Most students have an identity, an interest, or a talent that defines them in an essential way. Tell us about yourself.
At 13 months old, I had been diagnosed with Histiocytosis. I don’t remember the period of initial diagnosis, but I relapsed twice thereafter, the last being in 3rd grade. These memories I hold very close to heart; I remember them as the origin of my story, the lens through which I see the suffering of others, and an identity at the core of my person.
Fast-forward to the summer of 2010, when as a naive sixth grader I stumbled into Sedgwick Summer School for my first volunteering experience. When I applied for the program I knew I would be working with children with moderate to severe autism, but the reality of their situation was not something I was prepared for. On the first day I was introduced to Farris, a first-grade student who would be my responsibility for the summer, but ultimately became much more than that.
The following day, Farris walked into school grinning. He talked to me for the entire morning break about his “new Buzz Lightyear,” like any typical kid would. Lunchtime arrived and something came over Farris. He grew aloof and refused to eat. He simply crawled into a fetal position, and remained that way, periodically releasing piercing screams as though he was in pain. The next day I saw Farris’ dad carrying him through the school gates in the same fetal position as the day before. As I listened to his haggard father mournfully explain, “He has been this way all night,” I began to recognize the civil war raging within Farris’s tiny head. Just then, I had a flashback so jarring I almost began to cry. I remember my mom saying the exact same words as we returned to the hospital in 1st grade for another round of chemo. I had been particularly sick and in a cold sweat most of the night, and she too explained, “He has been this way all night.” Until that point, I had been sweeping my own experiences with tragedy under the rug, yet this event pulled out all those memories, shaking my faith in the world I was just beginning to trust.
That summer transformed me forever. Since I was a fervent tinkerer at the time, I jumped into the engineering scene, making my own inventions for the purpose of helping others like Farris and me who were unable to fully enjoy their childhood. Over the next six years, with projects from a wearable guidance system for the visually impaired in 2013 to a point of care diagnostic device for diagnosing degenerative diseases in 2016, my science fair projects followed a central purpose of “lightening the burden of others”.
These science projects also nourished an idea I had conceived in my time with Farris. He used to frequently sift through sand in the sandbox, an action that seemed to subdue the subconscious torture that played with his emotions. This observation formed the basis for my patent filed in 2015. It was a “Sensory Bag” engineered to tingle the senses using textures, smells, and colors. When I field-tested the bag in December 2015 at the Pacific Autism Center, the kids immediately adopted it as their new friend. That day, I saw my life come full circle. The child who himself sat in pain on the hospital bed was now sitting by the hospital bed, turning the frown of the child on it into a smile.