Since I was a young girl, I always knew I wanted to be a scientist. From the first time turning on Wild Kratts before school to having my parents order geode kits from Amazon for me to keep entertained, I knew I wanted to pursue a career in STEM. To do this, my parents and grandparents instilled in me the ideal of hard work and determination, demonstrating that I needed to work hard to achieve my goals. And it is this value that has stuck with me throughout my life. Starting in elementary school, I always strived to be the best. I had to finish my math packet the fastest and be the best at four square. Everything in my mind was a competition. While some may view this as a detrimental mindset for a nine-year-old to have, I reveled in it. It was this attitude that allowed me to excel in my classes from a young age and form a love for robotics. Elementary school was my first interaction with STEM instruction, igniting a passion inside me for computer science and engineering. In middle school, I kept nurturing this passion, participating in robotics classes and joining my school’s robotics competition team. Through this, I competed at C-STEM Day at UC Davis—a competition where teams work together, coding in C++, to finish challenges and earn points. At this competition, my team and I won first place in our region and second place in the state. This only caused my motivation for success to skyrocket. I loved being a part of this because I was able to use my competitiveness and problem-solving abilities to work with my peers in a topic I loved. During this time, I continued to nurture my competitiveness by playing club soccer. I have been playing soccer since I was five years old, and it has allowed me to learn valuable lessons in teamwork, communication, and leadership. In high school, I continued to value my determination, joining many interest-based clubs and enrolling in eleven AP classes, six dual enrollment classes at my local community college, and one honors class. My work ethic throughout my life has provided me with valuable knowledge and determination to be able to achieve my goals, enabling me to become Vice President of the Women in STEM club, Vice President and Community Outreach Committee Leader of our chapter of the National Honor Society, an officer of the American Red Cross club, and a student representative in my school district’s Strategic Visioning Guiding Coalition. Additionally, I joined the varsity soccer team my freshman year and became captain my sophomore year. I loved my involvement in my school and valued the experiences I got from it. It sparked my love of volunteering and giving back to my community, teaching me valuable lessons about compassion and drive. To top off my high school career, I was announced as class Valedictorian with a cumulative weighted grade point average of 4.542. Now, I plan to attend the University of California, Berkeley as an aerospace engineering major, one step closer to achieving my childhood dream of being a scientist. My younger self didn’t know it at the time, but all of the sacrifices and dedication towards my academics and extracurriculars have taught me valuable lessons that I will cherish and nurture for the rest of my life. Now as I head into this next chapter of my life, I plan to continue volunteering and being involved with my community in my hometown and also my community at UC Berkeley. I plan to get either a master’s degree or a Ph.D in aerospace engineering to continue on my path of becoming a scientist, with the dream of working with NASA to develop space technologies. As I continue to achieve my childhood goal, I am also setting new ones, with a huge one being to help increase female representation in engineering. None of my achievements would have been made possible without the support from my family, so I plan to help other women in engineering feel supported in their pursuit of higher education and careers. Now, I’m no longer trying to prove to myself that I can achieve my goals, I’m attempting to set an example for other women that they too can accomplish anything they set their minds to.

Growing up, I was obsessed with space. I would spend my summers in the city library reading books about planets and neutron stars, learning about things called quarks and hadrons while trying to wrap my mind around the enormity of the universe. I have always been a curious person, often driving my parents to the brink of insanity with my constant questions. And it was this curiosity that prompted my parents to sign me up for my first robotics class in elementary school. Lego robots powered by servo motors are not considered the epitome of advanced machinery, but they were to me at the time. In middle school, I joined my school’s robotics team, competing at robotics competitions at UC Davis and meeting professors from Stanford University. Tinkering with Arduinos and Raspberry Pis, I navigated the world of circuitry and learned the language of C++. My childhood interest in outer space coupled with these experiences sparked my curiosity in space exploration, computer science, and engineering, inspiring my pursuit of a career in aerospace engineering. It is because of this that I have heavily involved myself with advocacy for STEM education and opportunities in my community. Women are a minority in STEM careers, especially engineering, and I use my position as Vice President of Women in STEM—a club that educates women at my high school about careers in STEM—to advocate for female interest in engineering. Additionally, my work for my school district’s Strategic Visioning Guiding Coalition is centered around adapting education to incorporate STEM classes and extracurriculars into schools across the county. In the fall, I will begin my time as an undergraduate student at the University of California, Berkeley as an aerospace engineering major, with the intention of going to graduate school to earn either a master’s degree or a Ph.D in aerospace engineering. I plan to use my curiosity and drive to explore the many aerospace opportunities the Bay Area provides, allowing me to immerse myself in space exploration and enterprise. In this, I plan to participate in research and become an aerospace engineer with NASA, working on developing materials and machinery that would help facilitate humanity’s drive for answers, helping to explore the many mysteries of the universe. I am particularly interested in the presence of life outside of Earth and want to use my knowledge to contribute to the development of observational spacecraft to search for signs of organic material in space. I believe that my experiences as a woman in a male-dominated field will bring new perspectives to projects, potentially leading to innovative solutions to challenges that will arise. Additionally, I want to inspire other women to pursue a career they may find daunting. I want to continue what I started in high school during my time at UC Berkeley and beyond, allowing for more female representation in STEM fields.

