I'm Andrea Cicirello (she/her), a third-year PhD student in the Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) department. I have been organizing across campus since Fall 2024 and am the current Area Lead Steward for MSE, Operations Research and Information Engineering, and Applied and Engineering Physics. I am running for Financial Secretary with the Build / Activate / Mobilize (BAM) slate to continue the work I have done as a rank-and-file member, to ensure our union dues are being collected and used to further the interests of our members, and to fight back against Cornell’s attempts at wielding financial power against us.

As a rank-and-file member of CGSU-UE, I have helped build our democracy and apply UE principles to our union. I helped build a credible and unified strike threat among engineers in the spring of 2025. I was a member of the Constitutional Committee where I helped write the basis for our local to fully establish itself. As a steward, I fought for academic rights for grads: I stopped the unjust firing of multiple MSE grad workers over the results of their Q exam and secured them transitional funding in one of our first formal Appointment Security grievances. I also helped enforce our contract by fighting for TCAT access when Cornell failed to activate passes for every grad worker.

I am also fighting for the rights of trans grad workers such as myself on this campus. Alongside Katrina Davis, Max Fan, and Ewa Nizalowska, I founded and am the chair of the Trans Rights Action Committee. Under my term as chair, TRAC is establishing mutual aid and community connections throughout Ithaca as well as educating and mobilizing membership against the attacks on trans grad workers, students, faculty, staff, and members of the Ithaca community by Cornell and the Trump administration.

I am running for Financial Secretary with the BAM slate because our dues and the way they are spent is one of our most important tools in the fights we are taking on this campus. I will ensure accountability in the ways the finances of the union are being used and that union expenses are only made to organize, defend, and further the interests of our members. Cornell has already attempted to wield financial power over us. I am working with Gabe Sekeres, Stephan Wagner, Max Fan, and Rebecca Margolit-Chan to secure tens of thousands of dollars in dues from hundreds of members that Cornell failed to collect.  As Financial Secretary I will fight back against Cornell’s weaponization of financial power and ensure that CGSU-UE has the power to support and defend its members.