My name is Daniela Rendon and I am a first-generation college graduate. My parents emigrated to the US from Colombia before I was born, in search of better opportunities, though they did not have the opportunity to attend college. My parents never married, and are not a couple, but they each worked hard to support our family and ensure that I would graduate from college. My mom has been a cashier at the Veteran's Affairs Hospital cafeteria for 30+ years now. She also cleans a cardiology office daily as her second job. Growing up, my mom was not able to proofread my English essays, help me with my math homework, or assist me with my science fair experiments, but she did walk me to the library weekly, enroll me in an accelerated math program, and buy me a microscope and telescope that I had been pining for, for my birthday. Before I was old enough to have serious discussions with my mom, she believed women should not play male-dominated sports or do yard work, but should instead focus on household chores or take up cheerleading. This caused a large rift in our relationship, as I had always wanted to play soccer and did not enjoy washing dishes or cooking. The rift became greater as I became more determined to counteract societal gender norms by becoming a female engineer and securing financial freedom. However, I later realized that despite my mom's thoughts on female responsibilities, she counteracted societal norms as hard hard-working female minority. Eventually, I also realized that my mom's apparent sexism was due to remnants of the machismo culture she experienced as a young adult in Colombia. Breaking away from that culture has not been easy for her, and I wanted to show her that an equitable society has more opportunities for women than she could have ever imagined. Thanks to my mom's hard work and sacrifices, I have a bachelor's degree in biomedical engineering and am currently working towards my master's degree in management science and engineering. My career in a male-dominated field has impressed my mom, but I always say her job is harder than mine. She works from 5 AM to 6 PM every day. Despite all these hours, her pay remains very little, especially after she pays for basic services, including healthcare. I often advocate on behalf of my mom at the doctor's, grocery store, and other appointments or errands because otherwise, it is easy to exploit female minorities. Because of my experiences as the daughter of an immigrant, I have provided pro-bono work for Central American non-profits focused on empowering indigenous women and female minorities in the workplace and more broadly in society. I also hope that upon graduation, I will begin work in increasing healthcare affordability and accessibility which will directly impact low-income families and minorities. My mom's hard work ethic has taught me not only to work hard towards my goals but to be empathetic. My experiences as a volunteer at various hospitals, pro-bono work, and part-time jobs have allowed me to connect with individuals from different backgrounds than my own. This has provided me with the perspective necessary for assessing biases that exist in our current healthcare structure and how to address them via the technical skills I have learned as an engineer. However, the most important thing my mom has demonstrated to me, is that sometimes hard work is not the only answer. You also need to be an advocate for marginalized communities to truly help them achieve their goals and create a more equitable society.

My name is Daniela Rendon and I am currently working towards my master's degree in management science and engineering at Stanford University and have a bachelor's degree in biomedical engineering from the George Washington University (GWU). In addition to working towards my degree, I am also a part-time consultant, a student board member at Caraway Health, and a student researcher conducting pediatric endoscopy data analyses at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital (LPCH). Upon graduating, I hope to work for a digital healthcare company to leverage machine learning and data analysis to make healthcare more accessible and affordable for low-income patients. Medical billing processes and treatment alternatives can be analyzed to identify optimal practices for treating disease to reduce the cost of care. Machine learning can also be used to develop unbiased algorithms that expand care to more patients. I realized I was passionate about healthcare as a high school and undergraduate student when I volunteered at my local hospital and Children's National Hospital in Washington, DC. As a volunteer, I had the opportunity to learn more about hospital administration and to connect with physicians and patients by creating holistic treatment plans and providing basic services that would help low-income patients address preventable diseases. At LPCH, I have also helped strategize ways in which necessary pediatric endoscopies could be increased at the hospital by providing more educational support and outreach to minority families. Increasing healthcare affordability and accessibility will be most impactful to low-income and minority patients. This is important to me because my parents emigrated to the US from Colombia and have worked for 30+ years in the service industry since they did not have the opportunity to attend college. My dad is a waiter and my mom is a cashier, both working overtime often or taking up second jobs to help support my education. In the past, my dad did not have health insurance because it reduced his pay to an amount that would not cover all our bills. When he was unexpectedly hospitalized for a cellulitis infection, he incurred an enormous bill our family was not prepared to pay, especially because it occurred the month before the COVID-19 pandemic began and my parents were not able to work because they were not considered essential workers. My parents' hard work encouraged me to also work hard and strive towards empathy. As a high school, undergraduate, and graduate student, I not only volunteered at multiple places, but I also chose to work part-time and support organizations that positively contribute to the scientific community and promote diversity. For instance, I was secretary of the Biomedical Engineering Society at GWU and coordinated events with speakers who were conducting innovative research. I am also the lead of the Deloitte Spanish Language Table Initiative, a program composed of 600+ practitioners, hoping to improve their knowledge of the Spanish language and culture. Rather than pursue a career in the service industry, despite the necessity of these jobs in society, I hope I will make positive healthcare changes that impact low-income families. I will take what I have learned as a female minority from a low-income background, and my parents, in addition to what I have learned as a volunteer, to achieve my goal of making healthcare more accessible. My education and upcoming master's degree have been the first step in accomplishing this goal, an opportunity given to me by my parents' sacrifices. The legacy I would like to leave on my family and this world is one that exemplifies the benefits of hard work and empathy in a more equitable society.

My name is Daniela Rendon and I am currently working towards my master's degree in management science and engineering at Stanford University. In addition to working towards my degree and my part-time work developing and testing web applications as a consultant, I am also conducting pediatric endoscopy research at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital and am a student board member at Caraway, a digital healthcare company that provides mental, physical, and reproductive services to Gen Z. Mental health is important for everyone to be able to achieve the best versions of themselves and succeed in their aspirations. There are many ways individuals cope with stress in their lives, though educational outreach for aiding individuals in determining how to manage their stress and mental health is only recently being promoted across various platforms. Similar to Caraway, digital healthcare companies can leverage technology to support individuals who require mental health care by making it more accessible and affordable. Remote care allows individuals to reach out for help from anywhere at any time, regardless of where they are located and without the need to factor in time off from work or transportation costs. Data analysis and machine learning can be used to find trends in medical billing practices and to optimize physician-patient matchings that can help patients save time, money, and resources when searching for the right physician or clinic. I hope to work for a start-up that leverages technology to make healthcare more accessible and affordable upon graduation, such as at Caraway.

My name is Daniela Rendon, and I am currently working towards my master's degree in management science and engineering at Stanford University and received my bachelor's in biomedical engineering from the George Washington University in 2019. I am also a first-generation college graduate and female minority, given that my parents emigrated to the US from Colombia before I was born, but did not have the opportunity to attend college themselves. Throughout my academic and professional careers, I have devoted much of my time to volunteer work. As a high school student, I worked part-time at my local grocery store and I volunteered at my local library, hospital, and nursing home. I enjoyed volunteering at these three locations because it allowed me to gain an appreciation for healthcare and the service industry. It also allowed me to interact with individuals from a different background than my own. My high school volunteering experiences not only boosted my college application resume, but they inspired me to continue working within healthcare and with children while in college. Once I moved to Washington, DC for college, I began volunteering at DC Reads and Higher Achievement to help children in grades K-9 develop their reading and math skills. I also became a Health Leads Advocate at Children's National Hospital to support physicians in creating holistic treatment plans for patients who lacked access to basic services that could help avoid or treat preventable diseases. I participated in these opportunities in addition to my part-time jobs, internships, and coursework throughout the school year and hoped to continue my service in my professional career. When I began working as a consultant at Deloitte, I also began supporting pro-bono projects focused on empowering minority women. I worked with the Highland Support Project in Guatemala to build a digital dashboard that helped a textile company managed by indigenous women, track its inventory, profits, and staff metrics. I had the opportunity to travel to Guatemala to deliver in-person trainings and connect with the women who worked at the company. It was an incredible experience that allowed me to learn a lot about Central American women and their struggles with machismo culture. This experience encouraged me to continue working with Central American non-profits, such as the Instituto de Formacion Feminina Integral (IFFI) in Bolivia. At IFFI, I worked with organization members to develop a digital marketing strategy that promoted gender equity across Bolivia. As a master's student at Stanford, I am still working part-time. Though it is harder for me to support pro-bono projects and other organizations now, I continue to strive towards giving back to my community. This past year I have been conducting research at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital (LPCH) to increase pediatric endoscopy utilization and assess bottlenecks in their patient flow. I am also currently a student board member for Caraway Health, a digital healthcare company that provides mental, physical, and reproductive services to Gen Z. And finally, I am also supporting an international non-profit with its database management. My experiences as a volunteer have led me to determine that I would like to support low-income individuals and minorities as part of my career. I have always believed that access and affordability to healthcare are important, especially in a country where preventable diseases run rampant. At Children's National and LPCH, I learned that many families can improve their health by simply having access to basic services and by promoting educational outreach. I hope to complete my degree and begin a career in digital health to leverage machine learning and data analysis when delivering affordable and quality care to low-income communities.

My name is Daniela Rendon and I am currently working towards my master's degree in management science and engineering at Stanford University. I received my bachelor's degree in biomedical engineering from the George Washington University in 2019, where I became passionate about designing healthcare solutions after designing a handicap-accessible table for students with disabilities. After graduating, I began working as a consultant at Deloitte to help develop my business acumen in hopes of learning to successfully market and implement these new solutions. At Deloitte, I led the testing efforts for the deployment of new web applications for our federal clients. I also supported several pro-bono projects in creating digital dashboards for international organizations focused on female empowerment and gender equity. I decided to return to school because I wanted to pivot back into healthcare to conduct data analysis and leverage machine learning to increase healthcare accessibility and affordability. Increasing accessibility and affordability became important to me through personal and volunteering experiences. As a student, volunteering was not only a way to boost my resume, but it was also an opportunity for me to learn from and connect with individuals from different backgrounds than my own. When I volunteered at my local hospital in New York and Children's National in Washington, DC, I worked directly with low-income patients to support their physical needs and to connect them with basic services such as nutritionist appointments, childcare, English classes, and others, to address preventable diseases and support their overall well-being. I am currently conducting operations research at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital to increase pediatric endoscopy utilization and have learned that many Hispanic patients cancel their procedures unintentionally because they are not made aware of the necessary preparation steps by their providers or they do not understand them. As the daughter of two immigrant parents, this makes sense to me, given that I often must serve as an interpreter for my parents and find myself needing to advocate for them at medical appointments. Not only have I learned that many people have trouble navigating our convoluted healthcare system, but I also know that it is very expensive and has the potential to bankrupt many families, even if they have insurance. My dad was initially charged $15,000 for an emergency hospitalization and my insurance was charged the same amount for an orthopedic evaluation of my broken leg in an emergency room. Bills can continue to pile up through clinic appointments, follow-ups, imaging, and medication. At Stanford, I have also researched and created medical cost-effectiveness analyses that compare alternative treatments in terms of quality and cost, demonstrating that there are ways we can make treatments more affordable without sacrificing quality. Upon graduating with my master's degree, I hope to work for a start-up that analyzes medical procedure codes and trends in effective treatments for specific diseases or injuries. These trends can help identify the best physicians, treatment protocols, ideal number of appointments and diagnostics needed for effectively treating a patient without wasting unnecessary time and resources for both the patient and the provider. These analyses can help eliminate any inaccuracies in medical pricing and inefficiencies in treatments that lead to wasteful healthcare spending. Machine learning can also be leveraged to achieve this by optimizing algorithms used while considering any gender or ethnic biases. This scholarship will allow me to continue to conduct my research and studies at Stanford, one of the leading institutions of machine learning and medical research, without the added burden of the cost of living in Palo Alto and my existing student loans which recently began accruing interest again. Thank you!

A screw is described as a mechanism that converts rotational motion to linear motion and is considered a classical simple machine. As an engineering student, the simple function of a screw and its motions were hammered into our curriculum to help us understand the many ways it can demonstrate Newtonian forces, thermodynamics, statics, and fluid mechanics. My senior capstone project required my team and me to build linear actuators to support a moving table designed for individuals with disabilities. The cornerstone of the linear actuators and other designs of the table was the screw. But the screw is much more complex and beneficial to humans than just simply building machines or tools. It is also beneficial within the human body. A few months ago, I was in an accident that resulted in an open, comminuted fracture of the tibia and a complete fracture of the fibula. I had never broken a bone before or been to the emergency room, but I was a biomedical engineer and understood that my fracture was very serious. After reviewing my X-rays with the doctors, it was clear that my bones would not heal properly on their own and I would need surgery to place the bones back into their correct position and ensure they would not displace while they were healing. Today, I have two plates and 17 screws and a bone that's healing spectacularly well. Thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people today have plates and screws, rods and screws, or just screws within their bodies that help them heal better than they would have without the screws. While the screw mechanism within the body is different than the one I initially described, its function still holds and carries immense implications. Without the screws, it would have taken many more months for my bones to have started healing and it would have delayed my recovery exponentially. My bones may not have healed correctly and it would have left me with a permanent disability or predisposed to arthritis. You may ask why I did not choose to describe the technology used to allow for these complex surgeries to occur, or even the X-ray machine or an MRI, but the most elegant technology is the one that provides the most benefit with the least complexity.

