AANHPI spotlight: Get to know Larry Yu, All-American swimmer and Johns Hopkins doctoral student

Larry Yu, the son of Chinese immigrants, is a 16-time Division III All-American swimmer and is working on a doctorate in astronomy and astrophysics at Johns Hopkins. His collegiate journey has been shaped by athletic excellence, academic ambition, finding community within swimming and providing representation in STEM. 

Yu began his college career at Pomona-Pitzer, where he earned two College Sports Communicators Academic All-America awards and was named the 2023 Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Swimmer of the Year. 

After completing his undergraduate degree in physics and computer science at Pomona, Yu decided to take a break from school to share his passion for space with young scientists. Yu worked at AstroCamp, a California summer camp designed to immerse youth in hands-on STEM activities through outdoor exploration. 

A recipient of a 2025-26 NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship, Yu is finishing the first year of his doctoral program at Johns Hopkins and was a member of the men's swimming and diving team. In his final year of swimming, he helped lead the Blue Jays to their first conference title since 2006 with his first-place performance in the 200-yard breaststroke and a third-place finish as part of the 400 freestyle relay team.

Catching up with Yu

What accomplishments are you most proud of in your student-athlete journey?

I think I just feel a lot of gratitude because it was a really special experience. College swimming has been a really amazing opportunity for me. It's not just the sport itself but the teammates, atmosphere and culture we have. Being able to swim, be in this environment, and along with my academics is an experience that not a lot of people have. So I just feel a lot of gratitude that I was able to have just a phenomenal experience, teammates, coaches and everything. 

What experiences stand out to you the most from your collegiate journey and swimming?

My coach at Pomona-Pitzer had a saying that your entire competitive season is like a carrot cake and your end-of-season competitions are the icing. The idea is that you've done all the work, and the journey is so much more than the destination. And in that case, having that icing is pretty sweet. I've had my fair share of icing moments, like during my senior year in undergrad, helping my team be able to get a third-place finish in the 800 free relay (at the NCAA Division III championships). We had to move eight spots from where we were seeded, and we were seeded in the morning heats. We had to watch through an entire finals heat to see where we had placed, and being able to see that we got third was like validation of not just my season, but my entire swimming career. 

What does Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month mean to you?

I definitely value my heritage, my culture, and I have a lot of gratitude toward my parents who immigrated from China and raised me in North America. That is pretty special. Also, in Division III swimming there is a pretty large Asian American presence, as well. There's something special about having people like you to share and compete with. For example, a lot of us had a Lunar New Year celebration and all went out to dinner. Those moments are really special. 

Where does your passion for space come from?

I've had a long interest in astronomy from a young age. My dad would always take me up to our roof to stargaze. And I'd say I'm a very analytical thinker, a curious thinker. I've always had a curiosity about the world around us. … During my undergraduate astronomy courses, one of the projects we had was to detect an exoplanet through transit, and being able to get that result was surprisingly mind-blowing. Even though we had the expected result, this transit happened light-years, hundreds of light-years away, basically 400 or 500 years ago. It made me think what else can we find? What does that say about our own solar system and our own origins?

How did that lead to AstroCamp?

I was really interested in science communication, as well, so before starting grad school, I spent a year working at a science camp and helping kids get interested in astronomy. We'd educate them and show them cool physics and astronomy concepts to get them excited about space, kind of how I was when I was younger. It was great to feed their curiosity and have little kids who are just super enthusiastic and energetic. It was a really rewarding experience. One of the highlights from the camp was the telescopes. We're in the mountains so you can see the stars very clearly because of the low light pollution, and at the right time of night, you can see Saturn. The kids always got so excited about Saturn because you can see the shape of the rings around it, and it's really beautiful.