I met Dolly, a 3-year-old with Autism Spectrum Disorder, when I began my internship at a local speech pathology clinic. With just eight weeks of therapy learning to use Proloquo2Go, an Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) digital tool, Dolly’s sentences, voiced by the app, transitioned from “Games now” to “I am happy because I play games.” After witnessing how profoundly external assistive technology bolstered her confidence and communication, I developed a curiosity for exploring how to expand on this: can machine learning and AI be used to map activity in the language center of the brain to better predict language production? At Berkeley, I study Bioengineering with a concentration in Medical Devices. I plan to minor in Neuroscience to gain a better understanding of the mechanisms that allow the brain to produce and recognize communication signals. Furthermore, I hope to learn about comparing the neural substrates of a healthy and cognitively impaired prefrontal cortex (required for language comprehension). With a foundation in neural networks, I want to mimic those mechanisms using computer programming to design personalized speech-generating devices (SGD). I am surrounded by collaborative, interdisciplinary research. With such extensive opportunities, I hope to pursue my own independent research and help answer: How can positive feedback loops, where software is designed to self-adjust to the user’s unique preferences, work in conjunction with natural language processing to make SGDs more effective? Through Berkeley’s human-centered bioengineering program, I aim to prioritize minority communities that can benefit most from personalized technology. My goal is to build devices that increase accessibility for everyday tasks - like maintaining a conversation - that people without cognitive disabilities may overlook. After watching my cousin, Aravind, a 17-year-old with Down Syndrome, struggle to speak due to his limited access to lifestyle-altering technology in rural India, I am especially committed to using this interdisciplinary research to make such resources more attainable. As an active member of UC Berkeley's Assistive Technology club, EnableTech, I have redesigned a client's ErgoPrimo walker to better accommodate their needs with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome: from added gear-based motors to assist her movement on inclined surfaces, to selecting pressure-controlled resistance switch to control speed and prevent accidental motor-engagement. It’s our responsibility as socially competent researchers to build on our lived experiences and promote inclusion. At Berkeley and beyond, I hope to help people like Aravind find their voice by revolutionizing how we communicate. I am especially eager to explore these opportunities at graduate programs at Northwestern University and Vanderbilt University, who are world-renowned for their research in AAC devices, Assistive Technology, and Speech Therapy. After building a foundation in research, I hope to transition to applying these findings in industry.

Two-year-old Dolly wordlessly storms into the speech therapy room, her eyes conveying what she verbally can’t: fulfillment. As she taps away at her iPad screen, a familiar robotic voice rings, “I am happy because I play games.” After completing eight weeks of speech therapy in the clinic while practicing using a voice-generating app, Dolly seems different in this moment. Witnessing her transition from two-word phrases like “Games now” to compound sentences, I am proud of Dolly’s growing confidence and fluency with the digital device. The first time I met Dolly, a toddler with Autism Spectrum Disorder, my interest was piqued by how naturally she supplemented her communication with engineering instruments. The app she used, Proloquo2Go, is a symbol-based augmentative alternative communication (AAC) tool that provides a voice for verbally-challenged people. Though her disorders and subsequent speech patterns were different, her initial frustration with communicating reminded me of my nonspeaking 17-year-old cousin, Aravind, with Down Syndrome, whose lack of access to speech-based technology in rural India prevented him from speaking. For me, it was a sharp moment of reflection on the lifestyle changes such resources could enable for people like Dolly and Aravind. Proloquo2Go's power as a speech-generating tool lies in its adaptive nature. Inspired by its flexibility, I set my sights on integrating some of its features into my current senior thesis research, which explores how to comprehensively design and incorporate AAC in patient care. Similar to what my research corroborated, need-sensitive design features, such as interchangeable bilingual voices and controls centered around the user’s fine and gross motor abilities, vastly improve outcomes for those interacting with the product. It is this idea of a positive feedback loop, in which the user benefits from software that is adjusted to their unique preferences and consequently leverages those same inputs to further fine-tune its applications, that I am excited to apply in my studies. Through biomedical engineering, I hope to prioritize those who can benefit most from personalized technology. Given my academic interests in understanding how applied math and biological sciences can enhance the quality of life, I aim to build devices that increase accessibility for everyday tasks - like maintaining a conversation - that people without cognitive and verbal disabilities may otherwise overlook. I want to use engineering as a means with which to help people like my cousin find their voice and be confident self-advocates, just as Dolly has.

The most magical hours lie between 11:00 PM and 1:00 AM. This time represents that which I am most content: listening to the sound of rain splattering against a tin farm roof and songs of hope against calamity. As a 15-year old girl among 7,836,226,752 other people, it's difficult to not be washed over in the tide of quite literally billions of other stories and lives. In the dead of night when all that accompanies me are my thoughts and these songs, I no longer feel inconsequential. This playlist gifts me with unwavering confidence, and an appreciation for, well, life.