For her volunteer outreach encouraging local children to learn about physics and reading, Abra Geiger ’26 has won the 2026 University Relations Campus-Community Leadership Award.

Geiger is a double major in physics and mathematics, with a minor in astronomy, in the College of Arts and Sciences. She will begin pursuing a Ph.D. degree in physics at Stanford University in the fall.

Each year, Cornell’s University Relations division recognizes one or more graduating seniors who has shown exceptional leadership, innovation and engagement with and service to the greater Ithaca community during their time at Cornell.

Kyle Kimball, vice president for university relations, presented the award on May 20 at a ceremony at Day Hall. Geiger’s mother, Heather Geiger; her stepfather, Tim Wilkes; friends and mentors attended the event.

“It is a highlight of our academic year to honor an individual who ventured off campus to meaningfully contribute as member of the local Ithaca community during their time at Cornell,” Kimball said. “We are so proud of Abra for her extraordinary undergraduate career, and pleased to recognize her as the 2026 recipient of Cornell’s University Relations Campus-Community Leadership Award.”

In her freshman year, Geiger became involved in local science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) outreach when she joined the Cornell Steminist Movement, which fights the gender gap in STEM fields. As a freshman and sophomore, she served as outreach co-director, organizing 10 outreach events at the Tompkins County Public Library and on campus. After applying for and winning a $2,500 grant from Cornell’s student-run Community Partnership Funding Board, she distributed 300 STEM activity kits to local youth, largely in underserved communities.

Also in her freshman year, she took the class Teaching and Learning Physics, which introduced her to the Ithaca Physics Bus, a nonprofit mobile classroom with dynamic interactive physics demonstrations. That inspired her to create the “Fun Physics with Fifth” initiative, bringing monthly physics lesson plans and hands-on demos to fifth graders at Fall Creek Elementary School in partnership with the Ithaca Physics Bus.

“Abra provided opportunities for the fifth graders to enjoy physics in physical ways, not as text in a textbook or formulas on a board,” said Chris Bell, a Fall Creek Elementary teacher in whose class Geiger volunteered. “These physical, fun experiences with physics phenomena resulted in kids being intrigued and interested in a field of science that most didn’t know existed.”

Physics and science in general inspire Geiger, she said. “But they are concepts that I didn’t really understand the significance of until around high school,” she said. “It is my goal to make the inspiring and integral nature of science and physics accessible to the next generation, hopefully inspiring future scientists and innovators.”

Geiger’s outreach stemmed from her participation in the Cornell Society of Physics Students, which she joined as a freshman in 2022. She began doing outreach in 2023 as chair of the society’s Women in Physics committee. She went on to serve as vice president in 2024, when she led the society’s Peer and Graduate-Undergraduate Mentorship programs, matching over 80 mentors and mentees; she currently mentors eight students. She was the society’s president in 2025.

As part of her work with the society, she also co-created the inaugural “A Physicist Is …” project, which showcases photos and profiles of diverse Cornell undergraduate and Ph.D. alumni who are using their physics degrees in unique ways. The informational displays she created are now on permanent display in the Physical Sciences Complex. She also serves as a physics tutor and teaching assistant.

A McNair Scholar, she’s currently working on her honors thesis on how gravitational waves can change the locations of objects in the sky, and how those objects can be used to detect gravitational waves.

Throughout her time at Cornell, Geiger has also volunteered with Ballet & Books, a national, multichapter nonprofit started at Cornell that aims to foster literacy through the combined storytelling of dance and reading. Since her freshman year, she taught ballet and read books to a class of 6-to-9-year-olds once a week, handing off her role this past semester.

Cornell students can easily get stuck on campus, unconnected to and unaware of how they can serve to the local community, Geiger said.

“I think that supporting others is some of the best, most important work we can do, particularly in the current state of the world where there is a lot of tension and division,” she said. “Cornell has a significant impact on the local community, and I think it is our responsibility, even in the short time we are here as students, to learn about and support the local community in our own ways. Ithaca is a really special and beautiful place.”