I was born in Bellingham, Washington, in 2001 and grew up in nearby Ferndale. My mom was a nurse and my dad worked as an engineering project manager, so I grew up around both medical thinking and design work. A lot of my childhood was spent building, drawing, and experimenting.
After seeing Iron Man in 2008, I built my first suit from scrap materials, literally using a trash can, pipe ducts, and ski boots. That early fascination with design and engineering led me into 3D modeling, game development, and eventually selling assets on the Unity Asset Store. In high school, I took a nontraditional path and completed most of my studies online, which gave me more time to pursue independent projects.
During that period, I met my friend and mentor, Dr. Marc Pierson. Through our conversations, I was introduced more deeply to systems thinking and its application to education and complex social problems. That work eventually led to our speaking at the Congreso de Educación Sistémica in Bogotá, Colombia, and to further collaboration during the early months of COVID-19, when we worked with local Bellingham nonprofits to build CARIN, a community resource coordination platform. The project had mixed success, but it did help organize local neighborhoods, and I was honored with the Ken Gass Community Builder Award in late 2020 for that work.
Since then, I have worked at the T-Mobile call center in Bellingham and later pivoted to Western Washington University, where I now study psychology and economics. My long-term goal is to help advance neuroscience research by coordinating software development and interdisciplinary teams.