Growing up, I had a Sunday ritual. I would get together with my cousin to build our Barbie house neighborhood. Our Barbies had a pool, a private jet, and a walk-in closet to keep all their designer clothes. Setting up our neighborhood would take up to 2 hours and then we would play with our Barbies for the rest of the day. Now as an adult, my current apartment does not resemble my Barbie house or neighborhood and I do not have a private jet or walk-in closet, but I am hopeful that one day I will. A lot has changed in terms of what my top priorities for the design of my home would be compared to when I was a child, but I still look forward to designing it myself. What I am most excited about, however, is my office. As a female, and when I was a child, most offices I have seen have belonged to men. When an office room is built in every house, it is easy to assume it will belong to the traditional male of the family, but in my home, there will be two offices if necessary, and one will belong to me. My office will have a large glass desk, a plush neutral-colored rug, and a bookshelf. The bookshelf will hold my favorite books, as well as decorative pieces, awards, and my diplomas. I will have a globe with pins of places I have traveled to, as well as framed photographs of my favorite travels. A large wooden map will cover the wall looking ahead from the desk. Some of my other favorite rooms will be the family and fitness rooms. The family room will be large and have comfortable sofas and chairs for everyone to sink into after a long day at work or school. There will be a large TV for movies and sports and large windows to allow for a lot of natural light in the room. We will also have a 'man/girl' cave with a second kitchen and room decorated for the Packers and the Yankees. I also hope to have a dedicated space for a gym, which will include some weights, a stair master, an elliptical, a treadmill, and a bike. There will be many mirrors and potentially even an ice barrel. Fitness is very important to me and I hope that one day I will live in an area with seasons, so when there is snow or rain, I can avail of the gym. I hope my future home will have a wrap-around porch in which part of it will be screened to be able to read outside during the summer without having to worry about mosquitos. The porch will have a swinging chair for my family to be able to enjoy sunsets, and though less likely, sunrises too. Ideally, our property will sit on a lake and there will be a large yard with a garden, bonfire pit, and space for whiffle ball or flag football. My garden will grow a variety of spices, fruits, and vegetables, and will be so plentiful, that we will can produce for the winter. Overall, I hope my dream house will be a place where my family likes to be and where my children's friends want to come over. I hope it will be comfortable, relaxing, and peaceful, yet exciting and spontaneous. My Barbie dreamhouse will inspire healthy habits, either through fitness or diet, and will demonstrate my family's willingness to be outdoors and experiences as world travelers. Most importantly, it will also represent gender equality.

My name is Daniela Rendon and I am a graduate student at Stanford, a student advisor for Caraway Health, an operations researcher at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital, an intern at Synergos, and a part-time senior consultant at Deloitte. This may seem like a lot, but working on different projects simultaneously has allowed me to expand my technical skillset and to interact with a wide variety of people. While most people worry about me burning out, I know that the pressure of my responsibilities pushes me to be better and to be more efficient with my work. I also know that it will help me achieve my ultimate goal of developing a technology that will make high-quality healthcare more accessible and affordable. Achieving this goal has been surprisingly made easier by my experiences as a female minority. My parents emigrated to the US from Colombia in search of better opportunities and began working in the service industry. At the time my parents emigrated, machismo culture was highly relevant in Colombia and many women were expected to focus on raising their families, rather than pursuing a career. Despite my mom working two jobs and raising me in the US, it was still hard for her to grasp that I wanted to play soccer with my brother, would rather mow the lawn than cook and clean the dishes, or even that I wanted to learn how to drive. As a young adult, I did not understand why my mom felt this way or that she had been raised in an entirely different climate than my own. Because of this disconnect, I grew increasingly anxious and realized that the best way to manage my feelings was to become self-reliant. I began working part-time at a grocery store in high school and took all the AP courses available. I continued this strategy through college, where I juggled two part-time jobs, clubs, volunteering, and an engineering course load, in hopes of increasing my chances of achieving my goals. My determination to succeed encourages me to strive toward excellence in all my projects. Regardless, I have been reminded almost every day of my life, that it is difficult being a female minority. Unlike my peers, I did not know what a 529 account was and had to work jobs throughout high school and college to support my education. I managed my parent's finances and helped my dad find insurance after he was hospitalized for cellulitis and racked up a $15,000 bill he could not afford. I helped support my brother's education and my parent's bills during the pandemic because they were not able to work. Most recently, I have been navigating convoluted immigration lawyer bills to keep a lawyer on retainer because my dad is not a US citizen. Most people would say I am not responsible for my family, but unlike me, my family did not have the opportunity to attend and graduate college or learn how to become financially independent, despite their hard work. The experiences I have had as a female minority have helped me become more resilient and persistent, and have opened my eyes to the difficulties low-income families face regularly. It has encouraged me to volunteer at several non-profits, especially those supporting female minorities, and to make healthcare more affordable, not only for low-income families but for everyone. I became self-reliant to prove to my mom that a woman does not need a man to be successful. Despite the additional energies I expend trying to help my family, and in my projects and work, I am confident I will be successful.

I have been an avid reader throughout my life and have many favorite books. However, if I had to select one book to recommend for everyone to read, or perhaps even put it on a required reading list, it would be "Just Mercy" by Bryan Stevenson. For many people, this book is considered a very heavy read, but life can also be heavy and sometimes we need to try to understand things that we have had the privilege to have never encountered. Stevenson founded the Equal Justice Initiative in Alabama, where he and other attorneys defend those who have been wrongly condemned or cannot afford proper representation. The majority of people he represents are poor convicts facing the death penalty. The book highlights real-life injustices and demonstrates that our current justice system lends itself to racism and prejudice. Unfortunately, many minorities and African Americans are wrongly convicted for crimes they never committed, despite there being evidence of innocence. They are also convicted for crimes that many white people are not convicted or arrested for. Much research and data demonstrate that these prejudices exist, yet, little is being done to address them. Even if lawyers can successfully overturn cases and prove a convict's innocence leading to their release, the damage has already been done in the form of quality-of-life and productivity loss while incarcerated. It is easy to immediately reject or disagree with laws created to address crimes that disproportionately affect people of color, as they may seem to make crimes legal or sentences more lenient, but what defines a serious crime that warrants the death penalty? Regardless of how an individual feels about the death penalty, what if some convicts are being wrongly accused? Should someone deserve to die for a crime they did not commit because the legal system makes it easy for them to be convicted? Just Mercy may inspire lawyers, organizations, and even congressmen to improve the legal system. I think everyone should read Just Mercy, not just because it exposes the flaws in our justice system, but because it also demonstrates empathy. To be empathetic towards individuals who have committed crimes is not easy, but it requires an understanding of different circumstances than our own. Understanding that people come from different experiences helps reduce prejudice and inequality. Equality is important and helps improve society in many ways, such as enriching diversity in society.

My name is Daniela Rendon and I am a first-generation college graduate, senior consultant at Deloitte, student board advisor for Caraway Health, operations researcher at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital, database intern for Synergos, and a graduate student at Stanford. I hope to work for a digital health company that works to make quality healthcare more affordable and accessible by leveraging machine learning and data analysis to reduce costs and identify biases in current technologies. I hope to make a direct impact in the healthcare industry while empowering other female minorities in STEM and supporting my family and friends.

My name is Daniela Rendon and I am a first-generation college graduate. My parents emigrated to the US in 1986 to flee the corruption which plagued Colombia at the time. They were determined to create new opportunities for our family, despite only having employment opportunities in the service industry. Although my parents were not able to attend college, they ensured that I would. My parents worked two jobs while I was in high school, and to supplement their hard work, I took all the available AP courses in my school, began working part-time at our local grocery store, and participated in softball. The hard work paid off and in 2015, I moved to DC to pursue a bachelor's degree in biomedical engineering at the George Washington University. I continued to work part-time jobs throughout college, volunteered, joined clubs, and eventually graduated with honors and awards. Despite my family's hard work, I still incurred student loans that I am actively working to pay off. After graduating with my bachelor's degree, I began working as a consultant at Deloitte to strengthen my technical and leadership skills and business acumen. At Deloitte, I learned to develop and test web applications and worked with international non-profits to create digital tools that promote outreach for gender equity and female empowerment. However, after a few years as a consultant, I decided that I wanted to return to school and am currently pursuing my master's degree in management science and engineering and health modeling at Stanford University. I decided I wanted to return to graduate school because I want to leverage data analysis and machine learning in striving towards increasing access to high-quality and affordable care. Throughout my life, I have wondered why preventable diseases prevail in developed countries and why families have to choose between remaining ill or becoming bankrupt. I learned the answer to these questions through personal experiences and cost-effectiveness and operations research I have conducted at Stanford, Lucile Packard Children's Hospital, and Children's National Hospital. I have worked with low-income families to connect them with basic services that helped them avoid preventable diseases. I have watched a friend pass away due to an aneurysm with effects that could have been mitigated if the ambulance didn't take two hours to drive 20 minutes to his subsidized housing. I watched my dad hallucinate as he spiked a fever due to a spreading cellulitis infection in his leg because he was not a US citizen, did not have health insurance, or the $15,000 he knew a hospitalization would cost. I have writhed in pain with an open fracture for hours because a hospital administrator would not authorize pain medication or emergency surgery without a deposit or proof of insurance. I hope to leverage what I learned from these experiences to design algorithms that reduce biases that exacerbate inequalities in healthcare. I also hope that my future work will help cut medical costs and in turn, divert funds to programs that subsidize care for those who need it the most. I am currently a student health advisor at Caraway Health, hoping to better understand digital health technologies and how to support women's healthcare journeys. I have worked hard my entire life so that I could support myself and my family, and although my hard work has brought me to GW, Deloitte, and Stanford, it has not brought me economic freedom or the peace of mind that comes from access to affordable and quality care. With this scholarship, I could pay part of my remaining student loans, continue to support my family, and enhance my savings. Thank you!

Throughout my professional and academic careers, volunteering has always been important to me and it has influenced my decision to return to school and pivot careers. I am currently working towards my master's in management science and engineering and health policy modeling at Stanford University, though I have an undergraduate degree in biomedical engineering and I have experience working as a senior consultant. I chose to return to school because I wanted to learn to leverage machine learning and data analysis to help increase healthcare affordability and accessibility. I am interested in healthcare because of my experiences as a volunteer within various sectors and communities. In high school, I worked part-time, but I was also a volunteer at our local library, nursing home, and hospital. At the library, I helped design summer reading programs for children and learned to dance and play checkers alongside the many veterans who resided at the nursing home. I supported healthcare administrators within the wound care and maternity centers at Vassar Hospital, which is where I realized that I wanted to work in healthcare. When I moved to Washington, DC to work towards my undergraduate degree, I continued to work part-time and volunteer. I tutored children in grades K-8 in math and reading to help them pass required exams and I became a health leads advocate at Children's National Hospital. As a health leads advocate, I worked with physicians to create holistic treatment plans and to connect low-income families with basic services that helped them manage preventable diseases. At the hospital and schools, I learned that educational outreach often promotes more understanding and better adherence to treatment plans. I also learned that there are many obstacles low-income families face when trying to access healthcare, such as lack of transportation, scheduling flexibility, and payment or prescription understanding. As an engineering student, I knew I wanted to develop tools that would help people. But I also knew that to ensure these tools would make it to the market and directly impact consumers, I would need to become a better leader and understand the business component of medical technologies. Therefore, I became a consultant at Deloitte to develop and deploy web application features for our clients. As a consultant, I was not only able to build my leadership, business, and technical skills, but I also had the opportunity to support international non-profits as pro-bono initiatives in developing their digital tools and marketing strategies to promote female empowerment and equity in Guatemala and Bolivia. Eventually, I realized that I needed to return to school to build upon what I had learned as a volunteer and consultant to become more involved in healthcare. I currently support an international non-profit in maintaining its database, conduct operations research at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital to increase endoscopy utilization, and serve as a student health advisor for Caraway Health, a telemedicine start-up. Through my initiatives at Deloitte, I realized that I enjoyed supporting non-profits and their work in promoting equity and empowering marginalized groups. This enjoyment translates well in medicine, where some groups lack the accessibility to healthcare that others do not. The hospital operations research has helped me develop and apply my data analysis skills to real-world hospital challenges and has allowed me to better understand hospital settings. I also enjoy working with Caraway because of its innovative style in addressing healthcare accessibility for young women. My academic, career, and volunteer opportunities have taught me many valuable insights about people from different socioeconomic statuses, backgrounds, and experiences, that I hope to apply in my work towards making healthcare more accessible and affordable.

My name is Daniela Rendon and I am currently working towards my master's in management science and engineering and health policy modeling. My parents emigrated to the US from Colombia before I was born and did not have the opportunity to attend college. Being a first-generation college graduate was not easy for me, given the complexities that come with growing up in a low-income, multilingual, and multicultural home. My parents worked hard to provide me with all the things they never had, but I knew I would always need to work harder than my peers regardless. In high school, I took many AP classes, worked part-time, and volunteered at our local library, hospital, and nursing home. In college, I worked towards earning my degree in biomedical engineering while balancing multiple clubs, jobs, and volunteer work. After graduating and starting my first job, I also offered pro-bono support to non-profits focused on empowering women minorities outside of my normal work schedule. And now while working towards my master's degree, I conduct operations research at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital to help increase endoscopy utilization and I work part-time as a consultant and within a database management team for an international non-profit. My busy schedule has not only taught me new things and allowed me to become a successful leader, but it has also introduced a lot of stress in my life. I learned to manage my stress in high school, where the weight of school work, and clubs could have impacted my opportunities. Growing up, my diet mainly consisted of beans, rice, steak or 'frijoles con arroz,' and chorizo or chicharron. Needless to say, I was overweight growing up, which impacted my self-esteem and confidence in school. I became afraid that I would develop high blood pressure and cholesterol like most people in my family. Once I started high school, I decided to modify my diet and become a runner. I began eating lean meats, substituting quinoa for rice, replacing soda with fruit and vegetable smoothies, and snacking on carrots instead of chips. Over time, these modifications paid off and I was able to run longer distances and was not at risk for heart disease anymore. I could confidently join clubs and even noticed my ability to complete more daily tasks. I learned to manage chronic constipation that I had developed as a child and was comfortable with my busy schedule. Throughout high school and college, my passion for exercise intensified as I challenged myself to hike to new peaks and run longer distances. Exercise also provided an outlet for me during stressful times, such as midterms, finals, or deadlines. It was a time I made for myself each day where I did not have to focus on school work, clubs, or jobs. Without running, I felt like I could not balance all my responsibilities. Practicing healthy eating habits helped fuel these long runs and hikes, but eventually, I suffered a sacral stress fracture from all my running and the limited protein I was eating. During my recovery, I was not able to run and the best way I could manage my fitness and stress was to focus on my new diet that would support my activities. Eventually, my bones healed and I was back to running and hiking, albeit with a higher protein diet. My overall health in the last 10 years has changed significantly. It has given me confidence, support, and a new and better life for myself. I am confident that my health will support me in becoming successful in my current education, future career, and ongoing fitness goals.

