ALUMNI/AE
ETHAN ABRAHAM ’19 A Mind for Molecules: From Millbrook to MIT When Ethan Abraham arrived at Millbrook School for his senior year, he didn’t know it would mark the turning point of his academic life. He was a dedicated hockey player, and until then, athletics had shaped much of his identity. But that year shifted everything. It was at Millbrook that Ethan decided to pivot away from the rink and toward a future defined not by goals and assists, but by atoms and equations. That decision, supported by inspiring faculty members, ultimately set him on a path from Millbrook to MIT, where he’s now pursuing a PhD in chemistry with cuttingedge research that could one day reshape the way we store and use energy. Ethan’s senior year at Millbrook left a lasting impact. “It might have had a disproportionate influence on my trajectory,” he reflects. “It was where I really decided to double down on academics.” Encouraged by teachers like Dr. LaCosse, who taught Advanced Physics, and Coach Sorriento, who provided guidance both on and off the ice, Ethan began to lean into the intellectual challenges that would shape his future. “That physics class really hooked me. We worked on problems that weren’t just part of the standard curriculum—
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by Charles Kane—one of the field’s most
universe,” he laughs. He aced the question—
they pushed us to think deeply.” That taste of
influential theorists—quickly changed that.
and the class—and officially declared
real problem-solving planted a seed, one that
“He’s a potential Nobel laureate, and he made
himself a physics major the following year.
would continue to grow through college and
physics feel like storytelling,” Ethan recalls.
into graduate school.
Ethan’s academic ambition didn’t stop with
A twist of fate sealed the deal: the night
physics. At Penn, he also earned minors in
After Millbrook, Ethan enrolled at the
before a midterm, Ethan invented a practice
math and computer science, studied quantum
University of Pennsylvania, where
problem involving a frictionless block and
mechanics, and co-revived the university’s
he initially thought he might study
a stream of water. The very next day, that
quantum computing club. “We weren’t
biochemistry or enter the biotech world.
exact problem appeared on the test. “It was
building quantum computers,” he clarifies,
But a freshman honors physics class taught
either serendipity or a little nudge from the
“but we were building understanding—
• SPRING 2025