Forbes’ ‘30 Under 30’ 2024 list includes 7 Connecticut residents
Last week, Forbes released its “30 Under 30” list for the class of 2024.
The magazine’s annual issue highlights the achievements of 600 notable people under 30 years old in 20 different industries, including health care, sports and entertainment. To assemble the lists, Forbes editors judged 11,000 candidates on “financials, impact, creativity and potential.”
This year, Forbes recognized several Connecticut residents for their contributions to their respective fields. Here are the “Under 30” 2024 listers who live in the Nutmeg State.
Victoria Arlen: Sports
Victoria Arlen is a Paralympics gold medalist and ESPN host from West Hartford, according to Forbes.
At age 11, she was diagnosed with two rare neurological conditions that left her in a vegetative state for nearly four years and doctors predicted low odds of survival for Arlen, according to her ESPN bio. She recovered to become an actress, model and competitive swimmer, winning one gold and three silver medals in the 2012 Paralympics.
She was hired by ESPN as on-air talent in 2015 at age 20, becoming one of ESPN’s youngest regular reporters, according to ESPN. Arlen has hosted shows like, “SportsCenter” and she is a reporter for the X Games and Special Olympics, as well as a co-host
for NBC’s “American Ninja Warrior Junior.”
Megha Gupta: Finance
Megha Gupta is the portfolio manager at WorldQuant, an international quantitative hedge fund based in Old Greenwich. There, she builds and trades financial strategies for the $7 billion firm using algorithms that attempt to predict stock price movements.
She studied at the Indian Institute of Technology and interned at IBM
Research, where she was granted a U.S. patent, according to Forbes. After joining WorldQuant in 2016, she helped start the Deep Research team, which focuses on new types of algorithms, and was offered the opportunity to move to the Connecticut office as the project grew.
Rebecca Kuang: Media
Rebecca Kuang is the No. 1 New York Times bestselling author of the “Poppy War” trilogy. Since publishing her novel,
“The Poppy War,” at 21, she’s written seven books and 1.5 million copies of her work have been printed, according to Forbes.
The novelist holds masters degrees from Cambridge and Oxford, and she is now pursuing a Ph.D. in East Asian languages and Literatures at Yale University, according to her website.
Cole Lewis: Health care
Cole Lewis is the cofounder of Cloverleaf Bio, a company developing a
new type of engineered “tRNA” therapeutics to help improve cancer treatment. Investors have given the startup $1.2 million in funding, according to Forbes.
He is a Ph.D. candidate at Yale University in molecular biophysics and biochemistry.
Kingson Lin: Health care
New Haven resident Kingson Lin is currently an M.D./Ph.D. student at the Yale School of Medicine, where he and his peer, Anis Barmada, researched new cancer treatments, according to a release from the university.
In 2021, he co-founded Modifi Bio to turn their findings into a drug and put it on the market, according to Forbes. The company has received $12 million in funding from investors.
Reid Waldman: Health care
Reid Waldman is a dermatologist from West Hartford and the cofounder of Veradermics, a company that works to improve treatments for dermatology patients. The company developed a less painful approach to pediatric wart removal and Waldman’s first product, which is in Phase 2 clinical trials, uses a microneedle patch to kill the underlying virus, Forbes reported.
The company has $38 million in funding and is working on improving treatments for hair loss, eczema and other conditions, according to Forbes.
Devishi Jha: Social Impact
Forbes recognized Devishi Jha and Jianna Liu for their carbon accounting company, Leafpress. Launched in February 2023, the company helps large real estate owners track and report their carbon emissions using artificial intelligence.
Jha reported to Forbes that she lives in Connecticut, an editor told Hearst Connecticut Media. The climate activist has done some carbon accounting for Sephora, Spotify, and P&G, according to her bio on Leafpress.