I was born to parents who believed in love, education and the pursuit of excellence. We lived and thrived in Urban America, but we were not confined by the environment nor the stories others had written about us. Having lived in Abu Dhabi, Trinidad and Houston, Texas, I came of age with a contrasting worldview. Living in Abu Dhabi, no other kid in the foreign mall had the same kinks in their hair that I did. I was unmistakably noticeable. In Trinidad, I encountered cousins with Trini accents, divergent from my southern twang. Even living in Houston, I have always stood out. At my Spanish immersion school, I was the only black girl in my entire grade. Even so, I answered math problems with such ease in an unfamiliar language. I had become accustomed to being “the only one” in the crowd like me. My story, written by a strong sense of self worth, exposure and perseverance fueled my desire to learn, hence my enrollment in Calculus BC my junior year. There were no other females in the class. Perhaps the boys felt odd at my being there but I was not phased. I’ve since discovered a great power in being alone in the crowd, a rarity in my STEM educational experience. There, I discovered a new responsibility, to redefine the standard because visibility in and of itself is not enough. I aim to break barriers and build bridges that rid our world of marginalizing and giving up on the “disadvantaged.” Too often, the voices of the marginalized communities are silenced due to lack of representation. But fitting into a mold is not a sustainable solution. The remedy begins by reshaping the mold, and ensuring that the bridge built allows others to follow. When I wrote and illustrated my children's book highlighting equity in STEM, my goal was to empower generations of minority students who felt different. For me, this wasn't merely a silly hobby. It was an engineering endeavor. I didn't just pinpoint a problem in society, but I was designing a solution, one page at a time. Designing a setting where the characters lived in a society that would invest in them rather than disqualify them for their differences. A setting I hope will become the future. My experience interning at HYPE Freedom School, a literacy program for underserved youth, enabled me to empower young scholars to become changemakers, believing they can exceed society's expectations of them. By the end of the summer, the most introverted students were the most influential voices in the room. Playing a role in the blossoming of these scholars in both reading and self-esteem is the most impactful engineering I've ever done. My vision for my future in STEM was crystallized at the Blacks at Microsoft Summer Mentorship Program. I was exposed to talented Black engineers as I walked through the ExxonMobil Campus and the Houston Methodist Hospital. The trip made me realize that the work I was doing was greater than just a fictional dream. Not only did these professionals represent a future that was possible for me, but they also represented an attainable future for all of the kids I'd been mentoring thus far. In spite of the accepted statistics written for me, I get to be the engineer of my own life, defining who I am and demanding the dreams I have dreamt and worked hard to attain. My vision is not driven by a need for recognition or notice, but by the desire to design solutions to make the unseen visible and unheard impossible to ignore.