As an electrical engineering student at the beginning of her career, I’ve already set my sights on a field overflowing with potential: the AR and VR sectors. Both pursuits posit fascinating design challenges alongside a staggering diversity of industry and research applications. My goal is to push the envelope of digital-reality experiences by improving its efficacy, affordability, and technical complexity. More than anything, I want to develop innovative technology that helps people who have gone through the same things I have. When I was a teen, I had a near-death experience that left me with serious post-traumatic stress symptoms. For months I was an absolute wreck, suffering from regular breakdowns and even being hospitalized a few times. Only after my counselor discovered and implemented EMDR with bilateral stimulation could I start to sleep again—this trauma treatment technique quite literally changed my life. Integrating bilateral stimulation with next-generation visual immersion is one of many new tech-driven possibilities in PTSD treatment, a field I’m extremely passionate about. Ultimately, I want to develop new technologies in hardware that eventually helps another scared, trauma-stricken teen overcome their own psychological challenges. Unfortunately, the cutting-edge nature of modern photonics makes it out-of-reach for a hobbyist with a test bench, or else I’d already be neck-deep in it! This upcoming summer I intend to pursue a formal summer research experience, as an almost-mandatory first step toward a graduate education and career in such an exciting (yet specialized) field. And exciting, it certainly is. Advances in silicon integrated photonics may yield the next generation of commercial VR headsets, or maybe enable advanced AR holographic display systems to finally hit the mainstream. Already, research groups like the MedVR group at the University of Southern California (https://medvr.ict.usc.edu/) are using existing VR technology in a variety of clinical applications, including PTSD treatment. I’ve even contacted one of their lead researchers, Dr. Albert “Skip” Rizzo, who’s agreed to help inform me which hardware limitations pose the greatest obstacles in his work. This insight will help guide developing design specifications in my own future projects, recontextualizing one particular end-user that’s a little more special to me than the rest. Don’t get me wrong, advancing the photonics state-of-the art will yield incredible commercial dividends and defense capabilities, but at the end of the day, I want my work to help people. After all, a career spent improving people’s quality-of-life is the only worthwhile career I can imagine.