Biography

I was raised in Utah with a love for learning, teaching, building, and medicine. I liked to push the limits of what my community told me was possible; this led me to MIT, where I graduated in Mechanical Engineering. During a class activity at MIT, my knee was injured when a giant hamster wheel fell on top of me. This fueled my passion for studying medical challenges from a mechanical perspective. As an undergraduate, my research projects have included an assistive diaphragm for patients with respiratory muscle diseases through MIT and an implantable sensor for the brain at the University of Auckland. At Cambridge, my PhD research focuses on increasing the availability of gait analysis for injury diagnosis, treatment, and monitoring. My current research combines portable low-cost imaging techniques with biomechanical modelling to analyse motion patterns, detect abnormalities, and identify specific knee injuries in humans and dogs. This portable and low-cost method of gait analysis has the potential to enable GPs, physiotherapists, and other medical professionals to assess patient gait without the need for referral to specialized, expensive, and often overwhelmed gait clinics. This can help assess patients more quickly and reduce patient backlogs. This method will also enable at-home monitoring of patients as they recover from injuries, which can improve patient outcomes and ensure they stay on track for a normal recovery. As I pursue a PhD and academic career in biomechanics, I also want to continue mentoring and inspiring more girls to pursue their dreams in STEM fields. I am honored to be a part of the Gates Scholars community and look forward to learning and sharing all I can with this incredible group.

Previous Education

Massachusetts Institute of Technology Mechanical Engineering 2020