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Welcome to my portfolio!

about

    About    

This site is a reflection on some of the key moments that shaped my last four years at the University of Washington (UW). While this doesn’t include every major moment I’ve tried to provide some honest and authentic examples to create an idea of what the college experience was like for me. I’ve bounced around a lot and dipped in and out of many different experiences. I’ve treated college as a chance to gain a breadth of experience rather than depth. With that being said only a few common storylines have persisted. Those are engineering, the Honors Program, Club Lacrosse, and the ASUW bike shop.

By scrolling down you can follow along as I try to connect these ideas into a cohesive storyline. Use the contents bar to the right to navigate sections! Or use the gallery below to jump to something that looks interesting.

one

year one

2015-2016

Club Lacrosse

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My first thought fall freshman year was, how can I keep playing lacrosse? A few messages to Bainbridge High alumni on the UW team got me on the field for fall ball. The teams relaxed attitude, large roster, and upperclassmen leadership kept me coming back. We had a talented roster and I quickly learned that my ticket to playing time on the field was taking face-offs.

The team traveled frequently for games, which was an experience I didn't have in high school. I didn't realize how important the long weekends were to bonding with teammates and creating team chemistry. These friendships carried throughout the year, the importance of which cannot be understated on a campus as large as UW.

HONORS 221 C: Marine Oil Spills

Robert Pavia taught environmental management and disaster science in his course Marine Oil Spills. One of my favorite parts of this class was the final group activity when we acted out a mock oil spill response on in New Jersey. Volunteers from NOAA helped organize the scenario into teams. I was on the Natural Resource and Damage Assessment team and was in tasked with figuring out how local native tribes would respond. I called the Lenape Tribe and pitched the scenario.They were especially concerned about the Shad population. So I directed our On Water Response Team to take appropriate action to protect the Shad populations in the region.

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Major Exploration

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One of my goals for my first year was to explore major option and make a decision to gear my coursework towards. My vague interest in engineering was confirmed after taking Engineering 101. The class gave me an overview of engineering disciplines at UW. Two guest lectures stood out Dr. Brian Polagye talk on mechanical engineering in marine renewable energy and Ali Dillons talk on materials science in Boeings 787 airplane acoustics. The class also connected me with some new friendships which have stood the test of time.

 

I felt conflicted at the end of year one because I also loved my general chemistry coursework with professor Craig and had enjoyed doing some cell biology research in high school. So the idea of a position in a health related field was still on my mind.

two

year two

2016-2017

From a series of events in high school I was fortunate to have an opportunity to engage with science hands on. Over the summer I interned at Jensen Lab at Seattle Children’s Hospital. The Jensen Lab focuses on immunotherapy, leveraging the body's immune system to fight cancer. I continued my interest in cancer research by conducting experiments in cell culture. We tested the ability to proliferate T-cells from umbilical cord blood.

While I enjoyed my experience at the Jensen Lab I came out of the experience feeling a little confused. I didn’t have a great understanding of the underlying biological processes that I was studying but also didn’t feel the urge to learn them. The Lab coat and goggles style of learning was starting to lose its allure and I felt a little discouraged that my experiments hadn’t been very successful. I felt that a path in the medical realm may not be for me.

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Research

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HONORS 396: Solar Cells from a Materials Science Perspective

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Alexander Uhl’s course Solar Cells From a Material Science Perspective exposed me to the basics of climate change and renewable energy. I learned about the operational principles of solar cells and various manufacturing techniques. Lab visits to the Clean Energy Institute and Washington NanoFabrication Facility on campus strengthened my understanding of  photovoltaics and gave me an idea of what science and engineering looked like in action on campus.

ASUW Bike Shop

I had an interest in bikes when I was younger and after commuting to school by bike during year two I was ready to renew that interest. During spring quarter I started volunteering at the ASUW Bike Shop. The Bike shop is like its own ecosystem where the plants are made of steel and everything is covered in grease. People are always chatting and tinkering with bikes while sharing new music. I felt really at peace and at home in the Bike Shop.

