Hi! I'm Sanya. I am a computer scientist and an artist, a statistician and designer. I was a former dental school applicant, before I realized that STEM and creativity were not mutually exclusive fields.
To balance my chaotic childhood, I've grown to be a human tension diffuser, at ease in any situation. I love working in challenging environments with diverse coworkers, and am driven to work hard due to my passion for creativity. I display this through the organizations I have chosen to be a part of.
Through MakerGirl and Alpha Omega Epsilon, an engineering sorority, I'm able to uplift other women in STEM. I was raised by a single mother who has always emphasized math and science as a priority, and, above all, the importance of standing my ground as a woman in a field in which I will be doubted at every corner. Rather than let that deter me, I view it as motivation to work even harder. MakerGirl, over the past five years, has educated more than 3,000 girls in STEM and I am so proud to be part of the team.
Through iVenture Accelerator, the award-winning program for top student startups at the University of Illinois. As a Program Fellow, I used my skills to help student startups establish themselves. The program has had amazing success, with student entrepreneurs raising millions, creating dozens of full-time jobs, and doing work across the globe - and being a Program Fellow is extremely selective. The entrepreneurial spirit meshed perfectly with my personal work style, all of us working long hours simply because we wanted to be there. I met and worked with amazing people in every possible field and I learned about the endless routes in which my interests could take me.
Being a computer science student at the world-class University of Illinois Engineering College is an intense journey that really tests whether or not you can be in the field. I'm a junior now, and I still enjoy what I do here. Just like me in my family, logic and math bring order to the world, they make sense from nonsense.
And as a child who loved to sketch and read and sketch some more, I guess I've been preparing my whole life for a career in which I can do exactly that; create.
