How a curious student became someone building toward research.
Not a résumé — a story. Where the curiosity came from, what bent it toward AI, and the people and habits that keep it honest.
The why
behind the what
Four turns
I liked that code was a place where an idea either worked or didn't — no hand-waving. Computer science gave me a way to take a vague question and make it concrete enough to be wrong, which is the first step to being right.
Statistics is where I learned humility. Adding a data-science focus and a stats minor taught me that the data has a point of view of its own — and that most mistakes happen before any model is trained.
Coursework answers questions someone already solved. Research is the first time I got to sit with a question nobody had — and discovered I'd rather live in that discomfort than out of it. It's the only work that consistently keeps me up in a good way.
Because the leverage is real, and so is the risk of getting it wrong. I'm drawn to the version of AI that makes a doctor, an operator, or an analyst better at their job — not the version that quietly takes the decision away from them. That distinction is the whole point for me.
Building a life and a discipline at the same time.
Coming up through the Rutgers Honors College meant learning the work and learning a new place at once. It taught me to be resourceful, to ask for help early, and to treat being an outsider to a field as an advantage — you notice the assumptions everyone else stopped seeing.
Teaching is how I check my own understanding.
As an Honors College Peer Mentor, I work with students finding their footing the way I once was. Explaining an idea to someone else is the fastest way to find the holes in your own version of it — mentorship makes me a better researcher, not just a kinder one.
How I show up
On a team and on my ownI don't wait to be handed the problem. I find the gap, scope it, and bring back something working — then ask if it's the right thing.
I'm the teammate who writes the doc, unblocks others, and makes the handoff clean. A result no one else can build on is half a result.
As a peer mentor I lead by lowering the barrier for everyone around me — clarity over authority, momentum over noise.
I can take a dense model and explain it to a clinician, a recruiter, or a teammate — and I write so the next person doesn't have to ask.
Beyond academics
What keeps me levelSport taught me that consistency beats intensity, and that you only improve at what you measure honestly — a lesson that travels straight into research.
Training is my reset. Showing up on the days I don't feel like it is the same muscle that gets a hard problem across the finish line.
I collect first sentences. The best papers and the best novels open the same way — they make a promise and then keep it.
Side projects are where I think with my hands. Half of what I know, I learned by building something slightly beyond me.
Toward research that ships — intelligent systems experts actually trust, built in a lab that takes that responsibility seriously.
Building is the goal; the throughline is constant — augment human judgment, stay legible, and earn every claim.