Caltech Cross Country will add a number of new Beavers following superb seasons from both the men and the women one year ago.

The rookies will join a significant group of returners as the two teams look to take another step up. Last season, the men placed third at the SCIAC Championships — their highest finish in 41 years — with the leading Beaver earning runner-up among 131 athletes. The team went on to place sixth at the NCAA West Regional Meet after running the fastest average 8K in program history and sent two athletes to the NCAA Championships, among other highlights. The women saw a host of success as well, placing fifth at the SCIAC Championships and 11th at West Regionals; it was the fourth straight season in which two or more Caltech women earned All-SCIAC recognition. Head coach Kelli Blake and her staff were awarded SCIAC Men’s Cross Country Coaching Staff of the Year as voted on by conference head coaches.

Please welcome the newest members of Caltech Cross Country:

Women:

Jennifer Cruden

Los Altos, Calif. / Los Altos

Cruden comes to Pasadena with a host of impressive achievements. In addition to personal records of 2:25.30 in the 800-meters, 5:37.77 in the 1600m and 63.37 in the 400m, the standout captained her cross country team and qualified for the prestigious Arcadia Relay Invitational as part of the 4x800m team in track; she won MVP at Los Altos for both Track and Cross Country. Outside of athletics, Cruden has interned at Lyten, a battery startup, and founded the BEAM (Business, Entrepreneurship and Math) chapter at Los Altos. She is a National Merit Scholarship winner and is looking to pursue a degree in Applied and Computational Mathematics at the Institute.

Shrila Esturi

Campbell, Calif. / Saint Francis HS

Esturi comes to Caltech with PRs of 19:37 in the 5K (cross country), 12:37 in the 3200m, 5:44 in the 1600m and 2:41 in the 800m. The Campbell native finished third in the CIF Finals in 2023 and 3rd in the 3200m WCAL Finals. Etruri has interned with TerraNexum, helping to develop an at-home carbon capture kit, and also worked at Air Company, where she researched alternatives to textile production and came up with a method to synthesize clothes from carbon-based fuels. Her dream career is to become the founder of a successful climate tech startup. The scholar is a four-time Honor Roll recipient and won the Saint Francis High School Math Award; at Caltech, she is looking to study Chemical Engineering by route of the Material Sciences Track.

Hypatia Hamkins

New York / The Brearley School

Hamkins comes to Pasadena by route of New York City with a plethora of strong times, including a 20:42 5K (cross country), 7:58 in the 2000m steeplechase, 5:06 in the 1500m, 3:08 in the 1000m, 2:26 in the 800m and 63 seconds in the 400m. The multi-distance athlete won Team MVP two times in cross country (2022, 2023) and three times in track & field (2022-24); by the time of graduation, she collected five AAIS All-Star recipient selections. Hamkins is a National Merit Scholar Finalist and winner of the Judith M. Conant Mathematics Award. She intends to study mathematics as she begins her Beaver journey this fall.

Raquel “Rocky” Lample

Encino, Calif. / Notre Dame HS

Lample joins the cross country team team with times of 19:53 in the 3 Mile (XC), 12:57 in the 3200m, 5:42 in the 1600m and 2:35 in the 800m. A two-time cross country team captain, she was nominated for the CIF Spirit of Sport Award and won Most Valuable Distance Runner at Notre Dame High where she also collected two Cross Country Coach’s Awards (2022-23). Academically, Lample interned at the Stoltz Organic Chemistry Lab at Caltech and served as an AP Chemistry tutor. The Encino native won the prestigious President’s Award for Academic Excellence in addition to winning the Connor Lynch Memorial Scholarship and collecting AP Scholar with Honor distinction; she will study chemistry at Caltech.

Anika Raburn

Durham, N.C. / North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics

Raburn comes to Caltech with impressive PRs of 19:48 in the 5K (XC), 11:48 in the 3200m, 5:26 in the 1600m and a 2:26 time in the 800m. Her junior year, she finished runner-up at the 2A Cross Country North Carolina State Championships and held conference and regionals champion titles. The star helped lead her team to three consecutive state titles in cross country. Her senior track season, Raburn placed third in the 3200m at the regional meet, qualifying her for the State Championships where she finished ninth. While in high school, Raburn worked in a rehabilitation engineering lab at the University of North Carolina, creating human-machine symbiotic systems to assist people with disabilities. She also took IBM’s Intro to Quantum Computing course and attended the Duke Summer STEM Academy. The talented student intends to study bioengineering at the Institute.

Katelyn Sadorf

Boca Raton, Fla. / Spanish River

Sadorf joins the roster with personal bests of 19:29 in the 5K (XC), 5:20 in the 1600m and 2:24 in the 800m. A three-time All Country Cross Country Team selection, she won WPBF25 News Student Scholar Athlete of the Month; she served as captain two times for both cross country and track. Outside of competing, Sadorf has worked as a software engineer for Clearview Social and has conducted research on the memory retention of zebrafish. The Floridian has served as a two-time Regional Board member for HOSA and won National Merit Commendation; she is a Pathfinder Computer Engineering and Technology award winner. Sadorf served as President for the Computer Science Honor Society, Math Honor Society and Physics Honor Society at Spanish River High and has been featured as a guest speaker for a WPBF25 News story on Artificial Intelligence. Sadorf will purse a degree in Computational and Neural Systems and looks to pursue a career in big tech research, using artifical intelligence to accelerate neuroscience research or creating devices to enhance the brain.

