What are you studying and what drew you to that subject?

I'm studying Performing Arts Technology with a concentration in Sound Engineering at the University of Michigan. It’s cool because the major is technically under the school of music, but it's a Bachelor of Science degree that requires courses that automatically fulfills a minor in electrical engineering.

It’s fun because half of it is studio recording and music production, which is something I'm super passionate about, and the other half is understanding how the processes we use for both work from a technical standpoint.

You’ve had two internships at Arup, one in Seattle and one in LA, what was your day-to-day experience like?

The cool thing about the acoustics group is that you get to dabble in a bunch of different aspects of sound. It could be anything from doing calculations in Excel to figuring out what absorption coefficients you need to treat a room or working on an auralization in the SoundLab where we're simulating what that room could sound like. It could be that we're out in the field with a sound meter taking measurements to figure out how we're actually going to build this room and how we're going to treat it. I loved it because no day was necessarily the same.

Also, between my time in Seattle and LA, I was catching different phases of projects, so I could see the project process from all angles.

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Something really neat that I was able to see at Arup was the care taken for how we can design for equity and impact. That really lines up with where I want to see change in our world. ”

What was your most enjoyable moment or project?

In Seattle we partnered with LMN Architects on a project for the Seattle Design Festival. We collaborated with them for an art installation which featured a three-dimensional speaker arrangement on the inside and a stereo speaker arrangement on the outside. Even cooler was that they actually trusted me to compose the music for it. For the month that it was up in the city a bunch of people could come and listen to what I had created.

During my time in the LA office, the SoundLab was still in the process of being built. I could join in on that process, seeing how everything was getting finished — including all the issues that happen when not everything necessarily goes to plan.

Why did you choose to join Arup fulltime once you graduate?

I think I chose Arup because of those great experiences I mentioned, as well as the people I worked with in the office! I love the fact that even though I'm in Acoustics, I'm often interacting with people in different disciplines across projects.

In the Acoustics group, we’re very academic in terms of how sound works and how we can improve the process, but a lot of us are musicians as well. So, we can show each other what we’re listening to or working on, and bring in that different perspective to our work. Plus, they’re understanding of wanting to do both music and engineering. I chose Arup for that comfort, having people I can nerd out about audio and music with, but we also get some really cool work done.

What are your future aspirations, at Arup and beyond?

Ideally, I would want to write and record music that's impactful while also changing the world from a buildings standpoint. I want to not only help design and innovate acoustics work that's really, really great, but create something that’s accessible across socioeconomic levels.

It seems like a lot of the time good design and great innovation is lopsided when it comes to price. Something really neat that I was able to see at Arup was the care taken for how we can design for equity and impact. That really lines up with where I want to see change in our world.