My name is Daniela Rendon and I am currently working towards my master's in management science and engineering and health policy modeling. I am 26 years old and am a first-generation college graduate, given that my parents emigrated to the US from Colombia and did not have the opportunity to attend college. Growing up, my diet consisted of fried steak and rice, and red kidney beans. We also ate avocados and fried plantains with our 'frijoles con arroz,' and sometimes we also had chorizo or chicharron. Needless to say, I was overweight growing up, which impacted my self-image and confidence in school. I became afraid that I would develop high blood pressure and cholesterol like most people in my immediate and extended family. I also developed chronic constipation and had to see a nutritionist. Once I started high school, I decided to modify my diet to include more vegetables and lean meat and started running to become more fit. I began incorporating more water and fiber into my diet, grilling chicken instead of frying steak, substituting quinoa for rice, replacing soda with fruit and vegetable smoothies, and snacking on carrots instead of chips. Over time, these modifications paid off and I became a much healthier version of myself, someone who could more easily participate in athletic activities and was not at risk for heart disease. I was able to go on long hikes, run 5ks and 10ks, and go cycling. I could confidently join athletic teams and clubs and even noticed my ability to complete more tasks in a day. I learned to manage my constipation and began taking more AP classes, and working part-time, all while participating in sports and clubs. Throughout high school and college, my passion for exercise intensified as I challenged myself to hike to new peaks and run longer distances. Exercise also provided an outlet for me during stressful times, such as midterms, finals, or deadlines. It was a time I made for myself each day where I did not have to focus on school work, my clubs, or my jobs. The more stress I was feeling, the more I ran to clear my mind. Without running, I felt like I could not balance all my responsibilities. Practicing healthy eating habits helped fuel these long runs and hikes, but I was not eating enough. As a young adult who had suffered from low self-esteem in terms of body image, I did not realize that I needed to scale my diet to support my new exercise habits. I was eating healthy and avoiding carbohydrates and fats that could potentially clog my arteries, but I was also limiting my energy intake, which was necessary to continue to support my work and exercise. Unfortunately, I developed a sacral stress fracture which my physicians identified as being caused by too much exercise involving stress on my bones and not enough vitamin D or protein in my diet to support these exercises. Throughout my recovery, I was not able to run and therefore not able to manage my stress levels effectively. During this time, the best way I could manage my fitness and stress was to focus on my new diet that would support my activities. Eventually, my bones healed and I was back to running and hiking, albeit with a higher protein diet. My diet in the last 10 years has changed significantly. It has given me confidence, support, and a new and better life for myself. I am confident that my diet will support me in becoming successful in my current education, future career, and ongoing fitness goals.

Throughout my academic and professional careers, I have worked within my community as well as with international organizations to promote learning, healing, and inclusivity. I have enjoyed connecting with individuals from various backgrounds and have learned a lot about myself, in addition to what I learned about different people. In high school, I volunteered at my local library, hospital, and nursing home. I learned to dance and play checkers with veterans at the nursing home and was able to practice my reading and teaching skills at the library. At the hospital, I learned how to conduct administrative tasks and provide comfort and assistance to patients in the wound care and maternity centers. My high school volunteering experiences encouraged me to continue volunteering while in college. I moved to Washington, DC to pursue a degree in biomedical engineering and became a health leads advocate at Children's National Hospital to aid physicians in creating holistic treatment plans for their patients and to connect low-income families with basic services that supported their overall well-being. Interacting with these families and volunteering at the hospital exposed me to the difficulties many people face when trying to access care, as well as how educational outreach and services can mitigate the prevalence of preventable diseases. While in DC, I also volunteered and eventually began working part-time for Higher Achievement and DC Reads. As part of these organizations, I helped children in grades K-8 practice their reading and math skills to help ensure that they would pass their exams. Continuing to work with children throughout college was important to me because I understand the difference the support of an adult and additional help can make in a young student's life. When I graduated from college, I began working as a consultant at Deloitte and had the opportunity to participate in pro-bono initiatives in addition to my normal project work. I worked with the Highland Support Project in Guatemala to develop digital visualization tools for an all-female staff, hoping to promote their textile work internationally. The tool allowed the staff to track their inventory, sales metrics, and staff satisfaction to be able to help boost their overall productivity. I also had the opportunity to develop digital marketing strategies for Instituto de Formacion Femenina Integral to promote gender equity across urban and rural Bolivia. Both projects required me to use my Spanish skills, as I delivered presentations and solutions in Spanish, but to also personally connect with the individual staff who were working to empower women that were raised in a machismo culture. I thoroughly enjoyed working with international non-profits, as well as helping empower women to achieve their goals, but I knew I wanted to return to school in hopes of learning to leverage digital health in making healthcare more accessible and affordable. I am now pursuing a master's degree in management science and engineering and health policy modeling while conducting operations research at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital and working part-time at a non-profit to help maintain their database system. Being a volunteer has helped me develop empathy and understanding toward people from different cultures, backgrounds, and experiences. It has helped me understand more things about myself and what I am passionate about, and it has even made me a better engineer. For instance, when designing healthcare solutions and algorithms, it is important to take into account biases that may impact treatments for patients from different ethnicities, while taking into account normal obstacles they face that may affect their health. I hope to take all I have learned as a volunteer into my future career in healthcare modeling.

My name is Daniela Rendon and I am a first-generation college graduate. Though my parents did not have the ooportunity to attend college, they began working two jobs in the service industry when I began high school, in hopes that I would attend college with minimal debt. To supplement my parent's hard work, I took all the AP courses available in my school, began working part-time at a grocery store, and volunteered at a nursing home and library. After graduating high school, I decided to attend the George Washington University to pursue a bachelor's degree in biomedical engineering. I also continued to work part-time throughout college, volunteered at hospitals and in low-income neighborhoods, joined engineering clubs, and eventually graduated with honors and awards. Despite my family's hard work, I still incurred student loans that I am currently working to pay off. After graduating with my bachelor's, I began working as a consultant at Deloitte to strengthen my technical and leadership skills and business acumen. At Deloitte, I learned to develop and test web applications and worked with international nonprofits to create digital tools that promote outreach for gender equity and female empowerment. However, after a few years as a consultant, I decided that I wanted to return to school and am currently pursuing my master's degree in management science and engineering at Stanford University. I am still working part-time and am conducting research at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital to improve operations within their pediatric endoscopy ward. Throughout my studies, I have reviewed cost-effectivenesses analyses to understand why people need to choose between healthcare or bankruptcy in the US. My ultimate goal is to analyze claims data and leverage machine learning to identify opportunities for reducing costs and supporting access to high-quality and affordable care. Improving healthcare is important to me because without access to care, people can break and lose the opportunity to work hard and achieve their goals. While diamonds are made under pressure, they can also break under pressure. As a student, worker, and researcher, I became a runner to decrease my stress. Once, while in severe pain, I almost did not have my sacral fracture properly addressed because my insurance did not think it was necessary to have an MRI to confirm my physician's diagnosis. Worse, I have also writhed in pain with an open tibial fracture because the nurse had to verify my insurance before administering pain medication. Similarily, I have witnessed my dad avoid the emergency room, despite spiking a fever and hallucinating due to a cellulitis infection in his leg, because he did not have health insurance or the means to pay for his hospitalization bill. I experienced all this while taking exams, completing homework, submitting proposals, and trying to take care of myself and my family. Ensuring that people benefit from robust healthcare systems ensures that they are able to maintain their discipline, integrity, and hopes for a better future through difficult physical and financial times. I work hard not only because my parents work hard, but because of the values they instilled in me as a child. Not everyone has had the opportunities or the familial support I have had, but I hope that a better healthcare system will allow otherwise sick or low-income patients to thrive. Hard work has brought me to GW, Deloitte, and Stanford. Despite our hard work, I nor my family have achieved economic freedom. I would like to pay off my student loans and own a home one day while supporting my family as they grow older, if I am lucky enough to recieve this scholarship.

Taylor Swift's Fearless Tour was my first concert in 7th grade and I was a senior in high school when 1989 was released. While Taylor was performing Blank Space at the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show in 2015, I was making one of the most important decisions of my life. I was deciding where I wanted to go to college and whether it was wise to start a relationship in my last few months of high school. While I was trying to decide where to go to college and trying to make the most of my senior year, I became close friends with a boy, Ryan, who I had shared the same schedule with since freshman year and who also liked Taylor Swift. We often drove to Starbucks or Coldstone together and 1989 quickly became our driving soundtrack. Ryan eventually asked me to prom and we began dating soon after we had each chosen where we would go to college. I chose The George Washington University in Washington, DC over UCLA, because they had offered me a better scholarship and fewer student loans. Ryan chose Northeastern in Boston. We had agreed not to let the fact that we would soon be going our separate ways stand between a fun summer, fueled by long drives listening to 1989. When summer ended, we decided we would give long-distance a chance, not really thinking it would last. At first, it was very difficult and it continued to become more difficult as I moved abroad for a semester and he moved across the country for co-op during a different semester. We had internships in different cities each year and we did not know whether our careers would take us to the same city after graduation. There were many times that we spoke seriously about going our separate ways. But at the end of each day, we would find comfort in one another's messages and calls. Although we weren't physically together most of the time, we were always supporting one another. We promised to never hold one another back. Despite not being physically together most of the time, I slowly checked off all the experiences on my Boston list and Ryan checked off all the experiences on his DC list throughout college. By the end of our senior year, Ryan and I were looking for apartments in downtown DC to move into during the fall after graduation. We would both be starting at Deloitte as analysts that fall and decided that after years of long-distance, we were ready to spend every day together. On Cinco de Mayo, after our AP calculus exam in high school, Ryan and I drove to Coldstone and talked about where we had always wanted to travel to, over a pint of ice cream. Ryan had always wanted to go to Australia to marvel at the Opera House and Sydney Harbour Bridge, while I had always wanted to go diving in the Great Barrier Reef and see the 12 Apostles on the Great Ocean Road. Maybe we would get to go on a long trip after college. Then, in 2019, we were graduating college instead of high school, and we were booking flights for our 6-week road trip from Cairns to the 12 Apostles. We would be driving for 100+ hours and needed a solid playlist. The first song we added was Wildest Dreams by Taylor Swift. It was our favorite song in 2015 and it would pave the way for our 'lover' era that was beyond our Wildest Dreams back when we were high school seniors.

At a young age, my parents instilled in me the value of hard work and have always challenged me to take advantage of the opportunities given to me. My parents emigrated to the US before I was born and both work in the service industry. Although they did not attend college, they always encouraged me to do so. I began working part-time at a grocery store in high school while volunteering at the library and hospital. I also enrolled in all the AP and college courses available to strengthen my college application. Fortunately, I was offered a good scholarship but still needed to take out student loans. As an undergraduate student at the George Washington University, I continued to challenge myself by choosing to major in biomedical engineering, and while taking courses, I volunteered at the Children's Hospital and in local DC schools to tutor children in reading and math. I also worked part-time in the Alumni Office and tutored student-athletes. My parents each began working a second job to help ease the burden of my loans, despite my part-time work. I graduated from GW with awards and a consulting position at Deloitte. When the pandemic hit, I was fortunate enough that my work could be done remotely, but because my dad was a server at a restaurant, he was not able to work. He also developed cellulitis, which became life-threatening and he had to go to the ER. Unfortunately, my dad did not have health insurance and there were many logistical hurdles our family needed to go through. Thankfully, I was in a position where I could help my parents and spend the necessary time with my dad while he was recovering. I knew that this was possible because I had worked hard to earn a position at a great company. While working at Deloitte, I was able to work on technical projects and other initiatives that would impact domestic and international communities, such as having the opportunity to support non-profits focused on empowering women. Despite having the opportunity to deliver impactful work and having access to so many resources at Deloitte, I knew that I wanted to return to school to further challenge myself and achieve greater goals. I began working towards my master's degree in management science and engineering at Stanford University this past fall while continuing to work part-time at Deloitte. Moving to Palo Alto, California was expensive, as I continue to pay off my existing student loans. At Stanford, I hope to adopt the skills necessary to develop innovative technologies that will be able to address healthcare inequality and learn to successfully market and distribute them. This is the opportunity I have always been working towards and I have been fortunate enough to have been given it. Growing up, my parents were always working to help pay for my education and our home. My dad did not take vacations and my mom did not go shopping. As mentioned previously, my dad did not have health insurance. My parents did not plan retirement accounts or even know what a 529 account was when I asked before starting college. The implications of all these financial decisions did not dawn on me until I was an adult but they will live with me forever as I work to ensure that I will have more than my parents. This is the generational wealth I am striving for, one that will not only be passed down to my future family but also to my existing family who helped me get to where I am today.

The summer before I started my junior year of high school, I had not decided what degree I wanted to pursue in college or what my ideal career path would look like. I was working part-time at my local grocery store, volunteering at the library and hospital, and taking all the AP and college courses available to strengthen my college applications. My parents emigrated to the US before I was born and both worked in the service industry and instilled in me a sense of hard work, ambition, and perseverance. They have always pushed me to challenge myself and take advantage of the opportunities given to me. While volunteering at the library, I came across "The Coming Plague" by Laurie Garret, a book detailing diseases that have occurred throughout history and have the potential of turning into epidemics in the future. The book was very thorough in explaining the biology of the diseases, as well as factors that may have triggered their spread. In particular, the book details the spread of Machupo in Bolivia and the heroic efforts of "disease cowboys" who in the process of treating patients and trying to discover what was causing the hemorrhaging fever, trapped rodents, interviewed families, and built makeshift medical devices to aid their research. From then on, I wanted to be a disease cowboy. I entered the George Washington University as a biology major, but soon discovered that I missed math courses and did not want to take the required ecology courses for my program. So I transferred to biomedical engineering and participated in various internships that helped develop my technical, software, and research skills. I volunteered at the Children's Hospital, where I had the opportunity to connect low-income families to basic services that would ideally enhance their overall well-being. I also tutored children in grades K-9 in math and reading throughout the DC area, hoping that they too would be inspired by a book. As a senior, I worked on a year-long project where I was able to design, implement, and test a handicap-accessible table from start to finish. The table was ultimately installed in a few classrooms and I won 1st place for Best Biomedical Engineering Capstone Design Project. However, I eventually realized that designing and building a medical device for a company, needed to successfully pass through layers of bureaucracy before it could be given to society. Even more so, if the device was not sustainable or profitable, it would also not be able to impact society. Therefore, I chose to begin my career in management consulting to gain a better understanding of business development. I had not forgotten my dream to one day become a disease cowboy and so I have recently returned to school and am working towards my master's degree in management science and engineering, with a concentration in health systems modeling, at Stanford University. I chose to return to school because I wanted to continue enhancing my skills in healthcare technology, in hopes of pursuing a career that will allow me to provide access to healthcare to low-income families. Throughout my years as a volunteer, and as a low-income minority myself, I grew empathetic towards individuals that did not have the most reliable access to care that would help them avoid preventable diseases. As an engineer, it seemed obvious to me that technology could be leveraged to address this problem, among others. While this is not the same type of "disease cowboy" career I had originally imagined for myself, it is the one I am choosing to pursue in efforts of addressing healthcare inequality.

