As a child, my hobbies included collecting comic books and building Lego structures. Immediately, science of all sorts piqued my interest. Anyone within earshot would hear my declarations to one day recreate all of the science and technology that I had observed. Lego replicas of nearly every gadget witnessed were created with delight. Soon, reverse-engineering objects would become my passion and stood to quench my thirst of understanding how things worked. My parents assisted in fueling my passion by providing me with a telescope, binoculars, a bug catcher, and a microscope. Soon, my new hobbies included bird watching, identifying constellations, and microscopically viewing anything that fit between a slide and a coverslip. One Christmas, to further promote my love of science, my parents gifted me with a VTech Talking Whiz Kid Plus which was a "laptop" pre-programmed with various levels of math, science, and language activities, which sparked a new interest in computers and creating technology. However, my first computer related course would not be until high school. With my dream still alive, Visual Basic was introduced as my first programming language. Surprisingly, I excelled to the top of my class. It was then that my instructor suggested pursuing a career in computer science.

My undergraduate experience began at Bluegrass Community and Technical College (BCTC), where I obtained an Associates of Applied Science (AAS) degree in Computer & Information Technology with a specialization in Software Development. After reading an article about IBM's Watson, I yearned to create my very own artificial intelligence (AI) system. However, I soon realized that I would need to increase my education in order to construct an AI system of that magnitude. Kentucky State University (KSU) best suited me, as I would be a full-time student and full-time worker. Based on academic merit, I was awarded a full academic scholarship through collaboration with KSU and the Links, Inc. Historically Black College and University (HBCU) Initiative, which promoted successful community college scholars to pursue bachelor's degrees.

Immediately after graduating from BCTC, my search for a source of creativity returned me to my love of comic books. I was again captivated by the idea that the technology in science fiction was without limitation. Even if the technology wasn't currently available, the creativity used and its practical application to solving real world problems would serve as my muse. That summer, I ran across an old television series that I watched as a child, Spider-Man: The Animated Series (1994-1998). It was then that I was re-introduced to the term "neogenics". Neogenics was the very technology responsible for the mutation effects of Peter Parker (Spider-Man) and various villains. After exploring possibilities of real world applications, it was discovered that neogenics actually equates to biological engineering, or bioengineering. The remainder of that summer was spent increasing my knowledge of Visual Basic and C++, and further investigating bioengineering.

Upon beginning my academic career at KSU, I immediately met with the chair of the Department of Computer Science, Dr. Chi Shen. After discussing my aspirations and concepts of possible research, I asked for any paid or unpaid research position she had available, as I was eager to begin to utilize my current skills and to gain more expertise in the field of computer science. Fortunately, she was able to recognize my eagerness and ambition to excel as a computer scientist. She recommended my participation in a research project involving high performance computing (HPC), central processing unit (CPU) to graphics processing unit (GPU) conversion via Compute Unified Device Architecture (CUDA), exploration of direct iterative solver preconditioners, and code optimization. However, due to much of the work being outside my expertise, I was required to complete self-study of various topics to gain necessary competencies. The research, titled "Improving Heat Shields for Atmospheric Entry: Numerical and Experimental Investigations for Modeling Ablative Thermal Protection System Surface Degradation Effects on Near-Wall Flow", began January 2014. This research aided in my selection as an Experiencing HPC for Undergraduates participant in the Super Computing (SC'14) Conference in 2014.

As a senior at Kentucky State University, my major is computer science and instinctively, my selected minor is mathematics due to the upper level course work I was exposed to during my research. Dedication to my studies has afforded me the opportunity to serve as a member of the Alpha Kappa Mu Honors Society, as I have received academic awards for all semesters including full-time summer terms. I accredit my success to my research mentors, Dr. Jens Hannemann and Dr. Chi Shen, and being allowed a platform of open access to professors and resources to cultivate possible research avenues. This has allowed me to thirst for more knowledge concerning graduate school preparation and ultimately, possible career fields within computer science and beyond.

After graduating from KSU in May 2016, I plan to pursue a Masters Degree in Bioengineering with a concentration in Cell and Tissue Engineering, then a Doctorate Degree in Bioengineering, specializing in Regenerative Medicine. I want to pursue bioengineering because my desire is to assist people of various cultural and medical backgrounds to live a life free of debilitating anatomical abnormality, whether it is due to organ failure, trauma, or congenital birth defect and everything in between. I want my work to offer assistance to people such as veterans, elderly, and children to expand life expectancy and outlook to provide them with a platform to live the best life afforded to them. Following completion of my studies, my initial goal is to work in the private sector where my skills can be honed. After a few years in research and development, my next goal is to create an engineering start-up where I would be allowed my desired level of creative freedom and the opportunity to competitively service federal government and private medical sectors. During this time, I also wish to start and fund a non-profit which bridges students with limited accessibility to advanced technology and resources that would otherwise not be within their reach. Later, I would like to serve as a visiting faculty member at colleges and universities to introduce cutting-edge technology and methodology to undergraduate students.