Art has been my first language for as long as I can remember. Before I could spell my name, I was drawing scribbles that somehow carried excitement, frustration, curiosity. One of my earliest memories is a tiny drawing of Lightning McQueen, proudly dated when I was two. After a trip to Disney World, I filled an entire notebook with Mickey Mouse and Simba. My sketchpad went everywhere with me, even to museums, and it slowly became my way of understanding the world.

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                 As I grew older, drawing shifted from copying what I saw to exploring what I felt. Music started influencing my work; sometimes a song’s rhythm would show up as movement in a line or a pose. Some of my favorite pieces came from moments when I stopped thinking and simply let emotion guide the pencil.

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                  Later, I realized that the same instinct to understand connection was pulling me toward engineering, especially ECE. Art and engineering might look different, but to me they start from the same place: noticing something, imagining possibilities, and trying to make an idea useful or meaningful to someone else. The first time I built a sensor for a prosthetic hand, it felt surprisingly similar to drawing a hand reaching out, both were attempts to understand motion and intention.

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               My art influences my engineering, and my engineering sharpens my art. They push me to look closely, empathize, and design with purpose. Whether I’m sketching or coding, I’m trying to create something that responds to people, not just mechanically, but emotionally.

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             Leonardo da Vinci once said, “Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art.” For me, that spirit is simply empathy. It’s what I try to bring into both the studio and the lab, and what I hope to carry into the work I create in the future.