My name is Daniela Rendon and I am a first-generation college graduate. My parents emigrated from Colombia to the US in 1986 and settled in New York. Though my parents did not have the opportunity to attend college, they ensured that my brother and I would. Because my parents both work in the service industry, I knew I needed to work hard to be able to afford college. Before I turned 16 and began working as a clerk in our local grocery store, I helped my mom with her second job cleaning offices. In high school, I also enrolled myself in several AP and college courses that would help me strengthen my college applications. I was fortunate that the George Washington University offered me a generous scholarship, but I still had loans. My mom kept her second job and my dad got a second job to help relieve the burden of student loans, but I chose to continue working part-time throughout my undergraduate studies. As a biomedical engineering student, I took an average of 18 units per semester across various fields such as human physiology, thermodynamics, digital signal processing, and others. Despite my rigorous coursework, I chose to tutor children and student-athletes and worked part-time at the GW Alumni Office. It was a stressful few years, but I persevered, and happily posed for photos with my family, a diploma, and awards in front of the Washington Monument at graduation. When I decided to return to school for my master's degree, I thought it would be easier and more familiar compared to when I started my undergraduate degree. I assumed I could continue my professional career part-time while working towards my master's in management science and engineering at Stanford University, and that it would be busy, but nothing I could not persevere through. However, before I started, my dad was placed in removal proceedings because he does not have permanent residency. Saying that this was heartbreaking for my family and I is an understatement, and for some time I debated postponing moving to California to help my parents navigate attorneys and their fees. Ultimately, I knew that postponing my master's degree would only continue to contribute to the cycle many low-income and immigrant families find themselves in, and struggle to exit. Fortunately, I was able to find an immigration attorney for my parents as we continue to persevere through this. Most recently; however, after learning how to balance my coursework and career, as well as research at the children's hospital, I broke my leg and have had to learn how to continue with my daily activities without bearing any weight on my leg. This has proved to be extremely difficult, especially since I used to run every day to help relieve stress. I have had to find extra time each weekday to plan my mobility throughout the day and have also had to accept extra time each day that I cannot spend exercising or traveling. While this has proved to be very hard for me right now, I know that I will persevere as I have before. My family and I have strived to achieve the American dream though we have always known that achieving this dream would entail hard work. We have always dreamt of what the success of our hard work will look like in the future, and have known that to achieve the greatest success, we will need to be patient and take advantage of all the opportunities given to us while facing our obstacles with the tenacity and the determination we have learned along the way.

My name is Daniela Rendon and I am a first-generation college graduate. My parents emigrated to the US before I was born and they did not have the opportunity to attend college, though they would ensure that my brother and I would. They have been working in the service industry since they arrived in the US, and they have always hoped that my brother and I would achieve more. Following my high school graduation, I decided to attend the George Washington University because they had a rigorous engineering and life sciences program and because they offered me a more generous scholarship than my top choice, UCLA. Despite the generous scholarship, I still had some loans and my parents worked two jobs to help support those loans. And although GW was not my top choice, it offered me plenty of opportunities to grow intellectually and personally. GW offered an interdisciplinary biomedical engineering program across various engineering, biology, and software development fields. These courses helped me succeed in data science, research, and even consulting management internships as an undergraduate student. GW was also located in Washington, DC, a diverse city that introduced me to people from different backgrounds, cultures, and experiences. Before attending college, I knew I wanted to be successful in all my endeavors and make my parents proud. I wanted their sacrifices to be worth something more than they could have imagined and I wanted to embody the American dream. My parents and I have always known that the American dream is to have the opportunity to work, so I worked hard. I worked part-time jobs in high school and college, and I held multiple volunteer positions. I hoped that my job and volunteering experiences would provide me with respect and discipline for different roles, people, and skill sets, as I worked towards finding my ideal career. As an undergraduate student, I realized that success was not just what I could achieve financially, but also how I could make a lasting impact on communities and the lives of those around me, not just my parents. I knew I wanted to address the negative impacts of healthcare inequality on low-income communities, and I wanted to leverage technology to do so. However, I lacked experience in business development which would be crucial to ensuring that innovative technologies would be sustainable and attractive to investors who could make these potential solutions in healthcare a reality. Rather than going directly to graduate school and incurring more debt, I decided to accept a full-time offer from Deloitte to work in management consulting. Deloitte has allowed me to better understand business development while improving my client-relationship skills. It has also allowed me to participate in pro bono opportunities that support female empowerment internationally. However, I have also realized that networking within specific firms and locations can be self-limiting and I eventually decided that it was time for me to apply to graduate school. My parents worked very hard to ensure that my brother and I would attend and graduate college, but they did not imagine that either of us would continue to pursue a master's degree, especially once we began working full-time. I always knew I would return to school and as a master's student in the management science and engineering program at Stanford University, I hope to continue working towards my goal of developing viable technologies that will increase access to healthcare. Along the way, I hope to inspire other female minorities in STEM and demonstrate that anything is possible, especially if you work hard and take advantage of opportunities.

My name is Daniela Rendon and I am currently working towards my master's in management science and engineering at Stanford University. While working towards my master's degree, I am also working part-time as a consultant at Deloitte and conducting research at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital in Palo Alto to help increase the volume of pediatric endoscopies. Before beginning my master's degree, I was working full-time at Deloitte to develop web applications and features for our clients. I participated in pro bono projects that supported international non-profits focused on increasing female empowerment in Guatemala and achieving an equitable society in Bolivia, by implementing tools that would help expand outreach and track the progress of businesses consisting of an all-female, indigenous staff. I began working at Deloitte after graduating from the George Washington University in May 2019 with a bachelor's degree in biomedical engineering and a minor in mechanical engineering. I graduated with honors and won 1st place for my Senior Capstone Design Project, for developing a handicap-accessible table that would be implemented throughout campus. At the time of my graduation, I was also secretary of the Biomedical Engineering Society and had completed countless hours of volunteer service in the greater DC area by tutoring kids in grades K-9 and student-athletes. I also worked part-time for the alumni office as an administrative assistant throughout the academic year. Before graduating, I participated in internships that allowed me to develop different skills and work with people from various technical backgrounds. My first internship was working for a data science company that introduced me to high-performance computing and how it benefits research institutions. My next internship was working for the National Science Foundation as an REU student at the North Carolina State University where I had the opportunity to develop microfluidic devices and research the effects of shear stress on these devices. This research helped me understand how these devices could be modified to work successfully as organ-on-chip devices within human bodies. Finally, I had the opportunity to intern at Deloitte before my senior year. I ultimately chose to begin my career at Deloitte because although I have always been interested in medical technologies, I knew that I also needed to understand business development. While I have had extensive experience in engineering, I did not have much insight into how businesses operated and succeeded. I could not imagine building an effective piece of technology that would never be utilized because it is not financially sustainable or marketed correctly. Therefore, I would continue to expand my skill set in management and then work towards a degree in a related field that would still allow me to practice engineering. I hope to make a lasting impact on the world, one that will make healthcare more accessible for low-income individuals. Healthcare technology is becoming more popular in the post-pandemic era and is demonstrating new ways of connecting patients to clinicians. This is important because it can help address systematic issues that prevent low-income individuals from achieving the same health status as their more affluent counterparts. This is what interests me most about STEAM, is how it can be leveraged to address healthcare inequality and even the widening gap in socioeconomic status. As I work towards my educational and career goals, I hope to one day be an example to other women, especially minority women like myself, in demonstrating that through hard work and ambition, anything is possible. One day, I hope to develop innovative technologies or to even become a CEO of a company that has helped society progress during an era where technology has helped decrease inequality.

My name is Daniela Rendon and I was born and raised in Beacon, NY. Beacon is located in the Hudson Valley and is a popular autumn destination for tourists and people living in New York City. The Hudson Valley is home to many popular hiking trails and the Catskills, and is also somewhat close to the Gunks, a popular climbing spot in NY. Growing up in Beacon, I realized I was really lucky to have access to nature and outdoor activities. I hiked every weekend the weather was nice and some weekdays after school to watch the sunset. I learned to kayak on the Hudson River and found myself hoping to conquer new mountains and activities. This desire for more adventure was further reinforced by the fact that my schedule was becoming busier with work and school. I moved to Washington, DC to work towards my undergraduate degree in Biomedical Engineering at The George Washington University and began working two part-time jobs to help supplement my scholarships and debt in paying off my tuition. I was also volunteering at Children's National Hospital and tutoring children across the DMV area while managing my course load. Although I was very busy, I always made time for my well-being. I have always known that for me to be most productive, I need to be the best version of myself. The best way for me to decompress or reduce my anxiety has always been to get away from my computer and go outside. Although there were not many mountains nearby in DC, I would go on long runs along the National Mall and began climbing in Maryland. Climbing required physical and mental stamina, and I was hooked. I hoped to avail myself of more climbing trips outside of the city once I graduated, but then the pandemic hit and I left DC. Once gyms started opening again, I began frequenting climbing gyms in Beacon, Seattle, and now recently Oakland. I moved to Palo Alto, California this past autumn to begin working towards my master's degree in Management Science and Engineering at Stanford University. Moving to California has been a refreshing change for me, exposing me to different landscapes, environments, and new mountains than I've always been used to. It has also led me to purchase a membership at Pacific Pipes, the largest climbing gym in the US. Having access to gyms, classes, National Parks, and even the coastline has given me the necessary strength to work towards my master's degree full-time while working my professional job part-time. I enjoy, and even thrive, on a busy schedule because I am always being challenged in ways that strengthen me mentally and physically. I believe this is why I enjoy mountaineering and climbing, as well as rigorous courses because these are things that test your mind, body, and soul every day you partake in them. There is always something to work towards and something new to learn in the world of engineering and mountaineering, and I love that. I love the feeling of solving a problem that has taken you days and the feeling of summiting a new 14er that you have been dreaming of for years. I am extremely lucky to have the opportunity to study, work, and exercise in working towards my goals of becoming a CEO within healthcare technology one day and achieving a work-life balance while doing so. This scholarship will help me achieve my goals and help alleviate the financial stress of the high cost of living in California and working towards a master's degree, while pursuing other passions.

My name is Daniela Rendon and I am currently working toward my Master's in Management Science and Engineering at Stanford University. I graduated from The George Washington University with a Bachelor's degree in Biomedical Engineering in 2019 and began working as a consultant at Deloitte soon after. I decided to apply for an advanced degree program because I wanted to gain more experience in healthcare operations and telemedicine. When I was working on a hook sentence for my statement of purpose, I decided to reference my favorite book, The Coming Plague by Laurie Garrett. The Coming Plague was originally published in 1994, but still provides relevant insight into the spread of infectious diseases and epidemics. It created links between disease and socioeconomic relationships, such as the spread of the Machupo virus in a remote Bolivian village, which propagated from civil war and the introduction of insecticides. The civil war depleted the village of its main source of income, cows, and therefore forced them to turn to crops. To allow for crops to flourish in the region, insecticides were introduced, poisoning the local cats. Due to an abundance of crops and no cats, rats grew rampantly throughout the village and in homes. Villagers often swept their homes every morning while families ate breakfast, leading to rat feces particles being swept up into the air and breakfasts being eaten, causing the virus in humans and contributing to many deaths. When I read this book in high school, I was surprised to learn about this disease's emergence pathway and how other diseases may have similarly emerged. The book also inspired me to major in biomedical engineering because I have always been interested in innovative technologies and how they can be applied to improve healthcare. The researchers who discovered Machupo were able to apply their engineering background to building devices that allowed them to study the virus in the field. I hoped to gain the intuition and skills necessary to accomplish something similar one day. I read the book a second and third time during college and quarantine for COVID-19, finding new insights each time. Each chapter discussed a new disease outbreak, occurring in remote parts of the world or ones that spanned major cities and countries. These outbreaks, such as Ebola, were re-occurring, and other diseases such as HIV, seemed to be here to stay. The idea that antibiotics and research advancements were going to eradicate diseases was still very popular in 1994, but Garrett clarified that due to all these random outbreaks and difficulties in eradicating malaria and polio, diseases were evolving and it was becoming more difficult to conquer them. As we know today, Garrett's points have proved to be true while we continue to struggle with antibiotic-resistant bacteria and as cases of polio and malaria persist. This is not all due to disease-specific properties, but also due to socioeconomic factors and natural human behavior as Garrett also points out throughout the book. The Coming Plague transformed the way I thought about diseases and it continues to transform the role I see myself in, moving forward. My experience with biomedical engineering and engagements with hospitals thus far has prepared me to work within various healthcare settings, and my current work as an MS&E student will hopefully prepare me to leverage new technologies for improving access to healthcare. This is important in a world where new and old diseases continue to emerge, yet we continue to see health disparities due to socioeconomic status and technological inefficiencies that will allow these diseases to flourish amongst our most vulnerable populations.

