Helen G. (IN A NUTSHELL)

Helen graduated from Stanford in 2022 with a B.S. in Electrical Engineering. She is taking a gap year to pursue other interests — skiing, woodworking, and travel, among others! — before beginning medical school at Mt. Sinai in August. She loves thinking about the connection between electricity and the human body — and the ways we can harness electrical signals to develop life-saving therapies. In high school, Helen played competitive soccer — winning seven state championships and a national championship — but was sidelined by a series of concussions. After quitting the sport, she dove into robotics and discovered the magic of engineering. Armed with this new toolkit, Helen investigated the blackbox of the brain and traumatic brain injury by building biosensors in a research project that became an INTEL International Science and Engineering Fair Finalist. Like many, Helen found it difficult to decide on a major in college. She took biology courses, worked in an archaeology lab, and volunteered at a free medical clinic. However, she was most fascinated by the electrical engineering courses that helped explain the concepts that power the modern world. She completed internships at both Tesla and Apple, and worked on a computational platform to perform mathematical functions on brain signals under the mentorship of Dr. Paul Nuyujukian. She has loved having the freedom to explore varied interests and combine them in an interdisciplinary manner, and is passionate about helping students explore their own interests in a way that helps them to do the same! She hopes, above all, to fuel curiosity and love of learning for her students.