I’m originally from the Dallas Texas area, but I moved out to Albuquerque in 2019 to pursue a BS in Civil Engineering from UNM. In my four years at UNM I became involved in on campus organizations, such as ITE, worked a transportation engineering internship with my local government, studied abroad in the Netherlands, and I ultimately graduated with honors. After this, UNM became the Center for Pedestrian and Cyclist Safety as awarded by USDOT, and I was offered the opportunity to come back to work towards an MS, which I gladly took up. Presently I am still working on my master’s as part of a project to understand human factors and stress in cyclists, with my specific research focus being on eye tracking. It’s a project that I’m incredibly proud to work on, as cyclist safety is very near and dear to me. It’s an issue I’ve personally faced the consequences of, and it’s an ever-increasing issue for more and more people nationwide. This project provides me with the opportunity to work towards remedying the multitude of safety problems cyclists face, and fixing problems is what engineers live for. Moreover, as our focus is on human factors and the experience from the cyclist’s perspective, our work is more than just dictating from on high how to solve the issues cyclists face, it’s about incorporating the lived experiences of cyclists into the conversation and providing solutions that meet people where they’re at. At a base level, I think the role of a Civil Engineer is to provide structural improvements to society, with special care given to those most in need, and I think the only way to accomplish that is by working with the people for whom we design. I also am passionate about this project because I am a cyclist myself and an advocate for cycling across the board, as it provides a slew benefits to personal health, it is more environmentally conscious than driving, it brings transportation to a human scale rather than a car scale, etc. but a point of contention that people cite for not cycling is safety, and so by working towards making cycling safer, it removes a barrier for people to take up cycling.
Outside of my research project, I am active in the Graduate Workers Union at UNM, which I have found to make me more involved in my community and to help me make connections with people across disciplines that I otherwise would never have interacted with. I also like tabletop games, and I try to get together with my friends at least biweekly to play. Otherwise, when I have the time, I like to read graphic novels, work in my garden, and I dabble in woodworking.