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About Me

Learn more about me and my background.

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Table of Contents

Overview

This page serves as an introduction for anyone who wants to learn more about my experiences and interests.
It will be frequently updated to reflect what I am currently up to and my future goals.

history

Early Life

I was once a 6-year-old who loved playing flash games in my web browser and building with LEGOs when I discovered this YouTube video about an $A^*$ pathfinding algorithm for Super Mario, which intrigued me enough to replicate it in Java. As I grew older, I developed a natural intuition for problem-solving through my love for video games, math, and computer science.

High School

I was introduced to cybersecurity and algorithmic programming through my high school’s computer science club, and I’ve been captivated ever since. In the summer of 2023, I participated in the Georgia Governor’s Honors Program (GHP) for Engineering: Computer Programming, which was my first exposure to research in a professional setting. At GHP, I developed a robotic hand that translated spoken language into American Sign Language in real-time using cost-effective components and advanced speech processing.

I left GHP feeling more confident in my abilities as a programmer and decided to continue pursuing research via a project I did in senior year. The project, an autonomous biomimetic submersible with a Zebrafish-inspired propulsion system, was a finalist in the Georgia Science and Engineering Fair and received second in category for Robotics & Intelligent Machines. I also competed in the USA Computing Olympiad gold division, Lockheed Martin’s CYBER QUEST/CODE QUEST, the CyberPatriot National Youth Cyber Defense Competition, and the American Computer Science League, where I won several awards.

Summer Before College

After graduating, I competed in various CTF competitions with my previous team, welovepython<3, placing highly in GPN CTF, BCACTF, vsCTF, Google CTF, and Interlogica CTF, winning cash prizes. I was also selected to participate in the Season IV Cyber Combine with the United States Cyber Games, a rigorous summer program that selects the top fifteen cybersecurity professionals to represent the United States in the International Cyber Security Challenge. Although I did not make the final team, the experience was invaluable, and I was invited to join their mentorship program, known as the Pipeline Program.

Over the summer, I attended the Jane Street Academy of Math and Programming (AMP), a 5-week summer program hosted in NYC, with a rigorous curriculum focused on computer science, combinatorics, and number theory. Meeting like-minded rising college freshmen and learning from professors from various R1 research institutions and seasoned traders at Jane Street was the final push that inspired me to pursue a career in academia.

After AMP, I flew to Las Vegas to compete at B-Sides Las Vegas, where my team placed 1st in Pros vs. Joes CTF. I also attended the DEF CON security conference, where I competed in Red Team Village CTF and Radio Hacking Village CTF with a team of professional hackers from Dark Wolf Solutions, placing 4th and 3rd, respectively. I also attended talks on quantum computing and cryptography, which further solidified my interest in those fields from a research perspective.

College

I attended Georgia Southern University’s Honors College, graduating magna cum laude in May 2026 with a Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering and a minor in Mathematics. Along the way, I was the sole Georgia Southern nominee for the Barry Goldwater Scholarship, was selected for the Heidelberg Laureate Forum, where I presented a poster to Turing Award, Fields Medal, and Abel Prize laureates, and spent a summer in the Quantum@UW Research Experience for Undergraduates in Seattle working on hybrid quantum-dot junctions and superconducting qubit tooling. My undergraduate research on atomtronic rotation sensors, physics-informed neural networks, ground-penetrating radar, and biomimetic propulsion was presented at the APS Global Physics Summit and the IEEE International Symposium on Underwater Technology in Taipei, and published in Physical Review A (under review), the Journal of Undergraduate Research in Physics and Astronomy, Mathematics Magazine, and Math Horizons.

Graduate School

In 2026, I was awarded the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship in Quantum Information Science and Engineering for a proposal on electrically reconfigurable superconducting qubits. I’m now an Electrical and Computer Engineering Ph.D. student at the University of Maryland, College Park, in the Hafezi group at the Joint Quantum Institute.

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Research

When I’m not working on coursework, I’m doing research at the intersection of topological photonics, condensed matter, and quantum hardware. I’m starting on the theory and computation side and plan to transition into experimental work over the course of my Ph.D. Currently, I’m interested in the following:

Teaching and STEM Outreach

Other than research, I am passionate about sharing my knowledge with others and advancing equity in STEM education. When I was in high school, I revived CyberDragons, my school’s cybersecurity club, and led my peers to excel in cybersecurity competitions through interactive weekly workshops. I also worked closely with Girls Who Code to host workshops on computer science topics at elementary/middle schools and create an all-girls cybersecurity team. At Georgia Southern, I was a teaching assistant for calculus-based Physics II for four semesters, where I made Manim animations to help students visualize vector fields and electric potentials, and I tutored mathematics and physics in the university tutoring center. I also returned to the Governor’s Honors Program as a teaching assistant for computer programming. Making quantum science and engineering more accessible to students without advanced math, physics, or lab backgrounds is a core part of what I want to do as a researcher.

Campus Involvement

At Georgia Southern, I served as president of the Society of Physics Students chapter, secretary of the Coastal Section of the American Society for Nondestructive Testing, and research chair of the Honors Student Organization. I was also an associate member of Sigma Xi, a member at large of the Southeastern Section of the American Physical Society, and built an autonomous robot with the IEEE chapter for the 2025 SoutheastCon Hardware Competition.

My Blog

And of course, I enjoy making posts on my blog. I share my thoughts on a variety of topics, such as:

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Feel free to reach out to me on any of the following platforms:

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