#SoCaltech: Joan Sullivan

"I've been at Caltech for more than three decades, and what's kept me here through every role is the people; you walk across campus and you know almost everyone. Making connections is what led to my small part in setting up the Green Labs ReStore. In my experience, every time a professor retires, downsizes, or moves, a whole lab's worth of unused supplies and equipment could end up in the trash or sitting idly in an empty lab space: gloves, pipette tips, reagents, sometimes freezers and shakers.

“When [Green Labs coordinator] Tasha Cammidge and the Green Labs team wanted a physical space to inventory and rehome these things, she approached me about the recently vacated stock room in Alles. I was able to work with her and our division staff to prepare the room and begin channeling donations to her group. Everything in the ReStore is offered up to other labs for free. It's saved the campus tens of thousands of dollars already, but, honestly, the part I love most is that it's one more place where this community takes care of itself, and I get to be a small part of that."

Joan Sullivan is the division operations officer for the Division of Biology and Biological Engineering at Caltech. She has been on the Institute’s professional staff for 35 years, for which she was honored at the 2026 Service Impact Awards. Her career has spanned jobs in Finance, in the then Office of Public Relations, in the former Development and Institute Relations, in EAS’s department administration, and most recently in BBE. She served as BBE’s operations manager for nine years before being appointed division operations officer in 2024.  

#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.