their authentic selves. The world is an increasingly noisy and complex place, with a thousand demands on our attention, and Gupta wants to encourage his peers to focus on their true passions.

The full text of the speech is available here.

“Now you have a degree in your hand, and you have a whole world to live in,” he said. “If you want to laugh, laugh! If you want to cry, cry! If you want to run, run! If, at 3:00 a.m., you feel like writing poetry, wake up and write the poetry. Do not wait for others to constrain you in a particular system.”