My name is Daniela Rendon and I am currently a graduate student at Stanford University, working towards a master's in Management Science and Engineering. I graduated from the George Washington University (GWU) with a bachelor's degree in biomedical engineering in 2019 and began working as a consultant at Deloitte in Washington, DC. Throughout my undergraduate, professional, and now graduate career, I have volunteered in various facilities that have provided me with the opportunity to learn about different cultures, meet people from different backgrounds, and develop a broader skillset aimed at working towards a more equitable society. In high school, I volunteered at my local hospital, library, and nursing home. I worked in the wound care and maternity centers at Vassar Hospital in Poughkeepsie and had the opportunity to shadow pathologists in conducting autopsies. At the library, I helped coordinate summer activities for children in my town and at the nursing home I developed many personal relationships with the residents that I visited twice a week. I enjoyed working with children and getting to know different people, and so I decided to volunteer at Children's National Hospital, DC Reads, and Higher Achievement in Washington, DC as an undergraduate student. At Children's National, I worked with physicians and the Health Leads Program to connect low-income families with basic services that could help improve their overall well-being. As a Health Leads Advocate, I learned important information about health disparities and the connection between socioeconomic status and health outcomes. While at GWU, I also participated in the DC Reads and Higher Achievement programs to tutor children in grades K-8 to help them prepare for higher-level reading and math courses. Once I began working as a consultant for Deloitte, I took advantage of the pro bono opportunities that the firm encouraged its employees to participate in. As a Deloitte 2 International Fellow (D2i), I supported the Highland Support Project, a Guatemalan non-profit supporting businesses owned by an all-female indigenous staff, in implementing a digital dashboard that could help these businesses track their staff metrics, financials, and inventories. I traveled to Guatemala to help implement the dashboard and deliver training sessions in Spanish to the staff. This allowed me to personally connect with many of the staff I was initially working virtually with and who I am now friends with. I decided to continue my work with D2i and began supporting the Instituto Feminina de Formacion Integral (IFFI) non-profit in Bolivia. IFFI works towards achieving an equitable society in Bolivia through educational outreach. My team and I helped IFFI develop a digital marketing campaign to help expand their outreach from cities to rural towns in Bolivia. We worked with IFFI remotely and delivered training sessions via zoom during the pandemic, and helped IFFI create social media campaigns targeting both women and men across Central America. These experiences, as well as my education, have inspired me to work towards a more equitable society within healthcare. Healthcare is becoming increasingly harder to access, especially for families in low-income neighborhoods, despite having Medicaid or some other forms of insurance. This has led to large healthcare disparities across the US and has contributed to the increase of chronic and preventable diseases in society. I believe that a potential solution to increasing access to healthcare is through leveraging technology and educational outreach through digital media campaigns. My experiences with IFFI, Children's National, and Vassar Hospital have led me to start conducting operations research for Lucile Packard's Children's Hospital at Stanford, in hopes of increasing my knowledge of healthcare operations management and one day implementing a telehealth device accessed by millions.

As a first-generation college graduate, I worked very hard in high school to qualify for scholarships and entry into top college programs. My parents emigrated from Colombia when they were young adults. They did not attend college in either Colombia or the United States, but they were adamant that my brother and I would. In high school, I was one of two students to take all the AP courses offered. I also took AP exams without having taken the course because I was not able to fit the class into my schedule. I volunteered at a hospital, nursing home, and library, and decided to work part-time as a cashier at my local grocery store. I was determined to attend college with little to no debt. I chose to attend the George Washington University (GWU) because they offered me a good scholarship; however, I would still need to take out loans. GWU offered me loans as part of my financial aid package, making it initially unclear to me that they were loans because my family and I lacked the financial literacy required to review these packages. I wish this had been clear to my family and me from the start because this may have affected my college choice. Regardless, I was very happy at GWU as a biomedical engineering student. I had the opportunity to volunteer at Children's National Hospital in DC, conduct biomedical research for the National Science Foundation as an REU participant, intern at a data science company, and work for federal clients as an analyst at Deloitte. As a student at GWU, I also worked part-time in the Alumni Office and as a student-athlete tutor. This helped supplement my living expenses and other bills while living in Washington, DC. My parents also worked full-time and overtime in the service industry. My mom and dad both got a second job to help support my and my brother's college tuition, in addition to their existing bills. Despite my scholarship, savings from working in high school and college, and my parent's support, I was still in debt. When I graduated from GWU, I began working as a consultant at Deloitte and chose to defer my loan payments during the pandemic to help support my family and my brother's college tuition while my parents were required to quarantine. This past September, I started working towards my Master's in Management Science and Engineering at Stanford University in hopes of pivoting my career into healthcare. I recently moved to Palo Alto, California, one of the most expensive cities in the world. Although I am working towards my Master's full-time, I am also working part-time to help address my existing bills and loans. I will continue to work part-time as a student and will hopefully transition back to full-time once I graduate, in hopes of paying off my existing student loan debt, helping my family with their bills, and one day becoming a homeowner. This is becoming increasingly harder to achieve for young adults because of the interest accrued on student loans, mortgage rates, and the high costs of living in New York and California. Though I am confident I will be able to find full-time work once I graduate, my bills will still be high and continue to get higher. I have thought about getting a second part-time job, but I do not have the time to work more hours. In the meantime, I will use the pay from my existing job to continue paying bills and loans. Thank you for taking the time to review my application and considering me for this award.

My name is Daniela Rendon and I am currently working toward my Master's in Management Science and Engineering at Stanford University. I graduated with a B.S. in Biomedical Engineering from the George Washington University (GWU) in 2019, and for the last 3 years, I have been working as a consultant at Deloitte. I decided to apply to a master's program because I wanted to challenge myself and take my first step toward pivoting to a new career. At Children's National Hospital, I was a Health Leads Advocate working to help connect families with basic services that could impact their overall well-being. As a biomedical engineering student, I designed, tested, and implemented a handicap-accessible table, winning the Senior Design Capstone Award at GWU. I was also the secretary of the biomedical engineering society at GWU for two years. I volunteered across various low-income neighborhood schools to tutor children in grades K-9 in mathematics and reading, to help prepare them for higher education. In addition to my volunteering work at GWU, I also tutored student-athletes and worked at the Alumni Office to help manage their events and networks. As an undergraduate student, I also participated in many internships. I was an engineering intern at Data in Science Technologies, where I was able to help implement a ticketing system at Einstein Medical College to help researchers address technology defects promptly. I participated in an REU Program at North Carolina State University to help develop microfluidic manifolds that resemble human microvessels and to test the effects of shear stress on cellular flow. I also interned at Deloitte, where I was able to meet with federal clients daily and directly submit deliverables to them. I enjoyed consulting because I felt that it exposed me to a variety of skills that I would have not developed otherwise, such as business management and client interactions. Consulting management also provides the flexibility to partake in various projects, which allows you to adopt new tools based on market demand and offerings. At Deloitte, I have supported clients in developing, testing, and deploying new web application features that impact users daily. I am currently a cross-functional team lead and have onboarded 40+ new team members in the last 3 years. I am also responsible for several client deliverables and continue to define and set requirements for new products every week. While at Deloitte, I have also had the opportunity to participate in many pro bono projects, notably non-profits that work to empower women in Guatemala and Bolivia. As part of the Highland Support Project, my team and I developed a digital dashboard to help track staff metrics, inventories, and sales for an all-female indigenous staff. For IFFI, a non-profit looking to create an equitable society across Bolivia for women, we developed a digital marketing framework that would be leveraged to help expand outreach to rural areas. The work I have done so far at Deloitte has given me the experience necessary to lead large teams and deliver high-quality work in fast-paced environments. It has also increased my exposure to innovative tools and processes that help support solutions to complex technological challenges. Volunteering has also allowed me to connect with individuals across different backgrounds and to better understand socioeconomic statuses and their effects on society. I hope to learn more about healthcare operations research while at Stanford, and pivot to a career in digital healthcare in hopes of achieving a more equitable society and expanding access to healthcare. This is no small task, but I believe my experiences as a biomedical engineer and consultant will help me significantly moving forward.

As a first-generation college graduate, I have worked very hard to take advantage of the opportunities given to me. My parents emigrated to the US from Colombia in 1986 and did not go to college, but worked very hard to ensure that my brother and I would have that opportunity, despite not going through the college application process themselves or investing in 529 accounts. They each worked two jobs and in high school, I worked at a local grocery store. As an undergraduate student at the George Washington University (GWU), I also worked in the alumni and athletic offices to supplement their support. Once I graduated high school, I moved to Washington, DC to work on my bachelor's in biomedical engineering at GWU. As I mentioned above, I worked at the alumni office and in the athletics department to tutor student-athletes. I also traveled to low-income neighborhoods to tutor children in grades K-9 in math and reading. At Children's National Hospital, I was a Health Leads advocate and supported physicians in their recommendations for connecting low-income families to basic services that helped improve their overall well-being and health outcomes. My various jobs and volunteer experiences helped connect me with people from different backgrounds and socioeconomic statuses, leading me to want to pursue a career that would positively impact children and low-income families. When I graduated from GWU in 2019, I began working as a consultant at Deloitte. At Deloitte, I had the opportunity to work pro bono for multiple international non-profits to empower female minorities and their work in expanding outreach and becoming self-independent. My current project focuses on testing and delivering applications for our clients, which has helped to strengthen my existing technical knowledge in databases, web UI, back and front-end development, etc. To further expand upon this knowledge and experiences, I chose to return to school for a master's degree in management science and engineering with a concentration in health systems modeling. I decided to return to school because I wanted more experience in healthcare operations. My ultimate goal is to improve healthcare systems and expand access to low-income families by leveraging new digital capabilities, such as telehealth. The disparity in access to care is common in both developing and developed countries. I am passionate about technology and believe everyone has the right to healthcare. I hope to shift my career in this direction upon my graduation from Stanford in 2024. Similarly to good healthcare, a good education comes at a high cost. Despite having been working since I was 15 and scholarships, I am still in debt and will continue to add to my debt as a graduate student living in Palo Alto, California. I was hoping the Biden administration would help alleviate some of this debt, but SCOTUS may make that impossible. This is unfortunate news to me because even without student loan debt, it is still hard to keep up with rent, groceries, transportation, medical, dental, and vision care, and supporting my family as they get older in a similar way as how they supported me throughout the years. One day I want to own a home that I was able to finance myself or with the support of my partner. I have always promised my parents a home, but this is seeming less likely if I can't purchase my own home first. If I am considered for this scholarship, it will help pay off my college debt and support me in saving towards a down payment.

My name is Daniela Rendon and I am currently working towards my master's degree in management science and engineering at Stanford University. I was born and raised in Beacon, NY by immigrant parents who have always instilled in me the value of hard work and discipline, and encouraged me to seize any opportunity given to me. They also taught me to be empathetic towards others and their situations, prompting me to participate in many volunteering opportunities as a young adult. I have had the opportunity to work with children, hospital physicians, librarians, student-athletes, and the elderly. In high school and as an undergraduate student, I volunteered at my local library to coordinate after-school events for young children and tutored children in grades K-9 in low-income neighborhoods to help prepare them for higher-level math and reading courses. I also volunteered at Children's National Hospital in DC to connect low-income families with basic resources that could positively impact their well-being and overall health. As a young adult, I also volunteered at a nursing home and frequently spent time at the Veteran's Affairs Hospital in Wappinger Falls, NY where my mom worked. These experiences have helped me develop a strong sense of community and respect for individuals who come from different backgrounds. My experiences with a wide variety of individuals and working within various hospital settings, as well as my education in biomedical engineering, have inspired me to pursue a career in healthcare technology. I would like to help hospitals and physician offices adopt new digital capabilities that enhance the delivery of care and expand medical outreach to those in low-income neighborhoods. This is important to me because access to healthcare varies across levels of income and geographic regions. It is easier and quicker to access healthcare within affluent neighborhoods, compared to their less affluent counterparts. Healthcare is very expensive, and even with Medicaid or Medicare, it may still be costly for individuals to take time off from their jobs or busy days to visit a physician, which sometimes requires multiple visits, and then pay for medication. While many of the issues in healthcare are deeply rooted in the system itself and may require legislative solutions to overcome, technology can begin to ease some of these issues by providing more access and allowing for broader outreach. Physicians and medical staff can leverage technology through telehealth, gaining access to instantaneous medical records through a more integrated database or electronic record system (EMR), and removing any redundancies found in data. Many start-ups focusing on telehealth and improving EMRs are working towards addressing any gaps in gaining and communicating healthcare data, and I hope to one day be a part of these companies to help strengthen their work and make an impact on individuals' lives. I hope to do this through the completion of my master's degree and research at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital in Palo Alto. I graduated with a bachelor's in biomedical engineering from The George Washington University in 2019 and have been working as a consultant at Deloitte since then, which has helped strengthen my skills in software testing and delivery management. I hope my current program will help me strengthen my understanding of operations research and how to apply different dynamic modeling systems to healthcare solutions. I am applying for this scholarship because I still have loans to pay off from my undergraduate degree and am currently living in Palo Alto, one of the most expensive cities in the country. This scholarship can help me focus on my career goals, school work, and research, among other ongoing things in my life.

Over a decade ago, “The Coming Plague” by Laurie Garrett piqued my interest in diseases and public health. The book, as well as personal experiences, introduced me to the idea that the outbreak of disease can be exacerbated by external factors such as environmental conditions, inadequate infrastructure, poverty, and many others that reflect inequality in our communities. As a minority coming from a low-income background, and someone who volunteered in a hospital to connect families to basic services, I understand how health can be impacted by external factors. Not having access to health insurance, living in a food desert, or being able to afford nutritious groceries are some of these factors. When I received my undergraduate degree in biomedical engineering, I hoped to build medical devices that would help bridge the gap between technical solutions and healthcare. Working as a consultant at Deloitte within our medical technology sector, I realized that technical tools do not solve the root causes of most diseases and therefore a broader understanding of healthcare is required to treat preventable diseases. I wanted to gain more experience in health systems modeling to learn how to identify constraints and factors that directly impact preventable diseases, before designing a solution. Therefore, I am working towards a master's in engineering management and health systems modeling at Stanford. I hope to work closely with other students, professors, and medical institutions to design accurate models and apply them to local communities before implementing them widespread. I believe to be successful in health systems modeling and improving healthcare in low-income communities, I will need to be a part of a multidisciplinary and diverse team. While this specifically refers to teams that are composed of individuals with different roles and practices, it also refers to individuals that come from different backgrounds and experiences. Diverse groups of individuals positively contribute to teams working on complex challenges by providing different points of views and hindsight. They allow teams to tackle challenges from different angles and poke holes into designs to reveal weak solutions. This is especially true in healthcare. It is considered that healthcare workers are compassionate and empathetic, and even physicians take an oath to treat all patients equally and to the best of their ability, regardless of the patient's background. This is true and most healthcare professionals are. But how do we know what the best course of treatment is for a patient based on his or her's symptoms and history? In order to prescribe a treatment plan that not only addresses a patient's current symptoms, but also the root cause of disease, healthcare professionals should understand the external factors that may have led to a patient's symptoms. More often than not, identifying external factors shows that diseases are preventable and can be avoided altogether. People from different backgrounds understand this because some are wealthy and understand diseases that mainly target wealthy communities and others are from low-income communities that understand how a lack of resources can affect well-being. Some individuals are minorities and understand diseases that predominately affect minorities and others are from different geographic locations that understand how their environment impacts their health. Others are women that are more knowledgable regarding specific gender illnesses. When these diverse individuals work together, they can teach one another to look for variables and factors that they would not have otherwise known or understood had they not interacted with colleagues that come from different backgrounds. Overall, this can improve how we develop our treatment plans and reduce the prevalence of disease. That is why I believe diversity in the workplace, especially in healthcare, is important.

