University Honors Program

Honors Portfolio

A collection of reflections and experiences from my journey through the University of Cincinnati Honors Program — from finding my footing as an international student to building startups and presenting research.

Reflections

Year-in-Reviews

Year-in-ReviewFreshman Year

2022–2023

Transitioning from Abu Dhabi to Cincinnati, finding community through engineering clubs and research, and discovering a passion for entrepreneurship through Startup Weekend.

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Year-in-ReviewSophomore Year

2023–2024

Silicon Valley trip with the Center of Entrepreneurship, Venture Lab accelerator with PhizzIO, and first co-op at Phillips Edison — a year of solidifying direction in AI and startups.

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Year-in-ReviewJunior Year

2024–2025

The most defining year yet — first internship at Phillips Edison, top-25 at EFest, podium presentation at AMIA, 2nd place at CMU's VC competition, and promoted to General Partner at Bearcat Ventures.

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Writeups

Honors Experiences

ExperienceSpring 2023

Foundation of Engineering Design Thinking Research

Applying engineering design thinking to redesign the UC mobile app with Dr. Nora Honken — from empathy surveys to a working prototype presented at the Undergraduate Scholarly Showcase.

Design ThinkingResearchUX

ExperienceSpring 2023

Biomedical Research and Mentorship Program (RaMP)

Working with the ICDCU bioinformatics lab on HIRConnect — a research project management system for Cincinnati Children's Hospital. Co-authored a paper and won "Excellence in Research Communication" at the USS.

Biomedical InformaticsHIRConnectUser-Centered Design

ExperienceSummer 2023

RaMP Continuation

Biomedical Research and Mentorship Program

Continuing as a full-stack developer on HIRConnect under Dr. Danny Wu — taking ownership of front-end and back-end development, co-authoring a research paper, and learning hard lessons about production testing.

Full-Stack DevelopmentHIRConnectResearch Paper

ExperienceFall 2023 – Spring 2024

Venture Lab

UC Center of Entrepreneurship

Selected for the 24th Cohort of the Venture Lab pre-accelerator. Refined PhizzIO's business model through customer discovery, mentorship from healthcare EIRs, and pitched to the Cincinnati startup ecosystem.

EntrepreneurshipPhizzIOCustomer Discovery

ExperienceSpring 2024

Trip to San Francisco

Center of Entrepreneurship & CEAS

A life-changing trip to Silicon Valley — visiting Apple, Google, IDEO, Y Combinator, and attending Notion's AI feature launch. A reminder that no goal is beyond reach.

Silicon ValleyAppleGoogle