Men:

Kyle Berkson

Salt Lake City / Olympus

With PRs of 15:43 in the 5K (XC), 9:22 in the 3200m and 4:28 in the 1600m, Berkson will look to make a significant impact as he joins the cross country team this fall. The Utah native comes to Pasadena with two First Team All-Regio nods (2022, 2023) and as an Academic All-State winner in both cross country and track & field. Berkson has conducted research at the University of Utah where he helped improve a pollutant flow model; he has also studied microcontroller design through a research program at UC Berkeley. He was a Granite District Presidential Scholar for STEM and a Utah Sterling Scholar State Finalist. The Olympus alum will study mechanical engineering at the Institute.

Stephen Goehringer

Wellesley, Mass. / Wellesley

Geohringer comes to Caltech with personal bests of 9:26 in the 2-mile and 4:26 in the mile; he finished 12th at the Massachusetts State Championships his senior season. The standout collected two Bay State Conference All Star selections (2022, 2023) and was a 2023 Boston Globe/Herald Fall All Scholastic winner; he captained the team his final season. Goehringer also captained the track & field team, where he finished 19th in the 2-mile at the Massachusetts State Meet of Championships. The incoming Beaver has conducted research for Folia Materials, a material science company focused on paper-based sustainable materials, and has worked as a chemistry lab technician at Silvis Materials where he assisted the CTO in the development of a silver recovery system. He is a National Merit Commended Scholar and member of the National Honor Society at Wellesley. He will study Material Science.

Gavin John

Swarthmore, Penn. / Strath Haven

John sports impressive PRs of 16:06 in the 5K and a 33:31 in the 10K after captaining his team in high school. Outside of running, the talented student-athlete comes with a host of research experience, including time as an assistant at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia where he developed a program to automatically gate flow cytometry data; this study was published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases. He also conducted research at the University of Pennsylvania, where he developed a program to characterize bacterial cell membranes, publishing his work in Microbiology Spectrum. John additionally spent a gap year at Washington University in St. Louis, where he developed computational tools to study infants’ microbiomes during bacterial infections. He is Pennsylvania Junior Academy of Science state finalist, Director’s Award winner for top computer science presentation, a Congressional App Challenge winner, National Merit Scholar finalist and AP Scholar with Distinction. John will study Applied and Computational Mathematics.

Aditya Pakal

The Woodlands, Tex. / The John Cooper School

Pakal joins the team with personal bests of 16:17 in the 5K (XC), 9:35 in the 3200m and 4:27 in the 1600m. In cross country, he was a three-time All-SPC Southzone selection and received two All-SPC nods; in track, he earned a 4A All-SPC nod after finishing second in the 4A 3200m. Pakel has worked in the RISE program, where he created a computational model to simulate the kinematics of various sizes of dust particles in different media. The talented scholar was valedictorian of his class and won the prestigious Rensselaer Medal Award; he is a National Merit Scholar and member of the Cum Laude Society. Pakal was a prize winner of University of Houston’s Mathematics Competition in the statistics category. The Texan will pursue his degree in electrical engineering.

Jonah Reynolds

Sacramento, Calif. / Jesuit

The high school star will come to SoCal with an exceptional PR of 4:10.59 in the 1600m, which he achieved at the California State Meet one week after winning the Sac-Joaquin Masters Championship 1600m in 4:10.89 and the 4x800m with a 1:52.6 split. Reynolds played a major role in leading Jesuit to win the D1 Section Track Championship, winning the 1600m and placing second in the 4x800m, third in the 3200m and sixth in the 800m. In cross country, Reynolds placed third at the Sac-Joaquin Section D1 Championship; he collected All-Section and All-League nods for both sports. Outside of athletics, he is a three-time underwater robotics competition winner with the World MATE ROV Explorer Class collegiate division. He was recognized by the California Senate for his contribution to STEM and had work published in the Journal of Ocean Technology in 2022. The scholar has won the President’s Award, Mathematics Department & Athletics Awards at Jesuit and has developed & led summer robotics camps reaching 100+ 5-8th graders. The standout will join the squad in 2026; he is deferring his enrollment for religious reasons. He intends to study electrical engineering.

Jack Sullivan

Bethesda, Md. / Georgetown Preparatory

Sullivan wrapped up his decorated high school career with PRs of 15:43.8 in the 5K (XC), 9:37.00 in the 3200m and 4:28.1 in the 1600m. The soon-to-be Beaver won the Montgomery County Private Schools XC Championship twice and was awarded All-Conference, All-County, and All-State honors in cross country and track. He captained the Georgetown Prep cross country team his final two seasons and captained the indoor and outdoor teams this past year. Academically, Sullivan has performed asteroid orbital determination research at the University of North Carolina, where he made observations with a professional telescope and wrote processing code in Python. Additionally he has served as his school’s Engineering Club president and as vice-president of the Coding Club on top of competing in his math league. He has served on the executive board of his high school’s National Honor Society and in the Student Government and led a service group called the Refugee Action Team that does advocacy, volunteering and fundraising. He plans on studying astrophysics and mechanical engineering.

The women and men will look for their newest teammates to make an immediate impact as they take on SCIAC, regional and national foes.

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