About Me 💭

A random walk through some of the interesting things I’ve done in the past.

👶 Backstory#

I grew up in India, in a small town named Lucknow. I was a jack of all trades in high school, organized a lot of events and learned how to be an effective leader. I also got a concurrent bachelor’s degree in Indian Classical Music on the violin from Bhatkhande University. I don’t play anymore, but hope to pick it back up eventually.

🔬 Research#

I researched at the Sky Lab in Berkeley througout college, and found it to be a transformational experience. I researched in the intersection of Programming Systems and Artificial Intelligence. I worked on data visualization tool Datana with the incredible Rohan Bavishi. I also spent some time researching on my own on RedString and Dreamer. By all definitions, they are failed projects, but I am immensely proud of them.

👩‍🏫 Teaching#

I taught for five semesters in college, most often the Introduction to Computer Science class at Berkeley. I’ve had >200 students, and all of them are a delight. I also wrote a WIP textbook for the class, which is used sometimes. I started a student-run course on teaching students full-stack web dev. It’s been my long-standing dream to start a 3B1B-like series for CS. Perhaps now that I’m free from the shackles of homework, I’ll get around to doing that.

⛏️ Cosplaying Entrepreneurship#

In freshman year, I started a doomed startup with my friends. It was called VATT, with the mission to make audio-visual content on the internet language agnostic through automatic dubbing and subtitling. We sold it for half a grand in the end. It wasn’t really a company. But it was a wonderful experience.

I spent a lot of time in college helping campus startups. This was through the Berkeley Gateway to Innovation program, the Student Entrepreneurship program, Cal Hacks Fellowship and the DRF Female Founders Track. Most startups are doomed, and that was the case with most startups I worked with, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t exist. Most of the process of starting something is just trying many, many times.

🐉 TTRPGs#

I. Love. Dungeons and Dragons!! Yes, yes, I know — an appropriately nerdy hobby. I ran a campaign for a couple years through college. Through D&D, I learned about game theory and interaction design, improv and comedy, a tiny bit of 3D modelling and a whole lot about patience. Email me and I’ll run a game for you. Deadass.

🎶 Music#

I play the guitar sometimes. I’m shy about playing and I’m not very good and I’m not motivated enough to get better. But I like playing for myself. I love broadway music, pop, and the occassional indie rock. I made some embarrassing visualizations of my music tastes.