The interest in the body did not start in a classroom. It started with sports injuries — specifically a serious knee injury, and the surgery that followed, to someone close to me, which effectively ended their playing days. Watching a body get taken apart and put back together, and watching what that costs someone, is the origin of everything downstream: the bioengineering degree, the sensors, the biomarkers, the tools for tracking a real human life.

Four years of varsity soccer, captain and Athlete of the Year in the final one. Valedictorian.

Alongside it, two things that turned interest into practice. A summer at Stanford in the Institutes of Medicine Summer Research Program, prototyping microrobots for minimally invasive medicine — the first taste of research as an actual job. And Ubuntu Athletics, a 501(c)(3) founded to run youth sports camps whose proceeds funded educational programs and athletic sponsorships for children in developing countries: around 100 student volunteers, three countries, and more than $10,000 raised. The name means team over self, which was the school’s ethos and has held up as a working principle since.