I learned to run my own schedule before anyone asked me to. Everything since has been built on that.
I’m a first-year computer engineering student at the University of Cincinnati, in the ACCEND accelerated BS/MS track and a Marian Spencer Scholar. Most of what I know how to do, I taught myself on a schedule nobody set for me, through stretches that had nothing academic about them. I had to learn to hold myself to a plan, ask for help before I was drowning, and keep going when no one was checking.
That habit built the rest: a full scholarship, a software engineering internship at Procter & Gamble before my first college lecture, and a provisional patent on EagleVision, a digital microscope platform for schools that can’t fund a lab bench per student. My faith is the reason I keep aiming work outward — I’d rather build something that gives a person access they didn’t have than something that only looks impressive.
At UC I want to explore where hardware meets software: embedded systems, computer architecture, and machine learning from the inside, not just the application layer. Through the UHP I want to find the people doing work I don’t know how to do yet.
My goals: finish ACCEND debt-free, grow EagleVision from pilot testing into something classrooms keep using, and graduate with a record of what I learned — not just what I won.
Involvement & Interests
What I’m part of now, what I’m working to join, and the things I keep coming back to on my own time. This page grows each semester.
Experience & involvement
Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden
Park Services and Event Operations. Guest-facing work during events: the fastest lesson I’ve had in staying calm and readable when a lot of people need something at once.
Gaming YouTube channel
My Roblox and gaming channel. I write, shoot, edit in Adobe Creative Suite, and study what actually holds an audience. It’s where I learned to finish and ship on a schedule nobody enforces but me.
INTERalliance of Greater Cincinnati
Chapter Officer and video editor. I led weekly chapter meetings, taught beginner programming as the chapter grew to 60+ members, and produced its video work, including an animated INTERchapters piece cut to five scene-matched segments.
Goals for involvement at UC
My Spencer Scholar advisor recommended starting with NSBE rather than spreading myself across a dozen orgs, and I think that’s right. The plan is to go deep on one or two this year and add from there.
NSBE
National Society of Black Engineers. Connected with the UC chapter through Dr. Whitney Gaskins; want to be a contributing member this year, not just on the roster.
IEEE
The closest fit to where I’m heading technically — hardware, embedded, and the project nights that come with it.
Marian Spencer Scholars Exec Board
A chance to give back to the program that made UC possible for me, and to help the scholars coming in behind me find their footing faster than I did.
UHP Ambassador · CEAS Tribunal
Two ways to be useful to the programs that invested in me, and to get better at speaking for something larger than my own work.
Innovation Challenge · Founders Hub
EagleVision needs a pilot and a plan, not just a patent. These are where I’d learn how to get it there.
Interests I keep returning to
- Audio engineering — a long-running interest that started with editing my own videos and turned into caring about how sound is actually built.
- PC hardware — I built my own workstation (RTX 5090, Ryzen 9 9950X3D) and brought an older, low-end PC back to life with Linux Mint. It’s the part of computer engineering I liked before I knew it had a major attached.
- Japanese — 800+ day streak and counting. The most honest proof I have that I show up daily for something with no deadline.
- Game development — Unity mechanics, Unreal, and deep Minecraft Java systems work (NBT data, enchantment and inventory commands).
- Video production — Adobe Creative Suite, animation, and motion work for INTERalliance and my own channel.
Technical toolkit
Projects
The work behind the reflection. Each of these taught me something I couldn’t have read about.
EagleVision — digital microscope platform
An EdTech platform that broadcasts a microscope’s view to every student’s device, built for schools that can’t fund a lab bench per student. I lead prototyping, CAD design, and 3D-printed manufacturing of our low-cost hardware. We filed a provisional patent on the core hardware assembly, reached the Samsung Solve for Tomorrow semifinals, and pilot tested it with 100+ students at local elementary schools, which was the first time I watched kids use something I’d made.
Next: fund the next stage through grants or a mission-aligned investor rather than venture capital, the clearest lesson I took from Startup Cincy 2026.
Procter & Gamble — Software Engineering Intern
Consumer Digital Products, summer 2026. I designed and built an internal compliance tool projected to save 260+ person-hours a year, letting R&D teams across a 7,000-person organization create and use consumer data compliantly, and presented it to senior leadership. It was my first experience writing software where the hard part wasn’t the code. It was understanding the rules the code had to respect and the people who’d depend on it after I left.