Over a decade ago, "The Coming Plague" by Laurie Garrett piqued my interest in diseases and public health. The book, as well as personal experiences, helped me understand that the outbreak of diseases can be exacerbated by external factors such as inadequate infrastructure, economic instability, poverty, and many others that reflect inequality in our communities and healthcare. As a first-generation college graduate and the daughter of immigrant parents that often worked long hours or two jobs to support my educational costs, I am personally aware of the disadvantages that plague minority communities and bar them from achieving economic stability and higher education in comparison to their more affluent and white counterparts. For instance, most minorities do not have access to free English tutors, SAT tutors, or early action college applications, that can enable them or their children to attend college. These disadvantages are also reflected in healthcare, where economic instability often has a direct impact on an individual's well-being and may lead to chronic illnesses. When I was in grades K-12, my parents could not proof-read my college essays, read to me in English, drive me to soccer practice, or advise me on applications and how to prepare for college because of their language barrier and work schedules, and they lacked the experience that comes with being a past college student. Despite these disadvantages, my upbringing provided me with its own, unique advantages. Being raised by immigrant parents instilled in me a sense of admiration for hard-work, discipline, and integrity. My upbringing taught me to be empathetic and exposed me to different people, cultures, and ideologies. My parents worked hard to ensure that I would not fall behind and that I would attend and graduate from college. Although I believe I was at a disadvantage to some degree in comparison to my white peers, I also believe I was very lucky to have had the experiences I did. Although my parents were very busy, they prioritized spending time with our family whenever they could. They brought me to the library or the park in their spare time and took time out of their day to prepare healthy meals for us. They were upset when I became a cashier in high school because they were afraid it would negatively impact my studies, but were proud to see my college acceptance letters and that I was able to carry my work-school balance into college as well. My personal experiences and passions led me to volunteering at Children's National Hospital in Washington, DC. As a Health Leads Advocate at the hospital, I worked with physicians and administrators to connect minorities and low-income families to basic resources such as meal vouchers, housing assistance, and free classes, seeing first-hand how these services helped prevent illnesses caused by job and food insecurity. Similarly, while researching mechanical thrombectomy technologies for my projects, I discovered that populations most at risk for developing ischemic strokes were also more likely to have several other comorbidity factors related to their income and lifestyles. I hope to leverage these experiences and research as I work towards my master's degree in engineering management and health systems modeling at Stanford this upcoming fall. At Stanford, I hope to further develop my skills as a biomedical engineering graduate and technology consultant to bridge the gap between innovative healthcare solutions and their delivery to low-income communities. I would like to develop healthcare technologies that are accessible to at-risk populations, regardless of socioeconomic status, and health models that can be utilized by hospitals and other institutions in efforts of minimizing inequality.

Throughout my educational and professional experiences, I have realized that a good leader is someone who empowers their peers to reach their full potential while ensuring that their well-being is prioritized. I have realized this as someone who has worked on various teams, and also as a leader myself. I am currently a business technology consultant at Deloitte working as a lead tester to help develop and deploy web applications for our clients. This upcoming fall, I will be attending Stanford to work towards my master's in engineering science and management. I hope to continue to develop my technical and leadership skills, in hopes of becoming a product manager within healthcare. Before I began working at Deloitte full-time, I was a biomedical engineering student at The George Washington University in Washington, DC. I had many internships and projects in which I worked within interdisciplinary teams to solve complex challenges. As an engineering intern at Data in Science Technologies, I collaborated with scientists at Einstein Medical College and software engineers to implement a ticketing system to help minimize system errors. At Children's National Hospital in DC, I worked with physicians, social workers, and psychologists to connect low-income families with basic services that helped address their needs and illnesses. For my senior design capstone project, I worked with other students to design and manufacture a height-adjustable table for students with disabilities, which included interviewing students, implementing sensors, and designing a user interface system. My undergraduate experiences have helped me become a successful leader at Deloitte. Working with people with different knowledge areas than my own, and even from various cultures and backgrounds, has allowed me to acknowledge that all my colleagues and teams have unique and individual strengths which can be leveraged to optimize solutions. As a lead tester at Deloitte, I work with our leadership team to ensure that new features are being accurately tested and will work as expected when they are deployed to production and used by end users. I work with new testers to support their onboarding and communicate daily with our teams to ensure that they are on track for delivery. Communicating frequently with my teams helps to avoid delays by discussing potential roadblocks early in the development process. It also allows me to develop professional relationships with my teams that prioritizes their well-being. Personally, I prioritize my own well-being above my work and have realized that by doing so, I am more productive compared to those that do not strive towards work-life balance. I encourage my teams to do the same by blocking off time each day to step away from their work and eat lunch or perform activities that help them relax. I also encourage them to take meetings outside and during walks if possible. I believe that this has helped our teams be successful in our work. I enjoy being a leader on my team and look forward to continue to build on my existing skillset at Stanford. I like interacting with my colleagues and learning about their different work processes and how they like to unwind. It helps me understand how I can empower them towards developing their weaknesses and leveraging their strengths. Working alongside other strong leaders helps me develop new strategies to solve challenges across large teams and how to delegate or teach future leaders. I hope to take these experiences and new studies with me into the realm of healthcare, where there are many interdisciplinary challenges that can be solved by leaders who understand technology, socio-economics, and a team's well-being.

Over the last few years, I have been an avid runner and hiker. Exercising is a way for me to disconnect from everyday stressors and to promote my own thoughts and well-being. In becoming an exercise enthusiast, I have also learned that eating healthy goes hand-in-hand with being able to achieve specific pace times and hiking fitness. Especially superfoods that provide the necessary nutrients and vitamins needed to perform as expected, if not better. To help me keep up with my exercise and vigorous work or school schedules, I like to have a diet that is high in produce, protein, and even carbs. Considering vegetables are not always fun to eat, I like to incorporate them into my fruit smoothies. My smoothies are almost always green because I load them with spinach or kale, green apples, broccoli, cucumbers, and berries. I try to have them at least 3-4 times a week, preferably in the mornings or early afternoons. They make me feel like I am getting a good start to my day, and less guilty about the desserts I indulge in at the end of the day. One of my favorite ways to treat myself after a long workout or hike, is by splurging on an acai bowl or green smoothie from local cafes. As a Hispanic, my diet has always been high in legumes and rice. Most legumes are not complete proteins without being supplemented by rice, and so I always have both together. Rice is also a good source of carbohydrates to fuel my long runs, so it is like knocking out two birds in one stone. I have home made red kidney beans with rice or lentils with rice at least once or twice a week. Sometimes I prefer legumes over more traditional protein options because they are plant based and full of fiber. I have to be conscious about my daily fiber intake to avoid digestive issues. Over this past year; however, I have also been working on further increasing my daily protein intake because I had a particularly difficult stress fracture in my sacrum to overcome in August 2021. Though my stress fracture was mostly attributed to high impact activities such as running on concrete, stair exercises, and hiking frequently without sufficient rest, I believe it could have been avoided if my diet had more protein in it as well. Therefore, I have adjusted my diet to include greek yogurt after long runs, almonds and cashews to go with my smoothies, and an extra chicken breast at dinner. The extra protein has helped me heal and gain more energy to work up to the level of fitness I was in before my fracture. Following my fracture, my physician ran several blood tests for me to ensure that the fracture was in fact caused by physical stress and not anything else. My vitamin D levels were somewhat low, which was attributed to the region I live in and the seasons, and my vitamin B levels were low because I also tested positive for vitamin B antibodies. The rest of my tests were normal, indicating that my diet provided me with sufficient nutrients and vitamins, and good electrolyte balance. Aside from making me healthier, having a colorful diet filled with all the food groups makes me happier in general. I feel better about myself and it helps me do the things I love. I hope more people see the benefits of eating healthy superfoods and how it can help avoid acquiring long-term diseases such as heart disease.

My full name is Daniela Rendon and I was born and raised in Beacon, New York. I do not have a middle name or any nickname, and I do not even have a confirmation name because my dad forgot to add it to my application. Daniela is not a Hispanic name, although my family is Colombian, but my parents chose it because it was unique compared to the names of my 60+ cousins. Throughout my life, I have met many Danielle's, but not many Daniela's. It is never on any keychains, but to me it is still special. It is special not because it is uncommon, but because it is clean slate for me to work off of. To me, Daniela means adventurous and independent. Growing up, I did not feel the need to ask for permission to do things I felt I could do on my own. Rather than ask, I would 'tell' my parents that I would be signing up for softball, applying to colleges across the country, or driving across Australia in a van for a few weeks. I felt I could do this because I was working towards raising my own money to achieve these things. When I was in high school, I was not sure what I wanted to be when I grew up, but I knew I wanted to go to college and that it would be very expensive. As soon as I turned 16, I got a job at my local grocery store. My mom got a second job cleaning houses to help support my brother and I when we went off to college, and I would go with her to help. I also knew that the best way to minimize my debt would be to qualify for scholarships, and so I signed up for all the AP courses available to me in high school. The hard work I put into my classes and at the grocery store paid off, and helped me diminish my student debt once I decided to attend The George Washington University in Washington, DC. I continued to work part-time jobs throughout college while taking on difficult engineering courses, and learned to thrive under pressure. However, I quickly learned that I could only continue to succeed if I learned to promote my well-being. For me, this meant running a few miles before class each day. Rain, snow, or shine, I ran around the National Mall before heading back to Foggy Bottom every morning. It helped me clear my mind and avoid burnout. I also realized that I was passionate about traveling and meeting new people when I studied abroad in Ireland for a semester. I backpacked around Europe while simultaneously taking heat transfer and biomedical signal processing. I did not think that having fun would have a negative impact on my studies and it did not. Once I graduated and before starting my first career, I decided I would travel down the East coast of Australia and through the North Island of New Zealand in a van. I traveled, slept, and ate in my van everyday, but I got to see landscapes and animals most people never have. It was one of the best experiences of my life. In conclusion, I hope that when people think of 'Daniela Rendon,' they think of someone who is fearless and willing to work hard to achieve what they want. I want them to believe in themselves and their independence, and to learn to rely on themselves to be successful and passionate the way I strive to be.

Learning about systemic racism has been a life-long process that has only recently begun to make sense to me as a young adult. Being raised as a traditional Catholic and around private school peers often limited my perspective on the world around me. Most of my peers did not have to worry financially, which in turn seemed to impact their view on education, real estate, leisure, and other aspects that represent financial comfort and middle-class status. Similarly, most of my peers were white and did not have the same culture as my family or our other Hispanic friends. Growing up, I recall comparing my family to those of my white peer's and wondering why we were so different. Traditional Catholics also seemed to have strong opinions on what was considered acceptable within the boundaries of romantic relationships such as gender norms, natural family planning, and marriage equality. While I often felt uncomfortable and tended to disagree with most of these views, it was hard for me to understand why or meet people with different opinions, though I myself was different from those around me. Once I moved to Washington, DC to attend college, I began interacting with people from different cultures, backgrounds, and beliefs. I learned more about myself and my personal beliefs in one year in DC than I did in 18 years in my hometown. Learning about diversity and social inequality helped me understand the effects of systemic racism on our society and economy, and how it has contributed to inequality. It has also taught me to empathize and have compassion for those that have different opinions than me. We were all raised differently and we should learn to respect different beliefs, while empowering those that have less opportunities than others.

As a female minority and first-generation college graduate, I have always been keenly aware of what it means to be disadvantaged. My parents emigrated to the US from Colombia in 1986, and have always worked hard to support my brother and I in our efforts towards a higher education and professional career. They taught us to be hard-working and to take advantage of the opportunities given to us, despite social injustices that we may have encountered. Through my experiences, I have realized that gender inequality prevents women across different countries and cultures from reaching their full potential. Machismo is very prevalent across Latin America and women are expected to be subservient to their spouses or male bosses, meaning that there are strong gender roles in place and little opportunity for upward mobility for women. While I believe gender equality is still something that we are striving towards in the US, I believe it is a much bigger issue in developing countries, especially those in Latin America. I learned this through personal encounters in Colombia and also through my volunteering experiences in Bolivia and Guatemala. In Guatemala, I worked with the Highland Support Project (HSP) to develop a digital dashboard that displays inventory and sales metrics to their all-female, indigenous staff. HSP's staff works to empower themselves and other indigenous women in Guatemala, to become financially independent from their families and spouses through weaving and selling their products domestically and abroad. I was fortunate enough to be able to work with them remotely and eventually in-person, where I was able to connect with them on a more personal level. The women at HSP shared with me their stories of abuse and trauma, which they have been able to overcome while working at HSP. At the Instituto de Formacion Feminina Integral (IFFI) in Bolivia, I collaborated with Bolivian women to strategize a digital marketing and social media platform that would help expand IFFI's outreach in promoting a more equitable society for women. IFFI's mission is to provide information to women across cities and rural areas through social media, and even through radio communication, in hopes of empowering women and to educate men on the benefits of an equitable society. I enjoyed working with HSP and IFFI because it allowed me to develop my skills as an engineer, while also working towards learning more about gender equality, social justice, and economics. I developed personal connections with women from different backgrounds, women I am still friends with today. I learned to empower other women to be independent and successful, by equipping them with the tools necessary to improve and expand their outreach. I hope to continue to do similar work in the future and to make a lasting impact on society through my work. Upon graduating with a master's in engineering management and health systems modeling, I hope to implement my research on disadvantaged populations in hospitals and community clinics. I hope to promote well-being and sustainable health practices, that help people avoid long-term diseases and cut costs for both individuals and hospital institutions. As a Health Leads advocate at Children's National in Washington, DC, I saw first-hand how connecting low-income families to basic services and necessities such as child-care, free technology learning programs, and shuttle services to grocery stores improved patients' quality of life and healthcare. I believe my experience at Children's is similar to the ones I had at HSP and IFFI because it demonstrates how investing in social justice can have overall positive impacts on an individual's life, especially those that are disadvantaged.