Growing up, I was obsessed with space. I would spend my summers in the city library reading books about planets and neutron stars, learning about things called quarks and hadrons while trying to wrap my mind around the enormity of the universe. I have always been a curious person, often driving my parents to the brink of insanity with my constant questions. And it was this curiosity that prompted my parents to sign me up for my first robotics class in elementary school. Lego robots powered by servo motors are not considered the epitome of advanced machinery, but they were to me at the time. In middle school, I joined my school’s robotics team, competing at robotics competitions at UC Davis and meeting professors from Stanford University. Tinkering with Arduinos and Raspberry Pis, I navigated the world of circuitry and learned the language of C++. My childhood interest in outer space coupled with these experiences sparked my curiosity in space exploration, computer science, and engineering, inspiring my pursuit of a career in aerospace engineering. It is because of this that I have heavily involved myself with advocacy for STEM education and opportunities in my community. Women are a minority in STEM careers, especially engineering, and I use my position as Vice President of Women in STEM—a club that educates women at my high school about careers in STEM—to advocate for female interest in engineering. Additionally, my work for my school district’s Strategic Visioning Guiding Coalition is centered around adapting education to incorporate STEM classes and extracurriculars into schools across the county. In the fall, I will begin my time as an undergraduate student at the University of California, Berkeley as an aerospace engineering major, with the intention of going to graduate school to earn either a master’s degree or a Ph.D in aerospace engineering. I plan to use my curiosity and drive to explore the many aerospace opportunities the Bay Area provides, allowing me to immerse myself in space exploration and enterprise. In this, I plan to participate in research and become an aerospace engineer with NASA, working on developing materials and machinery that would help facilitate humanity’s drive for answers, helping to explore the many mysteries of the universe. I am particularly interested in the presence of life outside of Earth and want to use my knowledge to contribute to the development of observational spacecraft to search for signs of organic material in space. I believe that my experiences as a woman in a male-dominated field will bring new perspectives to projects, potentially leading to innovative solutions to challenges that will arise. Additionally, I want to inspire other women to pursue a career they may find daunting. I want to continue what I started in high school during my time at UC Berkeley and beyond, allowing for more female representation in STEM fields. To this day, I still let my curiosity get the best of me, leading to hours spent outside trying to photograph birds or running to Target trying to explore new genres of books I might like. Curiosity is an important value to have, but for me, it has dictated where I spend my energy and fueled my plans for the future.

Growing up, I was obsessed with space. I would spend my summers in the city library reading books about planets and neutron stars, learning about things called quarks and hadrons while trying to wrap my mind around the enormity of the universe. I have always been a curious person, often driving my parents to the brink of insanity with my constant questions. And it was this curiosity that prompted my parents to sign me up for my first robotics class in elementary school. Lego robots powered by servo motors are not considered the epitome of advanced machinery, but they were to me at the time. In middle school, I joined my school’s robotics team, competing at robotics competitions at UC Davis and meeting professors from Stanford University. Tinkering with Arduinos and Raspberry Pis, I navigated the world of circuitry and learned the language of C++. My childhood interest in outer space coupled with these experiences sparked my curiosity in space exploration, computer science, and engineering, inspiring my pursuit of a career in aerospace engineering. It is because of this that I have heavily involved myself with advocacy for STEM education and opportunities in my community. Women are a minority in STEM careers, especially engineering, and I use my position as Vice President of Women in STEM—a club that educates women at my high school about careers in STEM—to advocate for female interest in engineering. Additionally, my work for my school district’s Strategic Visioning Guiding Coalition is centered around adapting education to incorporate STEM classes and extracurriculars into schools across the county. In the fall, I will begin my time as an undergraduate student at the University of California, Berkeley as an aerospace engineering major, with the intention of going to graduate school to earn either a master’s degree or a Ph.D in aerospace engineering. I plan to use my curiosity and drive to explore the many aerospace opportunities the Bay Area provides, allowing me to immerse myself in space exploration and enterprise. In this, I plan to participate in research and become an aerospace engineer with NASA, working on developing materials and machinery that would help facilitate humanity’s drive for answers, helping to explore the many mysteries of the universe. I am particularly interested in the presence of life outside of Earth and want to use my knowledge to contribute to the development of observational spacecraft to search for signs of organic material in space. I believe that my experiences as a woman in a male-dominated field will bring new perspectives to projects, potentially leading to innovative solutions to challenges that will arise. Additionally, I want to inspire other women to pursue a career they may find daunting. I want to continue what I started in high school during my time at UC Berkeley and beyond, allowing for more female representation in STEM fields. William Briggs’ work in the aeronautical engineering field alone is commendable, but his support of the female pursuit of the same field is something I look up to. With the help of this scholarship, I will be able to represent William Briggs’ efforts in advocating for women in STEM while also being able to achieve my own dreams of exploring space and all it has to offer.