Workstation build & Linux Mint revival
I selected, assembled, and configured a high-performance workstation around an NVIDIA RTX 5090 and AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D, then installed Linux Mint on an older, low-end PC to get it running well on limited hardware.
Next: learning GPU programming with Triton and profiling with NVIDIA Nsight on the 5090.
ScamShield AI — INTERalliance competition entry
An AI classifier concept for catching financial scam messages before they land, designed around a specific person we wanted to protect rather than an abstract user. Mid-project the submission format changed, and we rebuilt the deliverable from a full presentation into a 30-second animated piece with voiceover. Learning to pivot the format without losing the idea was the real takeaway.
Recognition
1st place overall
First in the Software / Game / Data Technology category and first overall, scoring 107 of 110.
Microsoft Scholarship
A $5,000 award, one of eight selected nationally.
Marian Spencer Scholar
Full scholarship named for a civil rights leader who desegregated Coney Island — a standard, not just funding.
Samsung Solve for Tomorrow
Semifinalist with EagleVision, earning a $10,000 technology award.
Coursework I’m building on
- Fall 2026 — Calculus I, College Physics I & Lab, Engineering Applications I (Excel, Python, LabVIEW, MATLAB, CAD), Intro to EECE.
- Cybersecurity foundations — self-directed Security+/CC preparation: network segmentation, OWASP vulnerabilities, IPsec and VPNs, IAM, password hashing and salting, MFA.
Year in Review
Each academic year I reflect on the goals I set, what actually happened, and what I’m aiming at next. Due to the UHP each June 5.
First year In progress
Due June 5, 2027. Goals I’m holding myself to this year: build a real foundation in calculus and calculus-based physics after coming in with neither; go deep in one organization instead of thin across five; and move EagleVision toward a classroom pilot.
Second year Upcoming
Reflection to be added.
How I’ll approach this
The UHP offers five reflection prompts — Global Citizen Scholar, a complex problem I care about, the experiences that shaped me most, professional development, and personal resilience — in a 400–600 word written piece, a 3–5 minute video, or an original creative work with a written summary.
Given how much of my growth has come from carrying my own structure, I expect to write toward personal resilience and professional development first.
Honors Experiences
Showcases from each honors experience I complete, posted within a month of finishing it.
What goes here
Each showcase is a roughly 200-word summary of the experience and how it shaped my understanding of being a Global Citizen Scholar, plus a learning artifact — a paper, a photograph, a set of entries — with a short explanation of why I chose that particular piece to represent it.
This page is written for people who weren’t there: advisors, faculty, employers, graduate programs, and family. So each one gives enough context to stand on its own.
Experiences I’m pursuing
Research & Creative Endeavor
EagleVision is the obvious candidate — taking it from provisional patent to a pilot with real classroom testing and documented results.
Community Engagement
Continuing the elementary school work: bringing working lab technology to schools that don’t have it, and listening to teachers about what they actually need.
Global Study
Japanese has been a daily practice for over two years. I want to put it somewhere real — study abroad or an international co-op.
Leadership
Growing from chapter officer into someone who builds the next group of officers, through NSBE or the UHP.
EagleVision: A Microscope for Every Student
Prior Experience Showcase · Gateway to Honors, Fall 2026
What
Over the past year, my co-founder Bahand and I built EagleVision, a platform that broadcasts a single microscope’s view to every student’s device. Many schools can only afford a few microscopes, so students crowd around one eyepiece and wait their turn. We designed and 3D-printed a low-cost system, secured a provisional patent, and piloted it with more than 100 elementary students. The project went on to win 1st Place Overall at the UC IT Expo and placed in the top 100 teams nationwide in Samsung’s Solve for Tomorrow competition.
So What
My biggest takeaway came from the classroom, not the awards. I assumed the engineering would be the hardest part, but working directly with students and teachers showed me what actually mattered: the system had to be simple enough for an eight-year-old to use without help. Every round of feedback changed our design more than any technical challenge did. I learned that listening to the people you serve is part of the engineering, not something that comes after it.
Now What
This year I’m applying for internships and taking on more technical coursework. Whether I’m building software on a team or working on an ENED project, I plan to start by understanding the user’s problem before writing a single line of code. When setbacks come, I’ll treat them as feedback rather than failure.
Global Citizen Scholar
To me, a Global Citizen Scholar uses what they learn to remove barriers for others. EagleVision showed me that engineering is most meaningful when it widens access, so that a student’s school budget doesn’t decide what they get to see and learn.