As a young adult, I always strive to be financially independent. Many fortunate teenagers and young adults are able to push off working their first job for many years and sometimes even until after college. They either have financial support from their family or from special programs, or are comfortable being in debt until they must start paying it off. However, I believe most young adults should take advantage of having less bills and responsibilities while they are young, and should start working to get a head start at building up their savings account. I believe I have been lucky enough to be relatively financially independent and stable because I started working as a teenager. When I was 16, I was lucky enough to not need to support my family financially, but chose to work anyway. This allowed me to get a head start at saving money towards my future and being prepared for emergencies or unplanned necessities. I continued working throughout college, leaving me ready to start paying my student loan debt and place a deposit for my apartment. This also allowed me to help my family when they were impacted by quarantine rules during COVID-19. Working as a young adult has given me many qualities that have made me successful in both my career and at school. It has given me ambition, discipline, and self-awareness. I hope that more young adults choose to work and save their money while they can, so that they can be better prepared and financially independent in the future. There is nothing better than choosing to do what you want with your money because you earned it.

One of my favorite aspects about living in a city is my proximity to things. There is usually a grocery store, pharmacy, restaurant, or other basic necessity store within walking distance. Usually, large and major cities also provide you with great public transportation that can take you to work, stores that are farther than walking distance, or even the airport. Some cities are also adopting public bike share programs that allow you to use a daily or monthly pass. I enjoy walking to restaurants and stores, and sometimes even to work, whenever I can. Especially if it is a nice day, it is a good way of getting in exercise and clearing your mind. It is also a good way of making a positive impact on the environment. Walking, car sharing, biking, and public transportation are good ways of minimizing your carbon footprint on Earth and working towards a more sustainable future. Studies have shown that walking 1.5 miles reduces your carbon foot print by 75% in comparison to driving that same distance. It is also a good way of reducing your dependency on gas, which is limited and becoming more expensive. While many people do not live in cities or cities that have reliable public transportation - biking, car sharing, or electric cars are good alternatives to buying a gas car. Biking is a good way of exercising while reducing your footprint and car sharing is a good way of minimizing it. Although charging an electric vehicle may create pollution, the energy expended to charge and use an electric vehicle results in less of a footprint than using a gasoline car. I hope to continue to be able to walk for any necessities and eventually buy an electric car to continue to make a positive impact on the climate.

Smallpox was a devastating disease that spanned across centuries and continents, killing 3 out of 10 people infected and permanently scarring those who survived the virus. Thankfully, in 1796, Edward Jenner discovered that inoculating humans with cowpox, rather than smallpox, could effectively protect humans from smallpox. In 1980, smallpox was successfully eradicated and countries, such as the US, do not even vaccinate children against the disease anymore. The smallpox vaccine is my favorite scientific discovery because although inoculation was not introduced by Jenner and trials were documented as early as the 16th century, Jenner's research paved the way for future vaccine development and programs that have successfully minimized the spread of various diseases. This includes polio, chickenpox, human papillomavirus, hepatitis A, influenza, typhoid, and even COVID-19. While I understand that many people would disagree with vaccine development being an incredible scientific discovery, or disagree that it is necessary to be vaccinated at all, vaccine development has paved the way for other great things too. Through the smallpox vaccine program, all countries and people around the world successfully worked together to eradicate the disease. Countries, governments, and scientists collaborated on unprecedented levels and made long-lasting, positive impacts across the world and on humanity, proving that collaboration is more beneficial than antagonism. Similar collaboration efforts can even be leveraged to address other global health issues, such as heart disease, cancer, or HIV, rather than just promoting vaccination programs. The smallpox vaccine is my favorite discovery because it not only demonstrates the validity and benefits of science, but it is also a good example of the positive impacts of global collaboration.

As a first-generation college student, I did not have access to the information or tools I would need to be successful in minimizing my student debt. My parents did not know what a 529 account was, much less have one for me or my brother, and I did not know what an Early Action application was. I also did not understand that the subsidized loans that were applied to my total financial aid package, were in fact loans, and not scholarships. Regardless, the unknowns did not stop me from attending and graduating from college. When I turned 16, I began working as a clerk at my local grocery store until I moved to Washington, DC to attend college. While I was an undergraduate, I worked as a tutor and as an office administrator at my school's alumni office. Each summer, I had an internship exploring different fields within my degree such as conducting research or working with clients at a consulting firm. These jobs not only helped me determine my passions, but they also helped pay for miscellaneous items while I was at school and helped me establish a savings fund that would help kickstart my student loan repayments. Three months after graduating with my bachelor's degree, I began my first career as a business technology consultant at Deloitte. During the pandemic, my job became remote and I moved back in with my parents once my lease ended, to help save more money and pay off my loans. Living with my parents has been a sacrifice, though I have also enjoyed spending more time with them. This upcoming fall I will be moving to Palo Alto to attend Stanford for my Management Science & Engineering Master's degree. To help ease my current and upcoming debt, I will be attending school full-time and working part-time. Palo Alto is one of the most expensive cities in the world, where the average rent is about $3,500/month. I will also need to factor in transportation, utilities, groceries, textbooks, etc. It would be hard for me to turn down a spot at Stanford, and so I am planning on taking on the extra burden of debt to be able to attend. I will continue working part-time at Deloitte, which means waking up before 6AM PST to join my 9AM EST stand-up calls every morning. I do not mind because I know that I am lucky to be able to go back to school and to be able to work. I know that I am lucky because many people do not have the opportunity or the support to go to college, much less go back for more education. I am also very lucky that I will be able to continue working part-time and have support from my family, friends, advisors, and managers to balance both work and school. While I recognize that I have more support and opportunities than most people, I am still looking to ease the burden of debt and hoping to successfully apply to scholarship applications. I know that balancing school and work is difficult, but it is worth it. Higher education is also worth it, especially in an ever-increasingly competitive workforce. Working towards an engineering degree that will help me combine my management skills with healthcare is also worth it, because one day I hope to make a lasting impact on society. I did not have this confidence or knowledge when I was a high school student, but as an upcoming graduate student, I do.

Most children look forward to turning 16 because they are going to have a big party or because they are going to apply for a driver's permit, but I looked forward to turning 16 because I wanted to work. I wanted financial freedom, a savings account, a credit line, and a back-up plan in case I did not receive a scholarship to attend college. My parents did not want me to work, and instead wanted me to focus on my classes and being a teenager, but I believed it was the least I could do to lessen the future burden of college tuition, considering we were not as wealthy as my peers. When I was young, I decided that after my first minimum wage job, I would be a lawyer. A lawyer my family knew jokingly told me that I should only pursue law if I had enough money to cover my tuition and avoid debt. More seriously, he advised me that I should save as much money as possible while I was young and to take advantage of scholarships. So I started working as soon as I turned 16, when I luckily and gratefully did not have to worry about rent, insurance, groceries, or tuition just yet. This allowed me to save a small fortune (in my mind) before starting college, even if it was only a small dent in tuition. Starting work at a young age and having the opportunity to save this money while I did not have expenses, not only helped me get further and ahead of my savings plan once I did have to start paying for necessities, but it instilled discipline and good practices in me from a young age. Practices that I will carry with me throughout the rest of my life.

Actively practicing a healthy lifestyle is a way of showing your mind and body that you are grateful for all it accomplishes each day. It is also a way of conditioning your body to allow you to continue doing what you love to do, whether it is enjoying pastries and summiting tall mountains, or studying for long periods of time and biking to class each day. I believe it is important to live a healthy life because it will help you achieve the well-being and the balance necessary for achieving your goals. Ensuring that you get enough sleep every night re-energizes your body for each day. Balancing your diet with vegetables, lean meats, fruits, and whole grains helps prevent diseases, and provides energy for exercise, studying, and even sleeping. Exercising is not only a way for strengthening your muscles and preventing chronic disease, but it is also a way to disconnect from stressful everyday occurrences while practicing an activity you enjoy. When I was growing up, I was overweight despite being active outdoors. My diet mainly consisted of sugary drinks, gas station snacks, red meat, and other processed foods that left me feeling anxious and uncomfortable about my body image. As a I progressed in high school, my work became increasingly difficult with AP and college courses, further increasing my anxiety. At the time, seeing a therapist or nutritionist did not seem like an appealing option to me and so I decided to take up running. Running for me was an outlet from my everyday stressors and helped me achieve many goals in one. I began to lose weight and felt encouraged to replace red meat with leaner alternatives and stopped drinking soda altogether. Feeling better about my image made me more confident in other aspects of my life as well, enabling me to achieve other accomplishments in school and then in college. I took my running sneakers with me everywhere I went, from high school to college and eventually my career, and even on vacation with me and abroad. I used it as a time for personal reflection and stress release. Running has not only helped me feel better about my body image and do better in school, but it has also pushed me to new heights - literally - by allowing me to build enough endurance and discipline to summit many mountains, including Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, the tallest mountain in Africa. Running is one of the reasons why I believe I have been successful in my endeavors thus far because of its physical, emotional, and mental benefits. Maintaining a healthy life is a multi-pronged effort that does not only consist of exercise. Prioritizing a balanced diet and your mental health are also important components. However, once you start with one, I believe it is easier to start the next. For me, starting with exercising enabled me to continue the positive trend by adopting a better diet and then working to balance my studies and career with activities that I was passionate about. Achieving this balance and well-being has made me better at what I do, and I believe it can make others better at their work as well. When individuals achieve this balance, they are empowered to pursue their passions. Passionate individuals that prioritize their health fosters growth and ensures success in our communities. Many companies agree and offer well-being subsidies or have gyms in their offices for employees to use. If more individuals began to prioritize their individual health, I believe they will feel confident to achieve and succeed in their goals.

Taking up space in a room that never saved you a spot is intimidating at first. The room is filled with people that look and were raised different than you, and have not faced the same adversity as you. I grew up understanding this from a very young age, and learned this from the two people that faced more adversity than I ever will. My parents immigrated from Colombia to the US in 1986, and settled in Beacon, NY, the town in which I was born and raised. Neither of them attended college or spoke English, but it was always implied that my brother and I would attend and graduate from college. They taught us to be hard-working, bold, and independent, and encouraged us to take advantage of the opportunities they did not have. The first step in doing so was attending Catholic school and being the only Hispanic student among the rest of my white peers. I attended Catholic school from grades K-12, and was the only non-white student. Throughout those years, it was difficult being the only student who's parents could not proofread her English essay or did not know to take advantage of Early Action and 529 accounts. Not only was I the only non-white student in my classes, but I also happened to be the only female in many of my classes when I decided to take AP chemistry and physics. This trend followed me into college, where I was in engineering classes dominated by white males. Regardless, these physical appearances did not phase me, and I continued to pursue my passions in science and math. Being the only female minority in my education, and eventually in my career, has not held me back. Even though I had my Colombian heritage, I was also American, and learned to balance and even blend both identities into a unique personality. I even learned to leverage my diversity within my education and careers, something that actually helped me become more successful in my endeavors. I believe my diversity has made me more successful because it has allowed me to explore different ways of thinking and tackling complex or interdisciplinary challenges. It has helped me work with people from different backgrounds, and has taught me to empathize with others, a trait that has enabled me to work towards becoming a stronger leader within my education and careers. Taking up space is how you overcome the adversity you have faced and the unique qualities you bring to new groups. It took me time to mature and understand this, but being comfortable with who I am, has allowed me to grow personally and professionally over the last few years. I now enjoy speaking Spanish at home with my family and partaking in a weekly diet of frijoles con aroz, while leading Deloitte's Spanish Language Table initiative and participating in pro bono projects that empower Hispanic women in the workforce. I love tying my hair back and spending hours in the machine shop, oiling my screws and building mechanical devices for people with disabilities, alongside my all-female project team at school. I also enjoy leading client meetings alongside my male coworkers and teaching them how to deliver effective presentations on an almost daily basis. I hope to continue grow professionally as a female minority while paving the path forward for more females and more minorities in academic and professional fields that notoriously lack diversity.

As a female minority in technology consulting and pursuing a master's in engineering management, I have faced many obstacles and anticipate many more in efforts of achieving a STEM career. Throughout the last few years, I received my B.S. in biomedical engineering and have began my career as a technology consultant. I have always been interested in the intersection of healthcare and technology, and how good management can lead to products that positively impact consumers. Before attending college and starting my career, I worked towards securing a scholarship to attend college. My dad is a server and my mom is a cashier, and English is neither of their first language. In contrast to my peers, I did not have SAT tutors, a 529 account, or parents that could proofread my English essays. I did not have access to the engineering or future physician summer camps that my friends attended, nor did I truly understand the prep that went into working towards similar majors or careers. I did not even know what an Early Action application for college was. Regardless of these obstacles, I decided to attend The George Washington University to pursue a degree in biology. After my first semester, I switched into engineering, instantly noticing the disparity class demographics. In high school, I was one of three girls in my AP chemistry and physics classes, and in college I was one of ten out of one hundred students in my engineering classes. This did not phase me, and only pushed me to work harder. I enjoy being in STEM because I believe that most positive things in our world come from technological advancement. More specifically, I believe healthcare has been enhanced by its leveraging of digital capabilities such as health systems modeling, medical devices, and robotic assistive technology. In college, I conducted research on microfluidic devices that can be used to research blood flow rate or develop implantable devices that aid individuals with diabetes. I also designed and developed height-adjustable tables that can be utilized by students with disabilities. Following my graduation, I decided to pursue a career in business technology to better comprehend web application development, as well as product management and design. I hope to take the skills I learned as an undergraduate and young professional with me, as I pursue a master's in engineering management at Stanford. Attending graduate school is something I have always wanted to accomplish. Originally, I did not know whether I would pursue medical school, an MBA, law school, or whether I would even be able to afford it, but eventually I realized that continuing in engineering was the best path for me. Despite being a female minority in a field that does not have many females or minorities, I plan to successfully maneuver higher education and a rigorous job in efforts of elevating my career and opening doors for female minorities that are interested in STEM. I believe I will face many obstacles because most leaders in STEM come from backgrounds that are very different than mine. I mostly anticipate difficulty in Silicon Valley due to Elizabeth Holme's legacy. Similarly to how unequal representation in my classes did not phase me, this does not phase me either. Pressure is something I learned to leverage, and is actually something that helps me be more productive. The thought of making a positive impact in healthcare that affects millions of people and inspiring others, helps me look past the obstacles and focus on the technical challenges ahead of me, not the challenges that can hold me back.

