I was born in central Pennsylvania, about 5 minutes from where I grew up. My parents were born in India and immigrated here in the 1990’s. I am incredibly proud of my blend of Indian and American culture.

Since 2024, I have a kept a very strict schedule that has me waking up at 5 am and sleeping at 9:30 pm every day. I also keep a physical, pocket-sized booklet that has all my tasks for the day, which helps me be sustainably productive.

Ever since I read the science fiction novels of Stanislaw Lem, Philip K. Dick, and Kim Stanley Robinson, I knew I wanted to help make the technologies they wrote about into reality. For me, I was, and still am, most interested in building things that fly.

When I went into college, I also started traveling quite a bit, which meant I took a lot of flights. I soon came to realize that I wanted to not just help build an aircraft for the sake of it, but to help integrate it into our world’s transportation systems.

Since I received a full-ride to both undergrad and grad school, plus other scholarships, I earned over $100K from going to school. I used much of this money on traveling, but a lot of it also went into stock and real estate investments.

In terms of logistics while being a full-time student and business owner, I usually plan trips months in advance. Then, when it starts getting close, I get all the work done before hand so I can rest easy while on trips.

I honestly have no idea…I don’t really think about things too much in advance. Usually, I am occupied with doing my best in the moment and that has suited me well even in the long-term.

If I had to choose something, though, it is that I want to work on something with so much passion that a piece of soul will live on in the world long after I am gone. That could be a technology, an organization, or something else entirely, but I want it to ultimately change the world in small, but profound, way.

It’s hard to choose one happiest moment, but if I had to choose one not related to family, then it is reaching the summit of Denali after almost a year of training and 2.5 weeks trudging up the mountain. Though we only spent about 10 minutes at the top, those were some the best of my life.

Scariest, which was also mountain related, was coming down Orizaba with severe altitude mountain sickness. I was so exhausted that, while walking upright, I uncontrollably passed out multiple times. Yet, I was able to make it back down safely after about 6 hours.

The saddest moment was seeing my grandmother, who lived in Australia, have a heart attack live over Facetime. Though I coached my extended family on how to give CPR, I felt so powerless and she ended passing away just a few days later. And that was only a week after I had planned a trip to Australia to go see her after many years.