As a volunteer I my first project was a bike build. Eventually, I was spending a few hours in the shop every other day, working on the bike with the help of some other volunteers and current employees. An employee, Jesse Castleberry, and volunteer, Zack Tully, not only helped me on the bike build but also influenced me academically. Both of them were sophomores studying mechanical engineering. They would casually apply what they had learned in dynamics or physics to bikes. Up until this point I had encountered few situations in which my peers would apply classwork to the real world. Our conversations excited me and bolstered my interest in mechanical engineering.

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three

year three

2017-2018

Department Admissions Story

In my mind, a successful college student is one who is running on all cylinders. In other words, someone who is excelling academically, extracurricularly, and socially. This view is a little harsh and narrow and is likely born out of early life experience and growing up in a very privileged community and home. I struggle to hold myself to this metric of success and strive not to judge others by a similar standard. It can also be an obstacle to my daily happiness.

This expectation of myself was thrown into my face during the summer between my sophomore and junior years while applying to the college of engineering. At the time I was captain of the Husky Men’s Club Lacrosse Team, volunteering at the ASUW bike shop, and taking interdisciplinary honors and engineering coursework. I applied to two schools in the college of engineering (COE), mechanical engineering and material science and engineering. I was rejected from both. This was a crushing defeat and made me reevaluate my interests and priorities. It also made me realize that my happiness was closely tied into the version of success that included my admission to a highly competitive major. The month or so while I was reject from COE I had feelings of despair and worthlessness. Like I had wasted my time and missed the boat. If this is how I felt for even a short period of time (someone who has been given nearly every advantage in life) I can’t begin to imagine how those who are less privileged would feel judging themselves in similar situations. This confrontation with my self perception of success didn’t last long though. I appealed both admissions decisions and was admitted to mechanical engineering. It would have been interesting to see how my definition of my own success would have changed if I had been forced to change schools or switch to a noncompetitive major.

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Club Lacrosse

Lacrosse took a front seat during junior year since I was serving as Vice President of the club. At the beginning of the year our team had trouble retaining members. For financial, academic, family, health, and other extenuating reasons we lost nearly half of our players from the 2016-2017 season to the 2017-2018 season. So I lead a fundraising campaign during fall quarter and secured several scholarships for players who need assistance paying team dues. We also held tabling events to recruit new players. Unfortunately, I ended the season with shoulder injury and had to watch as we lost to Oregon in the semi-finals.

I learned that I loved being in a leadership role but had to be contributing on the field to feel satisfied. 

ASUW Bike Shop

After my positive experience volunteering I took a position as a mechanic at the Bike Shop. In addition to normal services, the ASUW Bike shop is also a “teaching” shop. Student faculty, and staff can come in and learn the skills they need to fix their own bikes. Because of this teaching attitude I started to gain bike knowledge rapidly. The environment was fast paced and fueled by free coffee. First I would learn how to do something then quickly I would have to turn around and teach someone what I had just learned. I loved this process and it made coming into the shop easy. Maybe too easy because sometimes I would find myself in the shop before and after my shifts cutting into study time.

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four

year four

2018-2019

HONORS: Study Abroad in Italy

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Honors Italy was an intensive study abroad course taught by Cecilia Strettoi and Ryan Kelly. Our curriculum developed over fourteen days at the UW Rome Center, five days in Venice, and eleven days in Florence. The program was split into classes regarding three areas: science, humanities, and an independent project. The UW Honors Program values cross disciplinary thought so each class drew on knowledge from the other two.

The focus of the program was primarily water and its uses for the environment and society, past and present. Water was introduced as a precious resource that had much power. For example, Rome derived much of its fame from water. Aqueducts were essential in keeping the fountains and baths of Rome running, which lead to the Romans famous hygienics. Prominent families like the Medici touted their power by tapping directly into aqueducts, providing running water to their homes. Wars were won by because Rome had underground aqueducts that could not be destroyed. Water was clearly of major importance in ancient Rome and now since the city is so in touch with its history, water was a way to study Italian history and compare it with modern day.