Health systems modeling is a form of healthcare technology that utilizes mathematical modeling and simulation methods to optimize health systems. Researchers may choose from a wide variety of health system related issues and components by identifying different constraints, to make quantitative predictions, capture the functioning, and propose solutions to these issues. For example, health systems modeling can be leveraged to target diseases that do not have a singular treatment plan. Models can be developed after gathering and applying treatment data based on different vaccines, antibiotics, and patient information to simulations, where researchers and physicians can then make informed decisions about the best treatment plant for their patients. A major component of health systems modeling is machine learning (ML). ML is a subfield of artificial intelligence that utilizes algorithms to provide insights across different fields, especially healthcare. It can be applied to several stages of the health system model development workflow, aiding in the accurate prediction or recognition of treatment plans. In order to understand and develop strong ML algorithms, researchers must apply complex calculus. One of the most important algorithms is gradient descent for minimizing error functions and achieving the best possible outcome for a scenario. The gradient descent algorithm allows researchers to train a neural network model, which can improve delivery of healthcare at a reduced cost. Neural network models implements a function that maps inputs to their expected outputs, while iteratively searching for the best way to enable modeling of the variations in a data set. Learning the mapping functions involves the approximation of the model parameters or constraints, to reduce error, which is referred to function optimization or gradient descent. As functions that need to be solved become more complex, calculus provides the necessary tools and trainings to address these challenges through the concept of partial derivatives. Partial derivatives provide researchers with a method to calculate the rate of change in one input, while holding other inputs constant, allowing each input to be independent of one another and can be manipulated in a way such that the gradient descent algorithm can be better leveraged. While all this information may just seem like mathematical jargon, it has major implications for optimizing healthcare. There are no shortage of healthcare issues ranging from biological to socio-economic, and I believe that health systems modeling can propose solutions to most of them. Without calculus, accurate simulation and modeling development would not be possible. Like so many other challenges in STEM and tech, healthcare technology requires calculus to be successful.

When I was growing up, the majority of my diet consisted of steak, fried rice, and beans. Hispanics tend to eat a diet heavy in red meats and legumes, and enjoy frying their carbohydrates, a diet that leads to cardiovascular disease, among other chronic illnesses. Both my parents have suffered from high cholesterol and blood pressure since I was very young, and I wanted to avoid a similar fate despite already being overweight and eating the same dinners that were high in fat and sodium. Eventually, I decided that I would cut out red meat from my diet, add more vegetables and fruits, and start running. It took a few weeks before I started noticing results, such as building lean muscle and more endurance as I continued to ramp up my weekly mileage. My heart rate, blood pressure, and BMI decreased, placing me into an "athletic" bucket at the doctor's office. This not only helped me gain more self-confidence, but eventually I realized that it also helped with my overall well-being. Running has been more than just escaping future chronic illness for me. It is time I take out of my day to reflect on my own thoughts and energy, while listening to my favorite music. It is the time I use to release pent up energy, stress, and anxiety, keeping me and my heart rate mellow throughout the day. Thanks to running, I have been able to take up activities that I enjoy tremendously such as hiking, biking, swimming, and even long city walks. Running is the anchor that keeps me sane, and has made me more disciplined than ever before. While I do not participate in organized races or track my times, I do work towards ensuring that I am taking time each day to run and continue to build up my endurance. I do this because when I run, I feel more prepared and productive throughout my day. This was true when I was a student in high school applying for college, then as an undergraduate working or studying 15+ hours/day, now as a consultant working long hours in-front of a computer screen, and eventually as a master's student this upcoming fall. Continuing this routine and lifestyle is important to me for several reasons. First and foremost, I want to be healthy and avoid chronic illness. Heart disease is the #1 killer in America, maybe even in the world, and robs families from spending more time together. It can lead to serious surgery and can impact an individual's reliance on drugs and insurance for a majority of his or her life. Second, my routine helps me achieve balance. Running not only improves my physical wellness, but also my mental well-being. It allows me to release anxiety in a healthy way and I can definitely relate to "runner's high." Third, running allows me to continue doing what I love. It keeps me strong and fit so that I can hike on the weekends and take long walks during the week. Thanks to running, I have summitted some tall mountains (Kilimanjaro) and completed hiking trails in almost record time. Without taking the time to take care of myself everyday, whether it's running a mile or two during my lunch break or taking the time to prepare a healthy meal, I would not be where I am today. Not having the opportunity to concentrate on my well-being would impact my productivity at work and at school. Everyone deserves a break to recharge and avoid burn-out. For me, it is by taking care of myself.

After graduating from The George Washington University in 2019, I became a business technology consultant at Deloitte. Since starting my first career, I have been leading our project's testing team in API, database, UI, and server testing to ensure successful deployments of web applications for our clients. As a testing lead, I am a subject matter expert in many testing tools and processes and am responsible for onboarding new team members, several key client deliverables, and guiding our teams towards successful implementation of new features. At the firm, I also lead our Spanish Language Table initiative, composed of 250+ people, in efforts of fostering Hispanic culture and enhancing practitioner's Spanish language skills through coordinated events. I also participate in firm initiatives in which I have had the opportunity to work with Central American non-profits in developing digital strategies and capabilities that empower female minorities to be successful. While I was at GW, I developed my leadership skills through various experiences. I was secretary for the biomedical engineering society at GW, and worked with other students to ensure they had the necessary support to succeed in class and in their future careers. I also tutored children in grades K-8 in low-income communities, as well as GW student athletes. I enjoyed tutoring and working with students because it taught me how to connect with different people. What I learned at GW as a student and as a leader, I brought with me to Deloitte. This upcoming fall, I will be working towards a Masters in Management Science & Engineering at Stanford. I want to continue to develop my technical and leadership skills in order to be successful in my next career within healthcare technology. I want to continue to be a leader because I enjoy working with different types of people. I like to work with subject matter experts from different fields than mine because most challenges are multidisciplinary. In order to be most successful in solving complex challenges, especially within healthcare and technology, leaders must understand different aspects of medicine, engineering, economics, and society. A good team is composed of individuals with different backgrounds and a great leader is the bridge between these individuals to produce a great product. In order to be a great leader, an individual must not only know the product the team is working on very well, but also the team very well and ensures each individual team member has a good balance. A team will be productive if they are comfortable and feel supported by their leaders in terms of well-being. This will help teams be more efficient in working towards their full potential. I want to understand all aspects of our product and business to ensure that my teams trust me and feel comfortable coming to me with questions and feedback. I want to advocate for mandatory breaks and hard stops after working hours to ensure that my team is not burned out. I want to learn from my team and teach them as well.

Before Angela Merkel became one of the most powerful and influential leaders of the free world, she faced adversary from many fronts. First and foremost, she was a woman in a field dominated by men and second, she was a scientist, not a politician. Frau Merkel was raised in East Germany under soviet occupation and was already well into her career as a physicist at the age of 35 when the Berlin Wall came down in 1989. In a reunified Germany, Merkel decided to pursue a career in politics and patiently rose to the rank of Chancellor in 2005. There are many reasons why I am inspired by Merkel, but the most overarching and all-encompassing reason, is her diversity. Merkel was raised by a strict pastor and though she is religious, she does not let it intervene with her decision-making process within politics, but rather uses it as a moral compass. Merkel was raised under a communist regime, yet chose to pivot towards a free market and capitalism. She has a PhD in physics and understands the importance of science, technology, and the environment as she has demonstrated through her commitment to government spending in STEM. Merkel appreciates other cultures and respects world leaders, choosing to never publicly condemn those she does not agree with, but rather targets them with specific sanctions and internal diplomacy. She does not compromise her values and strategically decides whether the benefits do in fact outweigh the negatives. Frau Merkel has enabled Germany to become a world leader, while acknowledging its mistakes and ensuring they are never repeated. She is a strong woman that I aspire to be like throughout my career. Currently, I am a technology consultant at Deloitte working towards delivering high quality web applications and features to our client. I lead our team in API, database, UI, and server testing and am responsible for key client and stakeholder relationships. For pro-bono projects that I have worked on, I have led my teams in developing digital marketing strategies and visualization tools that are leveraged by all-female staff non-profits in Guatemala and Bolivia. As a current leader in my tech role, I try to ensure that all my staff are well-trained and I like to emphasize personal well-being. I believe that individuals are more productive when they are comfortable and far from being "burned out." I believe that to be a good leader, an individual must have empathy and diverse experiences that allow them to understand their staff and colleagues on a deeper level than just their technical skillsets. If a leader understands their peer's motives, personality, challenges, and strengths, then that leader can unlock further potential and gain the respect of his or her staff. I strive to apply similar intuition and tactics as Angela Merkel as I continue to strengthen my leadership skills and apply them to future roles. Eventually I hope to transcend beyond my technical roles, into one that influences healthcare policies domestically and even abroad. I will leverage my existing skillset and experiences with different cultures and groups of people, while working to continue to diversify within societal and economic bounds, to achieve similar influence as Angela Merkel.

As an engineering graduate and technology consultant, I spent the majority of my young adult life as a student working part-time jobs, studying, volunteering, and participating in internships. Following the completion of my undergraduate degree, I began my career as a technology consultant, a career that demands at least 40 hours/week, and also includes side projects such as initiatives and pro bono opportunities. My engineering degree and career offer little distractions. I work hard in order to earn those distractions when I have the opportunity to. My main passion that I have been pursuing since I was a young girl flipping through National Geographic magazines, is travel. As an undergraduate junior, I had the opportunity to study abroad at the University College Dublin. While there, I was able to fully immerse myself in Irish culture, while traveling to 11 other Western European cities. I was also able to visit Giants Causeway, the very first item on the bucket list I drafted when I was in 6th grade. Before starting my first career, I decided to summit Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, the tallest mountain in Africa. It was an incredibly rewarding experience, one that has catapulted me into an obsession with ascending tall peaks. That summer, I also traveled throughout Australia and New Zealand, while living out of a minivan. During the pandemic, my job went remote, and I had the opportunity to social distance within the American National Parks. I drove from NY to the Pacific Coast, something I will do again when I move to Palo Alto in September. As a Master's student and in my future careers, I hope to continue to travel and see the beauty of the world. More ambitiously, I hope to visit every country in the world and continue to summit the world's tallest peaks.

Over a decade ago, “The Coming Plague” by Laurie Garrett piqued my interest in diseases and public health. The book introduced me to the idea that the outbreak of disease can be exacerbated by external factors such as environmental conditions, inadequate infrastructure, poverty, and many others. As healthcare continues to develop new diagnostic tools and leverages digital capabilities to become more efficient, it must incorporate these factors and constraints into their tool assessments. It is imperative that healthcare professionals understand disease complexities to develop innovative new technologies that will help combat emerging diseases. Although "The Coming Plague" is a long read and was published in 1994, many of its messages are still prevalent today. The book discusses the emergence of the Ebola epidemic in the late 1970's and accurately predicts that the question is not "if" it will re-emerge, but when. It details many obscure diseases such as Machupo, and explains the interconnectedness of different factors that contribute to disease outbreak. For example, Machupo was able to spread rapidly in a small Bolivian village for several reasons. Civil wars caused the village to depend on crops instead of cattle, leading the village to increase insecticide use. The death of local cats due to insecticides caused an overabundance of rats to settle within homes. The rats shed Machupo virus in their urine, and families swept up rat urine and therefore virus particles into their family's food, causing them to get sick once they ingested the food. It is a chain of events that medical professionals must follow to fully understand disease outbreak and leverage this information to cure disease. "The Coming Plague" has inspired me to understand all factors of disease when considering and applying health models that I hope to develop as a graduate student and in my future careers.

Over a decade ago, “The Coming Plague” by Laurie Garrett piqued my interest in diseases and public health. The book, as well as personal experiences, introduced me to the idea that the outbreak of disease can be exacerbated by external factors such as environmental conditions, inadequate infrastructure, poverty, and many others that reflect inequality in our communities and technical deficiencies in healthcare. These technical and socioeconomic deficiencies have been mitigated by the implementation of data models and processes that support rapid manufacture and deployment of new tools to populations in need. Health Systems Modeling leverages mathematics, data science, and machine learning to accurately predict the functions of health systems. For example, a health system model can integrate and extrapolate data from existing hospitals and patients to reduce surgery costs, assess diagnoses and treatment plans, and evaluate regional trends, that can in turn be used to reform health and insurance policies. Following the completion of my Master's degree in Management Science & Engineering at Stanford, I hope to become uniquely suited to bridge the gap between new engineering solutions and its delivery. When I was an undergraduate, I worked on microfluidics to study angiogenic potential and developed a height-adjustable table with a user interface for students with disabilities. I also interacted with low-income families at Children's National Hospital to address their health by connecting them with basic services such as meal vouchers, housing assistance, and child-care; seeing first-hand how these services helped prevent illnesses caused by job and food insecurity. Similarly, while researching mechanical thrombectomy technologies and working for Central American non-profits, I discovered that populations most at risk for developing ischemic strokes were also more likely to have several other comorbidity factors related to their income and lifestyles. How effective is a mechanical thrombectomy long-term if underlying issues are not addressed? What is the purpose of developing an effective tool against a disease if patients will not have access to it because of insurance, cost, or delivery logistics? All these questions must be considered when optimizing a model. This information can also be used to generate models specifically utilized for health policy reformation. Health Systems Modeling should be implemented and utilized at medical institutions to continue to innovate new technologies and patient treatment. These models can make healthcare more accessible and affordable domestically and globally.