One of my favorite site visits fell under the science class. We went to the Herambiente cogeneration waste-to-energy plant in Bologna. This power plant takes trash, urban waste, and burns it to boil water and create steam to distribute to district heating network and electricity which is sent to the power grid.

Engineering Peer Educator 

As a freshman, transitioning to college is daunting. The sheer number of people, the course load, and an unfamiliar environment creates a difficult shift in lifestyle. Creating community is an essential piece of any student’s college experience. I was able to find my community in my Engineering 101 and FIG classes. I wanted to help create an environment where students feel comfortable exploring what piques their interests while also developing relationships with their peers. So I took a position as an Engineering Peer Educator (EPE). I found teaching to be an exhilarating experience. I fear public speaking up until I’m actually doing it and then I enjoy it.

As an EPE I lead a discussion section of 18 students connected to Engineering 101. We explored various engineering disciplines and resources at that UW has to offer by participating in group activities and completing assignments. I was inspired by the students in my class. As we explored resources on campus I started to realize how much I still wanted to get out of college.

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Human Powered Submarine/ Novosolov Research Group

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During fall and winter quarters I felt like I needed to get involved with engineering hands on. First I joined the Novosolov Research Group on a project related to electric discharge barrier devices and electrohydrodynamics (wow what a big word). I didn’t get along well with the graduate student I was assigned and didn’t feel very passionate about the project, so I left after fall quarter. At the same time I joined the Manufacturing Team for Human Powered Submarine Club. The manufacturing machine shop had a similar feeling to the bike shop, people listening to music, tinkering, and using tools. But in the machine shop the tools were much bigger and instead of fixing things I was building things. After many hours on practice parts I started to get a feel for manufacturing using manual mills and lathes. I produced my first parts for the team, the pedal box sidewalls for the drive train.

Lacrosse 

New outdoor activities

Winter quarter I took a hefty 18 credit course load of all ME credits. This combined with a still healing shoulder lead to a decision to take a break from lacrosse. This was a really hard decision to make and it was painful to watch the team play and not able to contribute. On the bright side, I had free time to explore some new passions. I took a road trip to Utah with my friends Dan and Mack and lived the dirtbag life for 10 days. With no showers and canned food we drove Macks VW GTI through mud, snow, and sand. Highlights: we climbed on Wall Street in Moab, mountain biked in Saint George, and hiked Angels Landing in zion national park. By the end of the trip felt like I had found some more sustainable physical activities for post graduation life.

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Capstone

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During my final quarter at UW, I’m working on a ME capstone project. We are working with an industry sponsor, Mckinstry, to learn about HVAC building systems in Gowen Hall on Campus. Gowen Hall was chosen because it recently had an update to it’s HVAC system that allows for Mckinstry to monitor the systems sensors, while this data can be monitored in real time, historical data could not be accessed quickly. The project evolved and took on a data science focus. We built an application in R that accessed a MySQL relational database hosted by Amazon Web Services. Using the application we made recommendations on how the building could be run more efficiently.

future

After Graduation

now

Travel in SE Asia

After graduation I’ll be headed to South-East Asia with my roomates Kai, Szymon, Louis, Viggy, and Sean. We will be exploring and relaxing in Singapore, Malaysia, and Vietnam for a couple weeks. Then I will meet up with my girlfriend, Tiara, to continue the trip in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand. I’m excited for the street food in Ho Chi Minh city, the temple of Angkor Wat, beaches of Ko Lipe, and so much more.

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Work

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After Graduation I'll be working at Sedron Technologies as a Design Engineer. I was interested in Sedron because they strive to make environmental sustainability economically favorable. Their technology transforms municipal or agricultural waste into electricity and clean drinking water. I think they use magic or something, I’ll know more soon. I’ll be living in Bellingham, exploring more outdoor activities and maybe finding an outlet to get back into lacrosse.

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